The timing of almost everything in commercial sheep and cattle enterprises is determined by the seasons and matching feed demand with feed supply. The most important decision of any breeding operation is when to calve or lamb. This then determines when to join females to sires for mating and will influence when the progeny is ready to be sold. The right timing will vary from region to region based on pasture growth patterns through the year due to temperature and rainfall. The AuctionsPlus Insights team has analysed throughput data for certain commercial cattle categories on AuctionsPlus to highlight the influence of seasonality on supply.
Key points
Certain stock categories of commercial cattle have clear seasonality in the level of throughput
Supply of NSM cows and calves and NSM heifers and calves peaks in October
Supply of heavy heifers and steers peaks October/November before Spring pasture begins to dry-off
A recent report by Black Box Co. provided some unique data on the average expected month of calving which considers varying calving patterns between multiple different regions. The chart on page 5 of the report clearly shows that most cows are expected to calve from September to January. The sample data for this analysis is likely to be more focussed on northern grazing systems and therefore indicates a natural response to summer-dominant rainfall with year-round mating. Calving in southern grazing operations is expected to be earlier due to winter-dominant rainfall with most calves born in August.
A similar trend can be seen in the throughput of not station mated (NSM) cows with calves-at-foot and NSM heifers with calves-at-foot. Figure 1 shows that females with calves-at-foot are mostly sold on AuctionsPlus in September to November – suggesting that most calves are born from July to September and are 6-8 weeks old at sale.
Figure 1: Average monthly percentage of AuctionsPlus throughput. 2016-2022.
We can also see seasonality in the throughput of heavy (400kg+) heifers and steers. Figure 2 shows that most sales of heavy heifers and steers occurs during Spring and Summer and drops off in Autumn and Winter. Peak Spring pasture availability in October/November before then ‘drying off’ at the start of summer is likely the main influence. This is when most grassfed steers and heifers are ‘finished’ and are then ready for the feedlot before feed quality diminishes and daily weight gains decrease.
Figure 2: Average monthly percentage of AuctionsPlus throughput. 2016-2022.
A higher proportion of heifers are sold in the first half of the year than steers, particularly February and March. This is likely due to ‘empty’ heifers hitting the market after pregnancy testing in January and February. This was the case in February 2022 when over 4,000 heavy heifers were sold on AuctionsPlus, the only time monthly throughput of the category has reached 4,000 head. The start of 2023 was shaping up to do the same but unappealing prices and feed in paddocks have kept some of those heifers on farm with the hope of prices improving or to increase liveweight further.