On The Land
9 October, 2024
Stud buys up to boost breeding program
AN Atherton Tablelands beef cattle stud has bolstered its breeding program by securing two elite young sires at Australia’s longest-running on-property bull sale.
Tallangalook Shorthorns and Santa Gertrudis, based at Barrine and Tarzali, invested $48,000 at the 68th annual Rosevale Santa Gertrudis at Jandowae near Dalby.
Tallangalook bought Rosevale Uptown U152 for $22,000 and Rosevale United U474 for $26,000 with an eye towards furthering the ongoing growth of the Santa Gertrudis breed in Far North Queensland.
“Since we added Santas to our stud program six years ago we’ve seen a big rise in bull sales and when calves from these two come through, they will add to that with their slick skin really suited to the tropics,” stud principal Nick Trompf said.
“They also met our non-negotiable key criteria of exceptional fertility, sound feet and overall structure and ultra-quiet temperament. “A valuable bonus is both are homozygous poll (PP) which means they will never sire horned calves.
“We’ve noticed a marked increase in demand from our clients for PP bulls with two of our young homozygous poll bulls selling recently to a top of $15,000 to a repeat buyer from Mt Surprise.”Tallangalook has based its Santa Gertrudis stud on females and bulls from Rosevale, because of the latter’s relentless focus on fertility and deep data analysis through performance recording and genomics testing.
“David Greenup from Rosevale has been dedicated to performance recording for more than 30 years, with that extensive data - known as Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) - and more recently genomics analysis ensuring far greater certainty in terms of future progeny,” Mr Trompf said.
“Both the bulls we bought possess exceptional EBVs. Uptown is in the top 10% for all three of the Santa Gertrudis breed indexes - Terminal
$Index, Breeding Production $Index and Fertility Plus $Index - while United is top 15% for Terminal, top 5% for Breeding Production and top 10% for Fertility Plus.”
The Rosevale sale also provided another significant highlight for Tallangalook’s leading sire Greenup Noble Q206, which is 50/50 owned by Rosevale and Tallangalook.
A Noble son brought the second top price of the Rosevale sale at $28,000 while seven sons sold for an average of $15,000. This followed a Noble son bringing the $37,500 top price at the 2023 Rosevale sale. Tallangalook has more than 20 Noble sons nearing weaning age which will be ready for sale next year.
