CATTLE BUYING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 April 1939, Page 6

CATTLE BUYING

OBSOLETE METHODS CONDEMNED “PURE WEIGHT GUESSING.” New Zealand and Australia are, according to Mr A. J. Tanner, wellknown Australian cattle judge, the only countries in the world where fat cattle are sold at the large saleyards, in the same old obsolete way, namely, by guessing the weight. For the last 30 years in most other beef-producing countries all fat cattle are weighed before they go up for auction to allow the butchers to know what weight of beef they are purchasing. Mr Tanner writes: “Nothing has yet been done to assist the vendors of fat cattle by installing up-to-date scales to allow the agents to weigh the cattle before they are penned. There is no question, should they do so, there would be a great deal of opposition from certain quarters, but the fact remains that, if the producers are to receive full value for the cattle they send to market, there is only one way to dispose of them, and that is by so much per lb live weight unless sent to the abattoirs for slaughter and sold on the hooks.

“Every week we see our markets quoted at so much per 1001 b, but I often wonder if this guessing is within many lbs of the quotes given. The dairying industry appears to be well organised, and the milk vendor is liable to a fine if he dqes not give correct measure. The retail and wholesale butchers only sell their beef over the scales; in fact, the inspection is very strict, so why the butchers buying the cattle should be averse to having cattle weighed and sold by weight is hard to understand, unless they have been making a good thing out of the fatteners for many years past.

“It is all very well to say it is not practical to weigh the cattle —surely the men handling the cattle are just as intelligent and as good at handling stock as they are in any other part of the world. There is very little encouragement for breeders to produce good quality cattle today unless something practical is done to help them. Very often cattlemen tell me they send halfbred dairy steers to the sales and receive just the same for them as good, well-bred steers, and directly there is any flush of feed those who go in for fattening cattle buy the cheap dairy type of steers as stores, as they realise under the present system they do not make any more money by paying a higher price for well-bred store steers. BUYERS HAVE ADVANTAGE. “One cannot blame the butchers for securing their beef as cheaply as they possibly can, but at the same time they have a far better opportunity of knowing the dressed weight of cattle than the fattener, who very seldom has the opportunity of seeing his cattle killed and weighed if sent to the saleyards for sale. Unless he does follow them right through until they are killed, dressed, and weighed, he has to take the word of the buyer as to what the dressed weight might be. On more than one occasion I have heard buyers say how well certain cattle dressedout, and how much they weighed, but have added ‘You need not tell so and so.’ “How many times do butchers or cattle buyers win weight-judging competitions? My experience when asking them the dressed weight of a bullock at a show is that they have in most cases been 501 b or more lighter than the dressed weight. I am not saying that sometimes uyder the present system butchers do not overestimate the weight of cattle they purchase, but the fact remains that the present system is obsolete and unfair to the producer, and is by no means conducive to the production of good quality beef. WEIGHING HELPS PRODUCERS. “Today at many country sales the pigs are weighed and sold at so much per pound over the scales —so, why not cattle? Should all cattle be sold by weight the producer would have a far better idea as to what weight to market his bullocks. There is no doubt today quite a lot of cattle are kept too long to make them prime and heavy instead of being sent down to the market when they have reached about 6501 b, which, we are told, is the best weight from a butcher’s point of view. “There is still a great tendency for fatteners to hold their cattle with the object of topping the market without any thought of the extra expense they are entailing through making their cattle too heavy, consequently bringing the price per pound down when sold to the retail butcher. I am quite aware of the fact that there is a move in Australia by many of the big buying companies to purchase many of their cattle in the country, either in country saleyards or in the paddock, and in many instances better prices are offered in the paddock or country saleyards than those received if the stock were sent to the city yards. This is undoubtedly done with a view to bringing down prices at the city yards and ultimately having very small yardings. This will mean that there would be no market on which to establish values or weights, consequently the producer will have to take whatever price is offered, as well as whatever weight is estimated.”