L10

• Export Prime or table beef trade

  • Chilled cuts - highest price
  • Frozen cuts
  • Quarter beef

  
• The highest price beef in one of our markets is Japanese Wagyu Beef
• Certified Angus Specifications for Silver Fern Farms


  • All products derive from an Angus NZ registered or Performance recorded sire
  • No hormone growth promotants
  • Only heifers or steers
  • Grass fed
  • Processed at an approved plant
  • Low PH levels
  • All product aged for a minimum of 21 days
• Beef & Lamb Quality Mark

  • Product must be derived from animals grown in New Zealand
  • All categories of steers, heifers, veal, lamb and hogget may qualify
  • Mutton, cow and bull are excluded
  • The Quality Mark may be used on carcasses, parts of carcasses, cuts, boneless product, whole muscle table meat, value-added cuts
  • The Quality Mark may not be used on processed meat, eg sausage, salami, luncheon, patties, rissoles and meatballs
  • The Quality Mark may not be used on offal
  • Product is derived from animals that have not been treated with growth promotants (GPs) and have not reacted positively to TB testing
  • Product is processed in licensed meat export plants or abattoirs

  
• Taupō Beef was established to test consumers' willingness to pay a premium for beef that is helping protect the water of Lake Taupō
• Beef Exports comprises various cuts

  • Steer & Heifer Market Yield
  • Volume
  • Value
  • Price Ratio
• Beef finishing systems


  • Often not sole enterprise on farm
  • Trend for farmers to set aside finishing areas - intensification - fence into small paddocks -sow winter growing grasses or crops (eg. Fodder beet)
  • Various names – cell grazing, techno system – all about grazing management and controlling intakes of cattle
• Beef Finishing Farms are usually located on lowland/flat farms
• Objective of beef finishing farms


  Maximise the $ margin between buy and sell price in any one year
• Profitability of finishing farms

  • Maintaining a high rate of liveweight gain
  • Meeting carcass and meat quality targets
• Type of finishing system and slaughter date


  • Determined by available feed resources and the schedule price for beef

  
• Type of finishing system, target carcass weight (kg), target slaughter age

  • Steers: 270- 300 kg, 20 months
  • Heavy weight steers: 300 - 350 kg, 30 months
  • Bulls: 270-320 kg, 16-18 months
  • Heavy weight bulls: 320 -350 kg
  • Heifers: 230- 260 kg, 18 months
  • Cows: No target carcass weight or age
• Efficiency of pasture conversion to meat

  Determined by pasture utilisation and animal conversion efficiency
• Pasture utilisation


  Stocking rate has the dominant effect
• As stocking rate increases, animal growth rates decline
• High levels of per head performance are important to profit because the per kilogram value of a beef carcass depends on carcass weight
• Effect of Stocking Rate on Production and Profit

  • 2.5, 3.5, 4.5 stocking rates with corresponding end liveweights, carcass weights, sale prices, margins per animal and per hectare, and pasture utilisation and liveweight gain per hectare
• Animal Conversion Efficiency


  Feed intake influences the ratio of feed going to maintenance and growth
• A 300 kg steer growing at 1.5 kg/day will have a conversion efficiency of 6.6 kg DM / kg LWG, compared to 12 kg DM / kg LWG for a steer growing at 0.5 kg/day
• To achieve high animal performance

  • Do not restrict intake
  • Maximise bite size
  • Allow the animal the ability to choose
  • Ensure herbage is of high quality
• Heavier animals have greater requirements for maintenance
• Intensive beef systems that start with smaller animals (100kg bull calf or 7 month old beef weaner) have a potential advantage over a system that purchases 20 month steers or bulls
• Faster growing animals are more efficient converters of grass to meat
• Principles of finishing systems

  • Buying and selling on same market reduces risk
  • Large range of options flexibility in buying options
  • Scope to rear own dairy bred bull,steer or heifers calves to reduce replacement costs
• Buying younger animals


  • Provide lighter cattle for winter (good on wet soils)
  • High priority in terms of feed all year round where there is need to be finished before second winter
  • Are more susceptible to poor feed quality
  • Have more animal health costs and higher mortality rates
  • Often are more expensive to purchase per kg LW basis
• Buying rising 2-year cattle

  • Become priority stock in spring as want to finish before next winter and before a dry summer
  • Problem in wet winter on wet soils
  • In a drought can delay buying in until well into winter or early spring
  • Generally, only getting second-cut of cattle as fastest growth rate ones already killed
  • Less animal health costs and mortality rates
  • Often cheaper to buy per kg LW basis
  • Can potentially replace the role of beef cow in controlling hill country pastures
  • Have lower FCE because higher Maintenance needs
• Selling at 15 -22 month cattle

  • Usually are a high feeding priority all year to get to required target sale weights
  • Usually selling to works – perhaps tale end sold store
  • Need to enter first winter at good weights to achieve 550kg liveweight at 20 months
  • With dairy bred animals usually buy calves before start selling 18 month bulls (ie in November)
  • Selling in autumn when traditionally works prices are often lower
• Selling Two Year Cattle

  • Can replace with either R1 or R2 year cattle
  • Selling 2 year cattle before Christmas when schedule is traditionally better
  • Maximising 2 year cattle growth in the spring is the key
• Heifers as an option in a finishing beef enterprise

  • Are cheaper to buy on a price per kg basis
  • Grow slower than steers and bulls
  • Schedule is sometimes but not always lower than steers
  • Can run bigger mobs than bulls
  • Can mix mobs a lot easier than bulls
• Steers as an option in a finishing enterprise

  • Traditionally a premium to buy over bulls and heifers
  • Slower growth rate than bulls
  • Can run bigger mobs than bulls
  • Can mix mobs a lot easier
  • Can have grading problems - big discounts if not sufficient fat cover ie P grade
• Bulls


  • Potential for high liveweight gains
  • Later maturing therefore leaner at a given age
  • Can slaughter at any weight irrespective of fatness level
  • Suited as processing beef, high water holding capacity and lean
  • More profitable than most other livestock enterprises
  • Traditionally brought cheaper than steers per kg but this changes
  • Do fight when mixed and hence this is a liveweight cost
  • Better run in small mobs -15-30 for older bulls
  • Damage to pastures and infrastructure sometimes (need electric fence system)