Hereford bulls from five studs across Gippsland are up for inspection tomorrow, a week prior to the date of the Gippsland Performance Herefords bull and female sale.
The group’s fourth annual online bull sale will take place on Wednesday, September 4, and includes females for the first time.
On offer are 20 young Poll Hereford bulls as well as 10 Poll Hereford females, all which have had to reach certain criteria to be included in the sale, having been independently assessed.
Four of those females have calves at foot, while the remaining six are yearlings.
Last year’s top-priced bull was Mundook Turbo T231 at $13,000, with the 21 bulls averaging $7250, and more sold after the sale.
An online sale is a modern option for selling bulls, with the group’s vision to sell young Hereford bulls and females with structural soundness and above-average genetic merit.
Gippsland Performance Herefords is a collaboration between five Poll Hereford stud principals, Charellen Poll Hereford stud, at Pearsondale near Sale, run by Stan Walker; Mundook Herefords owned by Gary and Jill McAinch, alongside Bill and Minnie Kee’s, Warringa Herefords at ‘Wandana’, Sarsfield, near Bairnsdale; Tarwin Poll Herefords, owned by David Meikle, at Meeniyan in South Gippsland, and Willack Poll Herefords, owned by Bill and Annie Lack, at Dawson near Heyfield.
Warringa Herefords’ Bill Kee said all the stud principals were long-time supporters of Breedplan and they had set high standards their cattle had to attain, or they were not entered in the sale.
“We’re very proud of our animals, in our catalogue each animal has a bar graph included to show their Estimated Breeding Values against the breed average,” he said.
“Most of us used to sell our bulls privately but the collaboration between us over the past four years has helped each stud.
“We all believe in the science behind the EBV data and our animals are DNA tested.
“We work on improving qualities like carcase, marbling, growth, gestation length and calving ease.”
All sale cattle are poll, the majority being homozygous, though some are heterozygous poll, meaning they only have one polled gene.
Each beast has also passed an independent structural assessment and fertility/semen test conducted by a qualified assessor and the assessments are available on request.
All five studs will open for inspection tomorrow between 9am and 4pm or at any other time by contacting the specific vendor.
There will also be hard copy catalogues available at each stud.
The AuctionsPlus run Gippsland Performance Herefords bull sale will commence online at 11am, to see the catalogue visit the Performance Herefords website.
