Newsletter for the week ending 5 December 2003

"What's Happening" will be posted on Monday with reports from the recent Board Meeting.

Kirsty Hamson will have the next Limousin Australia at the printer next week.

Once again she has had a very good response from advertisers and "heaps of material" including some very good commercial success stories gathered on her trip to Victoria, SA and WA.

Kirsty has also secured the contract to produce newsletters and an Annual for the Simmental Society so is keeping very busy.

Some members had some trouble contacting Kirsty about a month ago. Her phone lines went down and it took Telstra more than a week to fix them. Hopefully communication with Kirsty is flowing freely again.

Kurrboo Sale Featured in The Land

The simply outstanding sale of Tom Edol's 23 Limousin steers for an average of $1288 was featured in Mike Harveys "From the Catwalk" column in The Land this week.

Commercial Limousin Herds

I am sure there are a lot more commercial high content Limousin herds than we realise. A phone call to the office this week trying to locate a Limousin belt buckle for a Christmas present revealed that a Matthew Edwards runs 200 to 300 Limousin cows at Esk in South East Queensland.

And you can understand why there will be more of these herds when you see the prices paid for high content Limousin cows, steers, heifers and cull bulls.

New Tenderness Gene Marker

Genetic Solutions have recently announced a second gene marker for tenderness. It is claimed to be "more than twice as effective" in identifying genetically tender cattle as the first tenderness marker. The second test has been offered to those breeders who have already had animals tested for the first marker at a reduced price of $25 per sample. At least one Limousin breeder has taken up the offer and we look forward to the results.

French pure Limos top Toowoomba

A sale of some note. On 17 Novermber through PEL Toowoomba we sold cull French pure weaner heifers and steers on a deflating market. Our top pen of 5 heifers averarged 329kg and sold for 207.2c/kg to return $681.69. According to the market reports the next best pen of heifers sold at around 175c/kg. This equates to a premium of 32c/kg liveweight for heavy muscled butcher Limo heifers. The calves had been fed following an early weaning. The steers topped at 203c/kg for a premium of around 25c. Just prior to the Toowoomba sale, the two picks of the steers were sold to Wondai High School for the kids to cart around next season as led steers.

The QCL sale report made special mention of the heifers and quite surprisingly actually named them as Limousin. As Tom Edols alluded to in last weeks newsletter, the profitability and flexibility of high content Limousin cattle is just about the breeds' best kept secret.

Anthony Graham
Talana Limousins

Over the Hooks in WA

John and Glenda Tomlinson who run about 300 stud and commercial Limousin cows at Many Peaks WA recently sold a couple of truck loads of high content Limousin cattle over the hooks to E.G. Green & Sons at Harvey. The price per kg for all types is significantly lower in WA than the eastern states but the results are still impressive.

32 steers averaging 295.9kg carcase weight at $2.83/kg averaged $839.90.

The premium price of $3.00/kg was paid for carcase weights of 260-320kg but there was no discount for fat levels down to 2mm.

Five cull heifers averaging 392.6kg carcse weight sold for $2.60/kg to average $1021.

Three cull cows averaging 368kg carcase weight sold for $2.20/kg to average $810.

Three young cull bulls averaging 411.5kg carcase weight sold for $2.40/kg to average $987.60 and one old bull 625kg carcase weight at $2.00/kg made $1377.

John and Glenda were very happy with the overall result.

From Wodonga Saleyards

Prices have fallen some in the eastern states with the increase in numbers offered but Limousins were at or near the top in all categories at Wodonga last week.

A Limousin X steer acc. M & G Walker 440kg @ 177.2 c/kg was the top priced yearling steer.

The same vendors sold the top c/kg priced yearling heifer 410kg @ 166.4 c/kg = $682.

In the steer vealer section two lighter Hereford X Angus and Angus pens topped the c/kg prices but five of the six top $ per head pens were Limousin cross calves ranging from 186 to 188.6 c/kg or $630 to $683.

The sixth pen of Belgian Blues X made 185.2 c/kg or $645.

The top priced cows were four Limousin cows 694kg @ 138.8 c/kg or $963.

Web Submissions

There has been quite a lot of activity on the web with members submitting performance data for the Group Breedplan run.

To date there have been 83 successful submissions of batches of registrations and performance data.

Final Reminder for Group Breedplan

You have until 12 December to get performance data into the 2004 Group BREEDPLAN run provided you submit it by email or on the web.

Yours in Limousin

Alex McDonald