Mogul Brahman stud, Yorklea, is no stranger to change, only two years ago moving camp from its historic base at Brooms Head on the lower Clarence to new paddocks near Casino.
The stud was part of The Land’s very first Beef Week promotion and has returned this year as part of the first Northern River’s Beef Week open day on Sunday, July 2.
Mogul, owned by Dr George Jacobs and Dr Janice Hirshorn, has been in the business of genetic advancement in the Brahman breed from the beginning when the stud, an early adopter of indicus, established with Cherokee blood as number 95 in 1963.
In years since the stud has sold cattle throughout eastern and central Australia and beyond to New Caledonia, New Zealand, Thailand and the Philippines. It was the first Brahman stud to do in-vitro fertilisation in the early 1980s.
“We’ve been into Breedplan since day one,” said manager Glen Pfeffer, who is very active in the current push to create a standard Brahman genotype by which progeny can be measured using the hairs on its tail.
Mogul took part in the recent Beef Industry Nucleus (BIN) program by providing one bull in the first year and two in the second of the three year project. They have already sourced semen from successful BIN sires, identified as true to type during the genome mapping project, with calves from this latest artificial insemination program expected to drop in September.
While the owners have a tendancy towards Red Brahman over grey, Mr Pfeffer says he loves both and so supplies them. Today 220 stud cows produce bulls that are primarily sold in the Richmond, Clarence and Macleay valleys, where Brahman content gets cattle to do well.
Mogul, encompassing 526ha of sandy loam in the Shannonbrook catchment, runs a commercial herd with British/ Brahman breeders put to European terminal bulls. Meanwhile the commercial demand for pure first cross females is terrific. At the NSW stud Brahman female sale last month Mogul stud heifers sold to $5000 for a grey, Mogul Miss GL Indy 2nd and to $3500 for a red female, Mogul Miss SP Wittlesea 3rd.
