Page 3 - Glenside Catalogue ebook

Welcome to our 30th Annual Bull Sale

`Time flies when you’re having fun’ and so we approach our 30th on-farm bull sale with
some wonderment as to where the years have gone! Mind you a quick check in the mirror
confirms it may have flown but not without leaving its mark!

Genetic improvement has been our goal for all those years and a look at the trend data
covering the last 20 of those 30 years shows improvement in all traits measured. Most
noticeable are the growth traits with average weaning weight breeding values going from
+17 to +28 (current breed avg +19) and carcase weight from +18 to +32 (breed avg +22).
Pleasing progress has also been made in improving genetic temperament with docility EBVs
going from -3 in 2001 to +19 for 2019 born animals (current breed avg +8).

This year all the traditional red sale bulls are in the top 10% of the Simmental breed for one
or more of the growth traits. It has only taken 30 years but we think it’s a milestone worth
celebrating! We continue to print sale bull’s EBVs in graph form to highlight where they sit
amongst their peers across NZ and Australia.

Taking the horns off our cattle has been another area we have concentrated on, especially in
recent years. All except three sale bulls are polled and we also DNA test to identify those that
are homozygous for the trait (all progeny polled) or heterozygous (some horned progeny if
horn genes are present in the cows).

Our black maternal breeding programme continues, albeit with only a small number of
cows. We have two bulls catalogued with one being typical of the easy calving, good growth
but smaller mature size of an efficient maternal hill cow. The other can rightly claim his
place among his bigger cousins with his exceptional performance and impressive carcase. He
weighed in heaviest of all back in March, despite running with a few cows last spring.

The B+LNZ Beef Progeny Test is a great initiative for the beef industry and we have
supported it with bulls since the start. Some have been very successful with highlights being
Atomic A5, Crumpy C4 and Dump Truck D12, who is the major sire in this year’s sale.
Dump Truck ranked in the top five for weaning and yearling weight and EMA. Our latest
entrant, Frontier F19, is number 1 for weaning weight for his cohort!

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