Consistent cattle prices helped Ashwood Devons to a top price of $9250 at its second annual bull sale at Bulahdelah last week.
Nine Devon bulls were on offer at the sale, with seven sold, for an average of $5400.
Ashwood Krakatoa, the 24-month-old son of artificial insemination sire, Mograni Donatello and Bongalabi Bossi, sold for $9250 to commercial producers’ Cliff and Karen Lyon, C.D. and K.A. Lyon, Ellenborough.
Ashwood Krakatoa weighed in at 842 kilograms and held a scrotal circumference of 43 centimetres.
The top price bull was the Devon reserve junior champion at the 2015 Ekka Queensland Royal Show, with Ashwood Devons, co-principal, Jo Wood saying he was an impressive display of the breed.
“He has the whole package of structure and temperament,” Ms Wood said.
“I am very pleased with the sale and I think with cattle prices the way they are, the breed has hit its straps and producers’ are realising that a couple of calves will cover the cost of a bull,” she said.
“Malcolm has put a lot of work into the cattle and his breeding quality is also known among producers now.”
The bidding momentum continued at Ashwood, with the second top-price bull fetching $5400.
Three-year-old, Ashwood Jeu d’Espirit, weighed in at 1050kg, with an eye muscle area of 130 square centremetres and held a scrotal circumference of 41cm.
He was purchased by Peter Ellis, South Grafton.
Ashwood Jeu d’Espirit was the breed’s senior champion at Ekka Queensland Royal Show in 2015 and Devon reserve senior champion in 2016.
“We have definitely had a lot of success at Ekka Royal Queensland Show in recent years and I think people have come to associate our name with quality,” Ms Wood said.
Females were also up for auction, including two pens of five stud heifers and one pen of two commercial pregnancy-tested-in-calf heifers.
It was the PTIC heifers which topped the sale at $1400 per head, with one pen of commercial heifers reaching $1000 per head.
All the heifers up for auction were sired by Bongalabi stud, Lake Bathurst, near Goulburn, bulls.
Malcolm and Jo Wood, Ashwood Devons, conducted their own Helmsman auction.
