Livestock shortages began in early August, but are now ramping up

And the meatworkers union has warned there may be a further reduction in shifts at Greenham's Smithton plant and JBS Longford works, due to what the operators say is a lack of suitable stock.

The two plants have cut back to three shifts a week.

Ray White Rural & Livestock agent Noel Hardstaff said the cattle simply weren't there.

"They are struggling to fill their kill capacity, that's the biggest trouble," Mr Hardstaff said.

"And cattle are dear enough on the mainland.

"Restockers are very, very strong.

"I don't think the exporters are making any money, anyway."

He said farmers had plenty of feed for their stock.

"They are holding them and putting on plenty of weight, sometimes to their detriment, because once you get over a certain weight, the works will discount you," he said.

He said 14-15-week-old bucket-reared calves were making $800 a head.

"It's alright if you are selling them," he said.

Greenham has also closed down its cow processing line at Tongala, citing a shortage of stock.

Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union Tasmanian secretary Andrew Foden said there had been cattle shortages in the state since early August.

"Generally the abattoirs have had one stand-down day a week, where slaughtermen get stood down on Fridays and the boners on Monday, due to what they say is a shortage of 'suitable' livestock," Mr Foden said.

"They are down to three days a week, but I was talking to a delegate from JBS and there is talk they may go down to two.

"There is livestock for sale, but they say it's not suitable because of pricing."

He said farmers were looking at a 30 per cent bonus "because they know the meatworks are hurting, and they need the animals".

"The union's position is that if you are classing price as suitability, that is more of a commercial decision than an industrial decision," he said.

The stand-downs were affecting around 600 workers.

Mr Foden said last year JBS gave an undertaking in the Fair Work Commission that there were enough cattle to process five days a week until the end of February.

"We accepted that, as did the Commission, within two weeks they were back down to stand-downs, because there was no suitable livestock for sale, and it's got worse since then," he said.

He said workers taking holidays, as part of the stand-downs, helped the works, as they would have a full workforce when times were busy.

Wayne Wells, Mawbanna, is building up his breeding herd of Angus, Red Angus and Charolais/Angus-cross cattle.

Mr Wells said there were other obstacles to rebuilding the herd in Tasmania.

"It's going to be an interesting 12 months, to see where the cattle are going to come from because not only have we got the abattoirs looking for them, you have butchers that want them as well," he said.

He said he expected mainland bidders to operate on the upcoming Tasmanian weaner sales.

"The thing is you have Queensland coming into NSW and NSW into Victoria," he said.

"When our calf sales start here, you are going to have the Victorians coming over here, which is going to bump the prices up fairly well."

Mr Wells said the cost of bringing cattle from the mainland was also too high, compounding the problems caused by low numbers.

"Tassie farmers can't compete against the mainlanders, because of freight equalisation," he said.

The freight equalisation scheme subsidises the cost of bringing freight and livestock into and out of Tasmania.

Mr Wells said it cost $130 a head in freight to bring cattle to Tasmania.

"We get freight equalisation when we bring them back from the mainland, but mainland producers get the same too," he said.

"But for what you are getting the freight equalisation is a pittance, it ought to be more than what we get.

"It costs us something like $6000 to get a semi over and you get something like $1200 back out of it."

Geoff Atkinson, who farms between Burnie and Penguin, said there was a shortage of trade cattle for the domestic market.

"I just think we had three or four dry years there," Mr Atkinson said.

"A lot of people cut back their cow numbers, wool and lamb prices were not too bad, and a lot of the big store growers converted to wool."

He said prices at store sales were "unbelievable".

"We had 60-70 millimetres of rain on the weekend, after 50mm the weekend before," he said.

"Farmers are growing bigger cattle and hanging onto them."

But he said there had also been a switch back into beef cattle and cropping in the north-west of the state.

"I was talking to a chap the other day; he used to raise 200-300 cattle, he has only got eight now," he said.

"He was managing them with the cropping in a wet year and it was too difficult to replace them with store cattle."

JBS Corporate and Regulatory Affairs head John Berry said a lot of processing capacity across Australia was either not operating or running at less than full capacity due to tight livestock supply.

Greeham has also been contacted for comment.