Nearly 214,000 cattle on the move in November
Sales of cattle through the marts are building up also, towards their annual peak in October and November, when one-third of the year’s mart sales take place, as 521,375 head go through the rings in the two busiest mart months.
The comings and goings of 2.3m cattle per year are illustrated in the Cattle Movement Monitoring System (CMMS) statistics for 2006, which were recently published.
One of the most striking figures — 638 calvings per hour — shows how busy March is for cows and cattle farmers.
April was only slightly less hectic in 2006, with an average of 560 calves per hour arriving.
And how traumatic the calving season can be for farmers was reflected in the CMMS figures which show that March, April and May are not only the peak calving months but the peak cattle mortality months.
Calving difficulty is obviously a major factor, with average losses of 750 females per day on farms in March, almost the same rate for April, and only slightly lower for May.
Losses in male animals were more than 50% lower, at 330 per day in March and April, and slightly less in May. Farms in Co Cork topped the calf birth rate, with 209,883 births in beef herds and 132,271 calves born into dairy herds last year.
Tipperary took second place in the dairy calf registrations, at 53,897, and Limerick came third with 42,386. Galway had the second highest number of beef breed calf registrations, at 126,615, and Tipperary was third with 125,314.
The CMMS revealed a heavy death toll of 227,331 cattle head in 2006, not including still born calves.
It compares with 209,677 in 2005 and 192,534 in 2004.
