The son of Wulf’s Yankee K689Y, offered at last year’s Northern Limousin Breeders’ Sale by River View Limousins Dorrigo is making a commercial difference to the Harris family’s commercial beef system at Gloucester.
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John Harris, who has bred Limousin all his life and retains ten stud black Limousin cows in addition to his commercial enterprise, said the black/ homozygous poll bull was attractive for its estimated breeding values in easy birthweight, good milk and critically a top percentage weight after 200 and 400 days – which suits the local vealer market.
Mr Harris purchased the bull for his young daughter Tiffany and has started to incorporate the genetics into the family stud, ‘Daxton’ on land originally purchased by Tiffany’s great grand-parents, Ray and Dot Harris.
Andrea Simpson, River View Limousin, said at the time of sale that the bull had easy doing, with plenty of muscle and meat.
Commercially speaking the Wulf infusion is benefiting a commercial herd of 40 Angus cross cows on 100 hectares of Barrington River flats. these cows incorporate a percentage of dairy Ayreshire, with blood from the Harris family’s historic stud.
Commercial cows are put to the terminal Limousin bull to supply the vealer market, with calves selling through Gooch Agencies, Gloucester and typically going to Wingham Export Abattoir and a variety of butchers local and away.
“The best calf we bred was half Limousin half Ayreshire, selling for $1200 at 300-320kg,” Mr Harris said.
“We find Limo with a splash of dairy creates a vealer calf that gets more milk. I say too many breeds have too little milk, with five-eighths dairy content good for beef production.”
Meanwhile, he says the black limousins genetics have improved with higher milk figures than before.
Already the first drop has shown Yankee’s potential with a typical vealer coming off the Harris’Gloucester country at 300kg while these new calves have topped 400kg at the same age – about 10-11 months.
“This bull provided length, thickness and depth,” said Mr Harris. “A bull with a decent bloodline is, for us, a better option than artificial insemination. If you miss a cycle with AI you are losing months of production every year. With a bull we are better assured of getting a cow in calf. Certainly we have not had a cow come back to Yankee.”
While the Harris family have moved towards homozygous black to meet market expectation, Mr Harris still retains a warm heart for more traditional apricot types and rues the fact that the hair type is under-respected, saying there has been ‘numerous’ occasions when a better apricot calf sold for $100 less.
