Meeting market specifications
This is module 8 of the MLA More Beef from Pastures – The producer’s manual, which offers practical information to help lift the productivity and profitability of southern beef businesses.
It will help you to increase financial returns by better meeting target market specifications, exploiting market opportunities and managing the risks.
What this module is about
- Know the specifications and customer requirements of your target markets.
- Know how to assess and monitor the progress of live animals towards target markets.
- Manage the grazing system to achieve growth targets and successful market outcomes.
- Use high nutritional quality finishing systems to ensure cattle keep growing to slaughter.
- Seek feedback and implement practices to improve the management of your production system.
- Regularly evaluate new marketing options and implement those more profitable to the beef enterprise.
There are 3 steps to help you meet market specifications
- Manage the nutrition, health and welfare of sale animals to meet target market specifications on time
Focus on the relationship between cattle nutrient requirements, pasture availability and quality, and how these interact to affect rate of growth, composition of growth and product quality.
- Manage cattle 2-3 weeks before sale and during mustering and transport to achieve best carcase dressing percentage and avoid downgraded product
Control the causes of dark cutting meat or bruising, which can reduce the total weight of carcase receiving payment, due to trimming of bruised meat from those parts not included in the AUS-MEAT bruise scoring areas.
- Regularly evaluate market opportunities as feed supply, financial situation or market prices change, and select markets to maximise enterprise profit
Revisit your decisions about preferred markets on a regular basis, and the method and timing of sales, to capitalise on changes in market specifications, market prices or selling options.
Toolkit 8
These tools will assist the on-farm implementation of each step in this module:
- Beef cattle market specifications
- Graphs indicating liveweight and fat score ranges over which specifications for most prime beef markets are likely to be achieved
- Meat Standards Australia (MSA) tips & tools
- Range of selling options
- Obtaining price and other market information
Linkages to other modules
Module 1: Setting directions discusses identifying the most profitable target markets and times of sale in relation to pasture growth and other resources available to the beef enterprise, an essential step in planning and setting the direction of your beef enterprise.
Managing the grazing system to meet market specifications is about fitting together the livestock requirements (see Module 5: Cattle genetics, and Module 3: Pasture growth) and livestock responses (see Module 4: Pasture utilisation, and Module 7: Herd health and welfare) to satisfy market needs.
Maximising the number of weaners available and appropriate for growing to meet target market(s) is the focus of Module 6: Weaner throughput.
More information
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