High-indexing bulls were well sought after at the XL Beef bull and female sale at Dungowan.
Subscribe now for unlimited access to all our agricultural news
across the nation
or signup to continue reading
Bulls sold to a top of $20,000 while females went for as high as $14,000 at the sale on Wednesday, August 30.
XL Beef Hometown T81 was the top-priced bull of the sale, selling to Sara Park Angus, Glen Innes.
The 11 month-old calf ranked in the top 10 per cent of the breed for his growth and carcase traits, with estimated breeding values of +65 200-day weight, +113 400-day weight, and +142 600-day weight along with a carcase weight value of +83.
He also ranked in the top 10pc for his $indexes and feed efficiency.
Purchaser Herb Duddy said Hometown T81 would be used mainly with Sara Park Angus' stud herd but the bull would also breed with some commercial cows as well.
Mr Duddy said the bull had "pretty good figures right across the board" while the slightly different genetics to his other sires was also appealing.
"I'm always looking for different genetics to what I've got but it was mainly his conformation. He'll grow into a really, really good bull, I think," Mr Duddy said.
The second top-priced bull for the sale was a Texas Iceman R725 son, XL Beef Iceman T89, selling for $16,000 to Macka's Angus.
The outfit bought another bull in XL Beef Iceman T91 for $6000 and one heifer, XL Beef Hannah T79, for $4000. Both were also sired by Texas Iceman R725.
Described in the catalogue as a soft, very flashy calf that will add body, carcase and power to his progeny, the second top-priced bull was in the top 1pc of the breed for eye muscle area and retail beef yield with figures of +15.2 and +2.5, respectively.
Among the females offered in the sale, it was the three-year-old, XL Beef Kandice R20 - an XL Beef Gunsmoke daughter - who was the top-priced female selling for $14,000 to Steve Carter, Rangari, near Gunnedah, who is a return buyer to XL Beef.
The big-volume female, going back to VAR Discovery 2240 on her dam's side, was sold with a heifer calf at foot by Tehama Patriarch and showed EBVs of +102 for 400-day weight and +123 mature cow weight.
The volume buyer of the sale was John Howard, Mountain View, Biloela, Queensland, who purchased seven bulls to a top of $14,000 and an average of $7571.
The overall results of the auction for the bulls saw a clearance of 24 of 38 to average $8208, while three out of 11 females offered were sold to an average of $8666.
Six bulls and one female sold post auction as well.
XL Beef stud principal Nathan Steinbeck said with all things considered, he was happy with the result.
"We had some repeat clients and we also had some new clients and one of the new clients was our volume buyer [John Howard], so we were pleased with that aspect of it," he said.
The sale was conducted by McCulloch Agencies, with Daniel McCulloch doing the auctioneering, and was interfaced online on AuctionsPlus.
Ben Jaffrey
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
Ben is a content curator and journalist for The Land. He has been with ACM since 2015 and first worked at The Area News and then at the Northern Daily Leader. Ben first joined ACM Agri as a digital journalist for all seven agricultural mastheads in 2022 before shifting to The Land full-time in 2023.
