Always Looking Ahead
Our move to Australia has run smoothly thanks to Dale’s help and the very supportive team in Angus Australia.
We now have access to many advanced projects that Australia runs.
Kakahu Pivotal is one of two New Zealand bulls to have been accepted into the latest cohort for progeny testing.
We recommend that all commercial breeders download the Angus Australia APP. This is not hard to do and is by far the simplest way to access information from all the Studs that have moved away from New Zealand recording. You can bring up individual animals, herds and the sales catalogues are listed and easily accessible. The APP is free, and it is well worth registering though you don’t have to. You can ask to stay logged in, so don’t need to be too clever and remember passwords!
Go to your APP STORE on your phone, search Angus Australia and download.
INDEXES
With the move from New Zealand of numerous studs the benchmark for the New Zealand based cattle is now different from that of the Australian based cattle.
The following gives a fair comparison between the animals under each database.
ANGUSPURE = New Zealand registered cattle
A will be awarded to any animals that are $120 or more.
A+ will be awarded to any animals $140 or more, with an EBV of 2.0 or more for IMF
ANGUSPRO = Australia registered cattle
A will be awarded to any animals that are $107 or more
A+ will be awarded to any animals that are $126 or more, with an EBV of 2.0 or more for IMF.
In other words, The A Index is $120 in NZ = $107 in Australia.
A+; $140 in New Zealand = $126 in Australia, because the average is so much higher over there.
Kakahu still recommends that you base your selection of bull purchases on the EBV’s available. These are Australasian. They give you an in-depth view of the potential of each animal.
The indexes are merely a way of sorting the tops from the bottoms. Use that sort, and then eliminate those with EBV’s that don’t suit your criteria.
The Handpicked program run by Alliance is producing beautifully marbled meat, and many of our clients are getting 90% and better of their kills accepted. This season we killed 74 Angus heifers (some bought in, but Kakahu breeding) with a 91% hit rate equating to an additional $220 average per head. Silver Fern Farms also have their EQ programme. This is also a great benchmark identifying how your carcass quality is progressing.
With our embryo programme now fully up and operating we can produce more bulls for our clients. We have done this by using the top 15% of our cows and heifers, which have so far produced an extra 80 bulls for selection.
Not only this, we now have a higher ratio of top end females entering our herd and not dropping our standard.
Our aim is for everyone to get all the bulls they need at a fair price.
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