Australia 2012

Champion Female Class at BEEF 2012

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

In May, Candace and I traveled to Australia to re-visit the Charolais industry in that country. We focused our trip around the BEEF 2012 Show in Rockhampton, central Queensland. This very large show happens every three years; we attended it in 2006 and knew it was a place to reconnect with many breeders. The Australian Charolais Association held their AGM in conjunction with this show and we were able to attend it by invitation.

BEEF is a huge outdoor event with many equipment displays. Most of the beef breeds have tent display areas. 85,000 people went through the gates during the six days of BEEF with almost 4,500 head of cattle from every state in Australia. Also, more than 600 registered international industry representatives from 37 countries attended. They have a Supreme Bull and Female show with all the champions shown and we found it interesting that 31 different breeds were displayed. There are a number of breeds that are Australian developed and mainly involve crossing an established breed with a Brahman to have an animal that can go into the northern tropical parts of this vast country.

Of interest was the Brackle breed, which was on display for the first time at BEEF 2012. This is a cross between the Speckle Park from Canada and the Brahman. It has the colour of the Speckle Park and the body type of a thicker Brahman.

From BEEF, we struck off to tour a number of Queensland herds. Queensland is the northeast state of

Helge By

This class displays a high percentage of red factor cattle

BEEF Grand Champion Female – Crathe’s Estella Australia and home to some of the larger Charolais operations. In 2006 we toured a number of herds here and in New South Wales, which is the southeast state. We revisited some, but also found our way into some new ones. We wanted to tour the herds that have purchased Canadian semen interests in the past and see how these genetics have been working for them. We also wanted to investigate to see if we could find some outcross genetics that breeders here in Canada could use.

Many breeders in Australia utilize more French genetics on a whole than we do in Canada. Many will breed their polled females French, then breed those back to polled purebred. They are trying, as we are, to find the balance between calving ease, meat and performance. On our trip six years ago the Queensland breeders were breeding more power and birth weight than what we want here. This trip I found they have backed off the size a bit and are selecting sires with more calving ease. My analysis is that at this time we are as close as we have ever been in the type we are selecting to breed.

We have more polled and homozygous sires at this stage than they do, because of their increased use of French semen, but size and performance would be very similar. They on a whole have paid more attention to easy doing or fleshing ability, or as they say “softness” in their cattle, where as we have probably

concentrated more on tighter sheaths, although I did see an improvement from six years ago here also.

At the show there was also a marked increase in the number of tan, red factor, Charolais being shown. In visiting with the breeders and asking questions there seems to be a perception that tan cattle are softer than the whites. There is also a desire from the commercial industry in red herds of Santa Gertrudis (5/8 Shorthorn & 3/8 Brahman developed in Texas) and Droughtmasters (3/8 Shorthorn & 5/8 Brahman developed in Queensland 50 years ago) to use a tan bull to keep the colour in the calves. In commercial bull sales in Queensland, there seems to be a

BEEF Grand Champion Bull – Palgrove Formula

marked premium for a tan bull and a marked premium for a polled bull, so until supply/demand changes, I would breed polled, red factor cattle in this area.

One bull in particular that I thought would be quite popular in Canada was tan and homozygous polled. The only catch was he was sired by a Canadian bull, out of a female sired by a Canadian bull.

We put nearly 5,000 kms on our rent car in Queensland, so we did get to see a bit of it and its breeders. Of course it goes without saying, the hospitality was great. It was Bill Dunlop who coined the phrase, “a Charolais membership is a passport to great hospitality around the world” and it held true.

This trip we also decided to go to the state of Victoria, which is on the southeast coast and is quite different. The climate of course is one of the differences, with more distinct seasons (although snow is not a regular occurance here). Melbourne is the capital of Victoria and very much a multicultural cosmopolitan city. George Crocombe, a breeder who was at the World Congress in Canada and who we have spent time with at other Congresses was our tour guide in Victoria and showed us around not only some purebred herds but his own 600 head commercial operation.

The cattle industry here is very similar to western Canada with black and black baldy cows being the most common. The Charolais bull being produced to service this market is also very similar to ours. There is a lot of North American influence in the pedigrees, although here they too try to blend in some of the easier calving French bulls to add some more meat and bone to their genetics. We only spent a few days here but went hard and got through some very good operations that have been doing a great job for decades. Here the red factor animals are not in demand, with the distinctive silver calf gladly being produced.

Australia is now going to host the 2016 World Charolais Congress. Start and see their cattle and their culture. If will be a trip you will never forget.

Beautiful coastal country in southern Queensland

Brahman cows with Charbray calves in south central Queensland

Kangaroo and her joey

Above: Wild boars in a Queensland pasture Far left: Wild red parrots fed by a restaurant owner for the amusement of his clientele Middle right: A Short-beaked Echidna, one of Australia’s egg-laying, pouch-bearing mammals Below: Big grey kangaroos in the shade in a pasture