News & Comments

News & Comments

Blackrock Angus stud will be offering an expanded sale team comprising of new and proven sires at its annual bull sale on February 25 at Boyanup Saleyards.

Stud co-principal Ken MacLeay said Blackrock’s breeding aim was to maximise client’s profits by breeding bulls loaded with free traits while building on the breed’s reputation for fertility, growth and carcase attributes.

On the national front a Blackrock sire, F3, had an outstanding performance in the Angus Australia Benchmarking Program, the largest single breed progeny test program ever in Australia.
Recently published results show: of the 40 trial bulls Blackrock F3 is in the top 10 for birth weight, gestation length, 600-day weight, eye muscle area, rump fat, intramuscular fat and to top it off, the bull was the highest recorded for docility.

“Achieving top 10 for both birth weight and 600 day weight shows what a curve bender the bull is,” Mr MacLeay said. “This illustrates what Blackrock bulls are about, moderate birth weights, good growth and carcase in a docile package. Blackrocks entire sale team rank only just above breed average for birth weight while in the top 35 per cent for eye muscle area, top 30 per cent of the breed for docility and Angus Breeding Index, and top 25 per cent of the breed for 600-day growth.”

Once again, all this year’s sale bulls will have Estimated Breeding Values for docility published in the catalogue.

Mr MacLeay said Blackrock’s docility EBVs are based on the stud’s own recordings over the past 5 years.

“We have now submitted over 1300 docility recordings and have a history that is evolving on both sides of our pedigree. It is my hope that seed stock producers supplying genetics to the AI industry exercise skill and integrity in the recording of docility data, so that grass roots producers can have confidence in the docility EBV.”

The advantages of docile animals are well known and all in the stud industry need to make a real effort. The 2016 Blackrock sale bulls are a mix of new and proven sires that include the new, Dunoon Gabba G548, Merridale Gem G80, Irelands Fletcher F1, Ayrvale Bartel E7 and the proven S Chisum 6175, Te Mania Africa A217 and Lawsons Invincible C402.

Dunoon Gabba G548 is in the top few percentiles of the breed for fat cover, an important trait in a tough season.

Merridale Gem G80 has explosive growth as does Ayrvale Bartel E7.

Irelands Fletcher F1 is another high performing sire with very short gestation length compared to the breed average.

Mr MacLeay welcomes all to share lunch with his family on the sale day (February 25), prior to the Blackrock annual sale.

K107 by Merridale Gem

DOCILITY

An EBV of major importance to selection at BLACKROCK.
Now that the cattle industry has developed a DOCILITY EBV we are putting a lot of selection pressure on choosing breeding sires with above average EBVs for docility. We are also carefully monitoring sale bulls so that we do not release any bulls into the commercial industry that have a poor temperament.

At BLACKROCK we monitor all progeny at 200, 400 & 600 days of age for docility in accordance with standard industry practice.

We are pleased to see that -

1. Very little change takes place in the individual animal scores between the three different recording dates.

2. There is a good correlation between the recorded data and the resultant EBV.

This gives us confidence in using the Docility EBV in animal selection.