The Australian Wagyu industry will create history on Friday with what is being claimed as the world’s first public auction of a purebred homozygous polled bull.
Gloucester-based Darley stud will offer the 16-month-old grassfed bull on Friday morning during AuctionPlus’s seedstock auction.
Darley stud geneticist, David Bellamy, said Darley Poll Emperor was one of only four known homozygous polled Wagyu bulls (carrying two dominant polled genes) in the world and was produced from an embryo supplied by Professor Jerry Reeves’ Bar R Ranch in the United States.
He said Emperor’s sire, Bar R 52Y, was a heterozygous bull (carrying one dominant poll genes) which was now 50 per cent owned by Australian interests.
His dam, Bar R 27Y, was a homozygous daughter of Bar R 5U, another homozygous female sold at auction for $US34,000 in 2016.
Bar R 27Y was also a half sister to the first ever homozygous Wagyu poll bull, Bar R Arimura, bred at Bar R Ranch and now an international breeding success, Mr Bellamy said.
“Darley Poll Emperor is a three-quarter brother to Arimura,” he said.
He said the young bull would be attractive to a buying syndicate because he was a ready-made semen money maker.
Darley Poll Emperor had the potential to have a significant impact on the Wagyu breed’s need to produce polled cattle to remove the cost of dehorning which was also a major animal welfare issue.
Darley stud, owned by Lilian Jimenez, will also sell Darley Polled Master, the heterozygous polled brother to Emperor on the same AuctionsPlus catalogue.
Mr Bellamy said Darley stud wasn’t a major player in terms of Wagyu numbers but was focused on breeding premium, grassfed bulls and females.
The stud won the prestigious Wagyu Miss World title in 2015 and was runner-up in 2016.
Darley stud will hold its inaugural sale on September 1 next year dubbed the Galaxy of Stars on AuctionsPlus.
Vernon Graham
Former editor of The Land, former Fairfax Media Agricultural Editor
Former editor of The Land, former Fairfax Media Agricultural Editor
