Cattle numbers fall

The total number of cattle in Britain is continuing to decline, but there are signs of encouragement, according to latest BCMS data.

It put the GB cattle population at 8.65m head on 1 January 2011, down 1% on last year. This was largely due to a fall in beef cattle numbers to 5.3m, while dairy cattle numbers improved slightly to 3.4m.

There was also evidence of stabilisation of the beef suckler herd, as more beef females were retained for breeding.

However, high feed costs look to have slowed the trend towards finishing dairy-bred males - the number of male dairy cattle under six months-old was 16% lower than last year.