Would I be right in thinking that the heavier the weight of an animal, the higher the carcass kill out %.
Would it be unknown for an 800kg live weight animal to have a carcass of 60% or 480kg?
The stormy weather in the last few days has given time to review information on the farm. The ICBF suckler cow reports are interesting. They give a list of each cow's calves and what happened to them - if they were bred, exported or slaughtered. For the slaughtered ones you can see the age that they were killed at, the grade and the carcass weight. The trend for the last 2 years is different to the years before that. More of our cattle are killed older and at much heavier weights. For example, pre 2018, we would have seen the majority of cattle being slaughtered at between 24 and 26 months and averaging around 380kg carcass. Many of the Cattle killed for the last 2 years were killed aged 29 to 35 month and carcass weights are up towards 480kg.
For closer analysis, bullocks that I sold last march averaged 590kg live and were 23 to 24 months old. I'm seeing where these were killed at 29 to 30 months, the best of them killing out at 505kg carcass weight. When you consider that he was bought for €2.20/kg or €1300. If a factory paid €4.40 flat then this animal made €2222 at a carcass weight of 505. The ordinary finisher can't do this because they could be penalised for being over weight. We discussed earlier this year how heavier stores were making more in the mart than they were in the factory. If the feedlots are able to bring animals to this weight without being penalised for being over weight, then it is easy to see how they can afford to pay the prices that they were paying. This isn't a once off. I am seeing it in the reports of the majority of my cows.