Cattle numbers rise for OTMS
Cattle numbers entering the over-30-months scheme jumped sharply for the week ending April 10, according to figures from the Milk Development Council.
MDC Datum recorded a 21% increase in cow and heifer slaughterings under the scheme, suggesting farmers who had held back from culling older cows in favour of upping milk production during the 2004/2005 quota year had now released them.
But the MDC added that the hike could be partly due to the Easter bank holidays causing two four-day weeks, which meant numbers had to be carried over, boosting the weekly kill. Coupled with this, abattoirs had also suffered disruption from a threatened strike by Meat Hygiene Service staff.
Gwilym Richards, of land agent and valuer Williams Parry Richards, said he had valued many BSE cohorts in dairy herds over recent weeks, and believed these would have boosted the OTM kill.
“A fair number of these OTM cattle will have been BSE cohorts. The figures coincide with lots of valuations that took place about three weeks ago.”
BSE cohorts were valued under a different system from TB-infected cattle and this had provided many farmers with an incentive to remove them before the deadline. “While TB-infected cows are valued against their market price, BSE cohorts were valued against replacement cost – that of a first lactation heifer,” said Mr Richards.
But other farmers were unhappy about the approach taken to remove BSE cohorts from farms. “The passports for these cattle had been stamped and withdrawn, so they couldn”t have entered the food chain. Many farmers are disgruntled they weren”t allowed to milk these cows to the end of their lactation and gradually enter them into the OTMS.
“And in many cases, these were very heavily milking cows in their prime. One farm in Wiltshire has lost 90 out of a 400-cow herd.”
TB-infected cattle would have accounted for some of the OTM throughput, he added. “Some farms have been selected by DEFRA to pilot the highly sensitive Gamma Interferon test, which shows cattle incubating TB. Coupled with this, there have been very large numbers of TB-infected cattle removed from farms recently. A lot of people have tested cattle before turning them out onto grass.”
Kevin Pearce, chief livestock adviser at the NFU, said it was likely a number of factors had contributed, and further figures would be needed to draw concrete conclusions. “BSE cohorts could have much to do with this. They have to be entered into the scheme by the end of April.
“We expect BSE cohort numbers to peak, but further information is necessary before we can compare these figures with the same time last year.”
OTM cow compensation rates for April are 44.6p/kg liveweight or 88.12p/kg deadweight based on an exchange rate of
ian.ashbridge@rbi.co.uk