Investing in a high performance Charolais terminal sire has the potential to pay real dividends for Gwynant and Meinir Roberts who run a 70 cow suckler herd at Maenllwyd, Pencaenewydd, Pwllheli. Their first crop of calves by Balthayock Adolphus, who is within the breed’s top 1% on 400 day weight and eye muscle depth, have achieved an average 1.45kg DLG off milk and grass within their first six months and hit an average 310kg, one month earlier than previous crops. They also have better conformation, Mr Roberts explained at an HCC’s “Herd Health and Production” open day at Bryncir market. 

“I’ve never had calves grow so well, they’re solid with muscle and are noticeably wide over their tops, they were fairly straight forward to calve and I can’t get over the fact that it’s all down to the bull we choose. We’ve been using Charolais over the herd for more than 20 years simply because of the calves’ unbeatable weight for age and the fact they usually make the day’s top 5% of prices in the strong store ring at Bryncir. However, attending the training meetings held by HCC through the Welsh Beef Quality Improvement Project which were focused on how to select a bull on performance figures, I realised there was more to selecting a bull than meets the eye.

“We were taught how to interpret data that accompanies performance recorded bulls in the sale catalogue, and select a bull using those figures as a priority over his appearance. I went to Perth bull sales with a catalogue marked up with the highest performance bulls, followed HCC’s guidelines and the rest is history.

“Producing such high performance calves has given us the option to consider finishing them at home or offering them at a younger age in the store ring, confident that finishers will be able to take them to target weight faster and more efficiently.”