Although P2P was officially launched in June this year, there has been a strong push to improve key performance indicators across the industry since 2012, especially onfarm. Benchmark figures presented in 2012 included a carcaseweight of 55.4kg and a target to increase this by 1.95% each year.
However, over the past two years the average has dropped and for 2014 was 54.86kg – half a kilo lighter than in 2012 and 2.7kg less than the target of 57.58kg. While half a kilo may seem minor the downward rather than upward trend was disappointing, Deer Industry New Zealand P2P project manager Innes Moffat said. But the figures were very “blunt” giving no indication of the monthly profile of the kill and class of stock.
“We do know, for example, that young stags slaughtered in August this year were one kilogram heavier than last August.”
The kill profile over the past two years had been dominated by lightweight hinds that had pulled back the average, as had cold springs in Southland and drought stricken North Canterbury.
Moffat said a database of more detailed national slaughter information might be possible after March 1 next year when it became mandatory for NAIT recording of all deer.
Another identified area for improvement in 2012 was the time to slaughter for weaners with a 16-day reduction in the time to slaughter targeted by 2022.
Silver Fern Farms’ national deer manager Malcolm Gourlie said there had been no signs over the past two seasons that a greater proportion of weaners were making it to slaughter earlier. His best guestimate was that only 20% of the total weaner kill was catching the chilled market. This year a lot of the weaners were below par because of the dry winter and lack of feed. Also, the depressed schedule last season meant many farmers didn’t want to hold on and feed their weaners, preferring instead to quit them sooner at lighter weights.
The reality was that there were fewer deer on the ground and that would continue to impact on key slaughter statistics, Moffat said. The downward trend in slaughter numbers was predicted to continue over the next three to four years and bottom out at about 320,000.
“That’s optimistic but we’d like to think that breeding hind numbers will stabilise.”
Anecdotal feedback was that the offloading of hinds had slowed and there was strong demand for in-fawn hinds, especially with good velvet genetics.
