Right now we are at the EKKA 2017 in Brisbane (Royal Queensland Show) where we were awarded the RESERVE CHAMPION CARCASS in the 100 day fed Class 37 competition held at Grassdale Feedlot. This steer was Hereford Brangus cross and one of nearly 600 in his class.
In the BRANGUS show ring, our 7 head won 13 ribbons. Included in those were wins of SENIOR CHAMPION and RESERVE SENIOR CHAMPION BULL, Pair of bulls, BREEDERS GROUP, and SIRES PROGENY. Duarran Genoa was the sire represented in he sires progeny class, making a powerful team of carcass cattle.
The SENIOR CHAMP, DUARRAN LATEMORE, will be in our Sept 21st on property sale 2017.
The RES SENIOR DUARRAN LAREDO will become one our sires.
In the HEREFORD ring, our lone entry looked a million dollars coming home with a second prize.
Here we are after a few months of no action on the web - a very busy year is my lame excuse!
There is much going on at Cootharaba beef genes - the cattle are doing well.
As we have been testing our herd for Johnes disease for the last few years, and attended to the paperwork, our status in 2017 is JBas 7.
We have sold our Bonsmara herd with just a few heifers remaining. That leaves us with our two main breeds of Brangus - Red and Black, and Herefords.
We sold Rossmore near St George, earlier in the year, which has reduced the hours spent driving to and fro. We loved the property and enjoyed our 3 years of ownership. The new owners have great plans and much enthusiasm and we wish them every success.
We are currently getting our team of 8 Duarran Brangus and 1 Cootharaba Hereford ready for Brisbane Show (Ekka).
Two teams of steers went to Grassdale Feedlot for the Class 37 (100 day export) and Class 38 (70 day local trade) feedback trials, and the final of that will be at the Ekka in August.
Bull sale season for us starts off with 9 BLACK BRANGUS BULLS for the Roma Brangus Sale on Friday 1st September 2017.
COOTHARABA HEREFORD SALE is on-property at DUARRAN, ROMA on Wednesday 6th September where there will be 45 Hereford/Poll Hereford Bulls.
DUARRAN BRANGUS SALE is on property at DUARRAN, ROMA on Thursday 21st September starting at 12 noon. There will be 50 Red Brangus bulls and 30 Red Brangus heifers on offer - a great opportunity to buy quality breeders.
In May we were lucky enough to go on Safari in Kenya - a wonderful experience. We came across a local cattle sale one day and were fascinated to see the very different approach to cattle selling.
We also were at Ol Pejeta - a game park and cattle operation, the day the classification of the Boran cattle was taking place. This created much discussion between all the cattle people present. The animal /manpower ratio in Kenya is much higher than we know it - many more differences as well.
It was amazing to see the herd of Ankole cattle, whose greatest asset is their horns. One of the cows we saw had a horn tip span greater than the length of her body.