Reduction in weight limits: a backward step for Irish Angus?

The Irish Angus Cattle Society has proposed to reduce weight limits to 1.5kg/day and 1.3kg/day for heifers at some of its major events. The selected events are the Aldi ABP Irish Angus bull calf finals in Iverk, the society’s all-Ireland finals in Strokestown and the elite sale in Carrick-on-Shannon.

The decision has been met with a mixed response from breeders who take part annually at these events.

The reduction follows the implementation of weight limits of 1.7kg/day for bulls and 1.5kg/day for heifers at these events a number of years ago.

Initially, these weight limits were implemented to reduce the amount of animals that were out of age, to reduce animals that were double suckling and to breed an animal that was right for the Irish market. Decisions like these can compromise the breed’s standing compared with other breeds for certain markets. All breeds need to breed for the most profitable animal that’s fit for use. By lowering weight limits, this will, in turn, reduce performance.

Should it get to a stage when better-quality animals are excluded, then lesser-quality animals are rewarded.

Irish Angus breeders need to ask themselves will this decision at council level benefit the breed nationally.

A few points to note when looking at this decision are as follows.

Carcase weights

The Angus breeds at the moment see 35% of all Angus-cross dairy cattle fail to meet minimum spec for carcase weight. This is the highest of all breeds, even when compared with full dairy animals.

By reducing weight limits at these premier events, breeders no longer look at breeding an easy-calving high-growth rate bull. Instead, they will look to breed lower growth rate bulls to stay under these maximum weights.

This in turn will increase the number of Angus-cross progeny failing to meet the minimum requirements for carcase weight when they hit the factory.

High-performance bulls reach slaughter weight quicker. Age at slaughter is one of the key drivers of profit and, as time goes on, is being linked more and more with lower methane emissions.

In the future, this will no doubt become a bigger issue in an effort to reduce our national emissions. Getting an animal to slaughter quicker means they require less food and emit less emissions. Breeding for a high-performance animal is the only way we can reach this.

Aldi and ABP as main sponsors of the €30,000 prize fund at Iverk Show will no doubt be looking at the green image in all future plans. If the breed becomes any bit associated with a less ‘green’ animal, it puts this fund in jeopardy.

On top of this, going by last year’s Iverk weights, around 35% of pre-qualified bulls would not be allowed to be shown, as they would exceed the new proposed weight limits.

This top class show of Angus cattle has also become a place where many breeders now secure stock bulls, along with overseas buyers securing a number of the top-placing animals.

If spectators feel that animals on show are going to be a second-tier animal within the breed, it puts this market at risk.

This could also turn out to be the same for the society’s main sale in December, the elite sale. Over the years, this has grown its reputation as the place to secure top-class bulls and heifers.

This year, three of the top-priced bulls found new homes in Scotland. Some of these, including the top-priced €6,500 bull, were over the 1.5kg/day limit.

Introduced to the Stirling bull sales for Angus this year was minimum weight gains of 1.4kg/day.

If 1.5kg/day is the maximum in Ireland and their minimum for premier sales is 1.4kg/day, then they can no longer look to Ireland as a viable option to secure stock bulls capable of producing bulls for their market.

Other breeds

Many other pedigree breeds in Ireland have also introduced maximum weight limits for their premier events. However, these are much higher.

The Angus breed has been able to compete with any breed up to a certain age due to their early maturing characteristics.

Looking at the Tully beef performance centre where pedigree bulls were tested, it was the Angus breed which set the record average daily gain at 3kg/day.

If the reason for implementing these new lower weights is to reduce the amount of out-of-age animals, then there are ways around it other than sacrificing high-performance genetics.

Other societies inspect show herds annually or require weighing by independent assessors around the time of birth to verify age and birth weight.

The Irish Farmers Journal understands that some members of the Irish Angus Cattle Society have never been inspected. More inspections are the key to stopping people registering out of age calves.

Breeders try to breed the best cattle they can. They use the show and sales ring to highlight this progress and to show spectators what the breed can do. This is the key marketing strategy of any breed.

If breeders exhibit their second tier of cattle, it runs the risk of losing this major marketing tool and, as previously mentioned, compromise the breed’s standard compared with other breeds.

The key to cattle breeding is to always be improving. Breeding for your market needs to be at the forefront of any decision. It’s clear that the Angus breed needs to retain its calving ease qualities, but improve on carcase merit.

Council

When decisions like this are made by council, which go against what a breed is trying to achieve, then questions need to be asked.

First off is whether the people making these decisions are actively breeding cattle and supporting these events.

If not, why are they left to make decisions which affect people who are? The people who rely on making an income from farming a purebred breed should be the ones that decide.

These, for the most part, are the people who want the breed to progress. Generally speaking, these people are also the most up to date on what’s happening in the cattle breeding world and what’s coming down the line.

Secondly, and it’s a problem on every council, is whether the people making these decisions have self-benefit from these changes or are they being implemented to rectify a problem in the breed to benefit the breed nationally.

On many cattle society councils in Ireland, there is no maximum term. This means that if a person wants to try to pass decisions to benefit oneself, they can stay on council for many years to try to push their agenda through.

Maximum terms limit this and allow for new people to come in with new ideas to improve a breed.

My own opinion is that the old weight limits allowed for substantial weight gain without getting too extreme for the Angus breed’s main dairy market. It also allowed the breed to secure the suckler market with high-performance bulls.

My suggestion in the report we printed following the elite sale last December was that a minimum weight should be brought in to deter lesser-quality stock, which inevitably were harder sold and hampered an otherwise very successful sale. This is the logical thing to look at and is why they introduced minimum weights in Stirling also.

My own opinion remains the same - cut out the lower end not the top. That is if breeds want to improve.