Still in rebuild mode

Market Morsel

The release of the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) quarterly livestock slaughter data for March 2023 allows us to measure the female slaughter ratio (FSR) for the first time this year to see how the herd rebuild is progressing. The FSR shows a slight uptick from the December 2022 quarter from 42.1% to 42.4%.

This is still well below the threshold of 47% which signifies is we are in rebuild mode or liquidation phase for the Australian herd. A look at the seasonal trend in the FSR from 2022 to 2023 shows that while we are still in pretty strong rebuild territory we have started 2023 with a higher FSR than the 40.8% recorded for the March quarter of 2022, indicating that the enthusiasm to restock is not as strong this season compared to last year.