NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
January 2012	6 March 2012
February 2012	4 April 2012
March 2012	9 May 2012

INTRODUCTION

This publication presents statistics on livestock slaughterings and meat production. These statistics are based on a monthly collection from abattoirs and other major slaughtering establishments and include estimates of animals slaughtered by country butchers and other small slaughtering establishments. More detailed information on this series can be obtained by referring to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) quarterly publication, Livestock Products, Australia (cat. no. 7215.0).

Additional time series spreadsheets containing state/territory and national data are available from the Downloads tab for this publication. These spreadsheets contain original, seasonally adjusted and trend estimates for slaughtering and meat production for bulls, bullocks and steers, cows and heifers, cattle (excluding calves), calves, sheep, lambs and pigs.


INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.


SUMMARY COMMENTARY


LIVESTOCK

In December 2011 the trend estimate for cattle slaughterings increased by 1% to 613 thousand.

Calf slaughterings increased by 1% to 55 thousand in December 2011 but were down 13% from December 2010.

In December 2011, the trend estimate for sheep slaughterings increased by 2% to 451 thousand.

Lamb slaughterings fell by 2% to 1.4 million in December 2011.

The trend estimate for pig slaughterings remained steady at 391 thousand in December 2011.

LIVESTOCK SLAUGHTERED, Australia, December 2011
	Original	Seasonally Adjusted	Trend
	no.	no.	no.
Cattle(a)	505 688	604 506	612 739
Calves	22 461	56 253	55 800
Sheep	478 966	446 970	451 045
Lambs	1 393 209	1 470 043	1 442 251
Pigs	418 726	390 966	391 166
(a) Excludes calves

MEAT

In December 2011 the trend estimate for beef production increased by 1% to 177 thousand tonnes.

Veal production increased by 1% in December 2011 to 3 thousand tonnes, but decreased by 12% compared to December 2010.

In December 2011, the production of mutton increased by 2% from November 2011 to 10 thousand tonnes.

Lamb production fell 2% in December 2011 to 31 thousand tonnes.

The trend estimate for production of pig meat in December 2011 remained steady at 29 thousand tonnes.

MEAT PRODUCED, Australia, December 2011
	Original	Seasonally Adjusted	Trend
	t	t	t
Beef	143 545	174 044	177 213
Veal	2 073	3 600	3 454
Mutton	11 223	10 099	10 265
Lamb	29 627	32 052	31 177
Pig meat	29 858	29 135	28 822