UK's lamb slaughterings down in November, says AHDB
New season lamb slaughterings reported a year-over-year decline of 8% in the first 11 months of 2018, reaching a total of 7,347,500 head, while month-on-month they were down by 4%.
AHDB analyst, Amey Brassington said this decline is likely due to the smaller total lamb crop.
On the other hand, ewe slaughterings were up 12% to 145,600 head in the November, but Brassington said the supply of cull ewes is expected to slow. Also, the AHDB analyst added that there "have been reports that fewer flocks are expected to lamb early and therefore farmers have not yet scanned when in previous years they would have". A situation which might be favorable for evenly matching the supply and demand balance of mutton.
There was a 200g decline in overall carcase weights for clean sheep, meanwhile ewes increased by 600g.
"Overall, this meant that sheep meat production was down 3% (900 tonnes) to 27,300 tonnes. Therefore, compared to October, both slaughterings and production were down, which is as expected for the time of year," Brassington concluded.
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