Kilburnie Angus High Indexing Angus Cattle Selected cows and heifers for Sale Donor Cows We flush our best cows in order to maximise the rate of genetic improvement in our herd. Murray Wave J43 and Murray Grando J105 are two cows that we have flushed intensively. They are still young cows and have made a major contribution to our herd. J43 is an outcross to the main Australian lines of marbling cattle. J105, an El Grando daughter, is one of those rare and valuable animals that has marbling and growth but does not carry a lot of waste fat. Tuwhartoa E105 is a a very solid performer. She is phenotypically very sound like so many of the Tuwharetoa bred animals. Regent G31 rewarded us with 13 embryos when we flushed her between calves to El Grando last year. We implanted all of these embryos and expect the calves in a few months time. Weaner Heifers with Potential We are offering four maiden heifers for sale. These heifers come from the very heart of our herd. We are retaining flush siblings for our own use. Sires represented are HPCA Proceed, G A R Momentum, Murray El Grando G20 and Rennylea Kodak. Murray Wave J43 is the mother of two of the heifers, Murray Objective G81 and Murray Reserve L25 each have one daughter presented for sale.
Selected Donor Cows Murray Wave J43 To date we have had 12 calves from this cow. More will be born this year. We have already flushed one of her daughters and are expecting granddaughters (by El Grando) in July. Phenotypically she is one of our most attractive cows and has been admired by a number of independent experts. Open and ready to flush. Murray Regent K31 Murray Grando J105 This is the best daughter of Regent (or his flush brother Diplomat) that we have bred. We have two very good daughters from her, both by bulls of our own breeding. We flushed her once (to El Grando) and implanted all 13 embryos. The calves will be born later this year. Believed pregnant to NURL20, calving mid August, 2018 To date we have had 6 calves from this cow. More will be born this year. She has helped us spread the best El Grando genes through our herd. By joining her to high marbling sires we now have large framed, high growth daughters and sons at the core of our breeding program. You have the opportunity to breed animals of the same quality. Open and ready to flush. Tuwharetoa E105 Each year we try to flush at least one older cow that has survived and bred well for us. This cow fitted that bill for us two years ago. We have nine calves from her. We believe that she is pregnant by AI to Esslemont General L115, calving late July/early August, 2018.
Selected Maiden Heifers We retain virtually all of our maiden heifers and cull them seriously only after they have been pregnancy tested, structurally scored and scanned for IMF, fat and eye muscle area. Murray Kodak N5 (NURN5) We have chosen to use Kodak as a source of marbling genes in our herd and have some spectacular calves by him out of our Wave daughters. We intentionally joined Kodak to a daughter of V A R Reserve to get even more outcross vigour. Reserve has bred some very docile calves for us that are also structurally very sound. The mother of this heifer is a good example of these quality animals. Murray Proceed N27 (NURN27) By HPCA Proceed out of Murray Wave J43. Unique pedigree. Full siblings that we have used include Murray Proceed M204 and M3 - two very special animals. Proceed has for a long time been the highest marbling bull in the United States. Semen is no longer readily available so you should not miss this unique opportunity to buy into these genetics. Murray Grando N47 (NURN47) This high growth heifer by El Grando is out of one of our soundest older cows. We have flushed her mother often over the last few years. Our Grando daughters are the base from which we will breed high growth, marbling cattle that do not carry excess fat. This heifer can give you the opportunity to do the same. Strongly recommended to serious breeders of Angus cattle. Murray Momentum N75 (NURN75) This young heifer is another daughter of J43. Her sire is G A R Momentum. The combination of marbling and muscling in this animal is unusual. It gives you the opportunity to breed animals with marbling, muscling and growth. We will flush a heifer of this breeding later in the year - probably to El Grando or a Grando son.
Kilburnie Angus A Small Modern Breeding Programme In order to be a competitive breeder of seedstock Angus cattle we breed animals that: 1. are among the highest indexing in the breed, 2. have acceptable levels of performance in those traits that are not in the index, and 3. survive and perform under commercial grazing conditions. With modern genetic evaluation it is now relatively cheap and easy for commercial producers to produce average bulls. A number of our clients are already going down this track. We are supporting their moves in this direction and know that we will have to adjust to lower prices for average bulls than currently prevail. Seedstock producers who want to survive will have to do the same. To produce high indexing animals we need access to high indexing bulls. Currently we can access some leading genetics from North America and from some Australian sources. However we cannot rely on access to high indexing bulls from other sources indefinitely so are forced to breed and use our own. Consequently single step analysis and genomic testing of all animals in our herd is an essential part of our programme. Some traits that are not in the indices are important and we do not ignore them. Docility, structural soundness and feed efficiency are the main examples. We have EBVs for all of these and take them into account when making breeding decisions. We place emphasis on calving ease and days to calving because they are in the indices - birthweight is not, nor is scrotal size. The major threat to the future of our business is that Angus cattle no longer seem to be the go to breed for meat quality. Testing our animals for meat quality - quantity of marbling, fineness of marbling, shear strength, palatability - and feed efficiency is beyond our ability. We will have to rely on genomic testing for these characteristics and we want our animals to be part of the population that is measured and genotyped for these difficult to measure traits The reference population for these traits is currently the animals in the Angus Sire Benchmarking Program. We have had at least one bull in each of the eight cohorts in that programme to date. We have had personal experience of Rhode Island Red chickens and Gloucester Old Spot pigs (but not Jersey or Illawarra Shorthorn cows). We do not intend to let our black (or red) Angus cows go down the same industrial super highway. We hope that you will make the effort to get your cattle to be breed leaders. When you do we trust that you will allow us to have access to their genetics. www.kilburnieangus.com.au kilburnie@westnet.com.au David Murray 0427 775 902 02 4471 3675 Andy Burwell 0457 025 399 02 6777 8182
Kilburnie Angus Sales Procedure The cows and heifers that we are selling are currently at Straban, Walcha. They are available for inspection at a time convenient to you and us. Andy Burwell lives at Straban. David Murray will be there between April 23 and 26 and again during the last 10 days in May. We have set individual reserve prices for these animals as shown below. If you wish to purchase one or more of them you should submit an offer, preferably by email. We will record, but not accept, offers below the reserve prices. We will accept bid increments of $500 on the cows and $250 on the heifers. We will update this document regularly - as below - to show the highest offers on animals when they exceed the reserve and indicate (in code) who holds the current bid on each animal. We will not consider offers made after 9.00 am on Thursday May 31. We will accept the highest offer (if it exceeds the reserve price) for any animal made before that time. If the highest offer on an animal is below the reserve price we will contact the person who made the offer and see whether we can reach an agreement on a mutually acceptable price. David Murray is happy to discuss this procedure with you at any time. Current Reserves/Bids on Kilburnie Private Treaty Sale Animals Animal Reserve Price Bid Holder Animal Reserve Price Bid Holder BNAE105 4000 N005 4000 J043 10000 N027 4000 J105 7500 N047 4000 A K031 5000 N075 3500 B Buyer A holds the bid (below reserve) on N047. Buyer B holds the bid (above reserve) on N075. You need to bid $3750 or more if you wish to buy N075. Updated April 17, 2018