Wed March 14th 2012: Wed April 11th 2012: Wed Sept 12th 2012: |
There has been considerable interest expressed in the progress we are making with our charolais program. The objective here is to provide an option for our Angus clients to safely boost the kg/ha produced whilst retaining the calving ease and carcase quality of their Angus. The way to do this is to join approximately 30% of the herd to the right Charolais bulls and then sell all of the progeny.
What are the right Charolais for this program? Proven calving ease Charolais bloodlines with sufficient fat cover to ensure that the progeny will finish at the target grid weight.
Unfortunately, Charolais numbers are not big in Australia and finding genetics from known safe bloodlines even harder. So we undertook to import embryos from the US as well as undertaking a flushing program which saw over 60 embryos implanted in November last year.
The first Welcome Swallow Charolais bulls (calved out of Angus recipients) will be presented at our Spring Sale on Wednesday 15 September 2010.
Due to the long lead time in breeding our own Charolais we felt the need to service clients who wanted to get going straight away. Together with Dale Edwards from High Country Heifers, we sourced high performance US genetics at commercial rates. Dr John Webb Ware from the Mackinnon Project at Melbourne University assisted us in establishing the commercial viability of using AI for commercial clients.
The first AI Angus × Charolais calves calved in August last year. The results to date are encouraging. The take up rate from a single round of AI has been more than 70% with over 400 cows in the program. At the joining in November we have also added in a new generation Angus bull to the program to compare performance.
Enquiries to take part in the commercial Charolais AI program welcome
