BREEDERS looking to add Speckle Park to their stud or commercial programs will have the oportunity to choose from a range of proven genetics from Australia and Canada with the fifth Annual Invitational Speckle Park Sale on April 24.
The sale, which is usually run at the Scone saleyards, is completely online this year due to Covid-19, and will be live streamed through Elite Livestock Auctions.
The Scone multi-vendor sale has become renowned for quality, and this year's catalogue includes 53 bulls, 49 heifers, 14 semen packages and eight embryo lots.
All buyers will need to register with Elite Livestock Auctions prior to the sale and inspections will be available, either on farm or at Scone, by appointment through the sale agent MacCallum Inglis or by contacting individual studs.
Twenty studs from three states are selling this year, including five new studs.
Baw Baw
The team behind Baw Baw Speckle Parks set up the stud with foundation bulls and females from the Scone sale, and now they're selling two unjoined heifers this year.
Phil Orgill and James and Carly Moyes run the stud near Yarrogin in Victoria, using embryo transfer to build numbers.
"A few years ago we were going up to Scone just to have a look and we bought five bulls, two cows and calves, and four heifers," Mrs Moyes said.
"We have a lot of dairies in our area, so we're producing low birthweight bulls to go over dairy cows, and mainly white bulls so they produce the better coats."
Promised Land
Bellingen stud Promised Land will have its first offering of Speckle Park cattle in this year's sale.
Manager Alister Dieckmann has been breeding Angus stud cattle since 2012, and he added Speckle Park in May 2018 following interest from clients.
All four bulls in this year's Scone sale have Codiak Acres dams, with the embryos chosen for the stud's proven maternal bloodlines.
"Codiak Acres seems to have a very even line of females, and those cows have had natural calves, so they're proven females," Mr Dieckmann said.
Black Stump
NATHAN and Katy Cook set up Black Stump Speckle Park at Coolah in 2016 and they have four bulls in the sale.
"We loved the coat colour and they looked easy doing which suited us because we only had a small acreage, and after researching them we found they were doing well in hoof and hook competitions here and in Canada, so they were able to compete with proven beef breeds," Mr Cook said.
While they weren't able to buy from the Scone sale in the past, they purchased their first six females through fellow Scone sale vendors Rob and Narelle Worth.
"We're running 20 females now, and we hope to sell at Scone from now on."
Sunny Dale
Matt Black and Mikayla Hamilton have been using Speckle Park bulls over their Romanola females for the past four years, and they now run 25 purebreds and 80 cows in the commercial crossbreeding operation at Jiggi.
Mr Black is a previous buyer at Scone, having bought their first Speckle Park cow and calf there.
"That bull calf on her, Checkered Legend, is now the main herd side in our stud, and the sire of the bull in this year's sale, Sunny Dale Phantom," he said.
"He's what we're trying to breed. He's not the biggest bull but he has sire appeal for a stud and he's packed full of meat for a commercial operation."
Keiross
Keiross stud principals Doug and Leanne Comb, from Hay, have four bulls in the sale which feature Canadian and Australian genetics.
Mr Comb said the breed's doing ability and carcase performance attracted them to Speckles.
"A neighbour had a Speckle Park bull and he was putting them over Shorthorn cows, and I liked that they were a moderate framed animal that doesn't take too long to grow, and they'd been doing well in carcase competitions," Mr Comb said.
Mr Comb has purchased two bulls, first-cross joined heifers, and three females at Scone in the past, including the Australian record-breaking heifer that sold for $32,000 in 2018.