RECORD saleyard prices for heavy cattle means there is no better time to step into the weight and production advantages of the Charolais breed.
And the Southern Invitational Charolais Bull and Female Sale, to be held at Yea for the first time this March, gives southern producers easy access to the latest genetics from some of the country’s leading studs.
As a taste, lot 2 in the auction was awarded the title of Champion Charolais Bull at last year’s Melbourne show.
The two-year-old is being offered by Victorian breeders Deborah and Sapphire Halliday, who operate the Waterford Charolaisstud at Mt Macedon.
Another feature will be some of the first sons by exciting Canadian Charolais Bull Lt Ledger.
This Polled Sire boasts a very low birthweight figure of -3 but also has high growth rate breeding values, making him what the industry calls a “curve-bender’’. On these figures calves should be born easily but then exhibit excellent growth and weight for age.
The Lt Ledger bulls are in the sale team from Airlie Charolais, which operates a large stud cattle operation at Glenquarry in NSW.
Stud manager Warren Miller breed cattle in Victoria and has hand-picked 15 bulls to suit southern calf breeders.
Results from this year’s prestigious New Year Calf sales has highlighted the benefits that can be made from weight gain and muscle by using a Charolais bull over British cows such as Angus, Hereford, or Shorthorn, or F1 females for vealer production.
The top dollar per head price for steers recorded over a week of sales involving more than 10,000 calves sold at Hamilton in the Western District in early January went to a Charolais sired pen.
The price of $1433 a head – and the only sale to break $1400 a head at any market – was achieved by a pen of 21 CharolaisAngus-cross steers that had a curfewed weight of 424kg and sold for 338 cents per kilogram liveweight to export processor Thomas Foods International for grain feeding.
-Charolais Australia