The Beef Cattle Industry

Hi :) In this post we'll take a look at the beef cattle industry in Australia. In particular, we'll go over the three production zones in Australia, the target markets for Australian producers, the management cycle of a beef breeding herd, as well as what BREEDPLAN is and how it works.

Production Zones

In terms of agriculture, Australia can be divided up into three major zones:

1. The Pastoral Zone: mainly the humid and arid tropics and the arid interior with summer rainfall.
• Cattle stations on very large pieces of land are found here. This zone relies on native pasture and casual water and low stocking densities exist although large herd sizes are present. Because of this, there are low labour costs because less management is required. Breeding occurs all year round among the Bos indicus cattle which are found here. Beef is exported mainly to Indonesia because it doesn't meet the requirements of premium quality beef demanded by the domestic market.  
2.  The Wheat/Sheep Zone: This has about 300-600mm of annual rainfall and is in the temperate south of the country. Its growing and dry seasons are of equal length and it experiences mainly winter rainfall.
• Smaller herd sizes in fenced paddocks are found here. Improved pasture is grazed by cows which are usually crosses between Bos indicus and Bos taurus. Cattle are slaughtered younger and sent to local markets.  
3. The High Rainfall Zone: This is in coastal areas extending from the north-east coast to the south and south-west coastal regions. Here, the growing season is longer than the dry season each year. 
• These set-ups produce high quality beef on small pieces of land which use improved pasture. Cattle are sent to local markets and because of the position near abattoirs and cities, transport costs are low. Increased stocking rates exist and grazing is controlled. 

 Target Markets

Australia's largest export market for beef is Japan. One third of Australia's exports go to the high quality Japanese market in the form of chilled grain fed or grass fed beef or frozen grass fed beef. Another third of exports goes to the low quality manufacturing grade US market. Beef is exported in frozen boxed form and is mainly used as ground or hamburger beef. Other exports go to Canada (low quality), Korea (high quality), Taiwan, and other South East Asian countries such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Malaysia in addition to the European Community.

Cattle are also exported live for two purposes: breeding females and 'Feeder' steers and heifers which are exported to Indonesia to be finished in feedlots. Cattle are also exported live to the Philippines and Malaysia.

Management Cycle of a Beef Breeding Herd

The chain of events of the management cycle is as follows:

1. Mating: The start of mating depends on when the farmer wants the herd to calve. In southern Australia this is usually in autumn. Thus, if calving should start in the beginning of April, mating will occur for 9-10 weeks starting mid-June. About 2-3 bulls are put with every 100 females and every three weeks or so the bulls are rotated around the groups of cows. Any spare bulls are used in this process. 
2. Pregnancy: If all goes well, 90% or more of the herd should be pregnant by the end of mating. If the cows are to be pregnancy tested this will occur 7-8 weeks after the end of mating. However, sometimes this may be done a few months later when the herd is mustered for weaning to avoid having to muster twice. This time is also a good opportunity to do a herd audit and reduce the stocking rate by culling. Cows are culled for non-pregnancy, old age, arthritis, poor foot conformation or damaged teats, as well as poor temperament or aggression. Culling usually means that the cows will be sold out of the herd and may reduce the size of the herd by 10-20%. 
3. Weaning: the pregnant cows will also be looking after their calves. The calves are weaned and removed from their mothers. Fifteen to 20% of the best weaner heifer calves (young females) are kept to replace those that were culled. Calves that are excess to requirements are sold. 
4. Feeding: This stage usually occurs in February when most pasture has dried off and has reduced nutritional value. Thus, at this time supplementary feeding occurs and continues for about 5 or 6 weeks until the break of season. 
5. Buy In Bull Replacements: Bull sales usually occur from February to March and young bulls are bought to replace aged and injured bulls. The new bulls are kept on the farm until mating begins again in June. 
6. Calving: This happens in April, May and/ or the first week of June. The farmer will watch the cows closely and assist with any difficult births. 
7. Calf marking: This is done during May and June and calves are given a property ear mark, an ear tag, the males are castrated and all are vaccinated. Also at this time, the heifer replacements are weighed, treated for internal parasites and prepared for the upcoming mating. 

BREEDPLAN

 BREEDPLAN is a tool for the genetic improvement of beef herds that uses an Estimated Breeding Value (EBV). The system uses phenotypic data, the heritability of traits and the relationships between breeds to generate an EBV. This enables farmers to choose what kind of characteristics will appear in calves (eg. amount of fat, weight gain etc.)


That's all for this post, see you next time :)