The British Charolais Cattle Society

WELSHPOOL SALE 18 April – CANCELLED

The Welshpool sale has now been cancelled due to Defra ruling.  The catalogue will still be produced to view on the Charolais website for prospective buyers.  Please could all vendors contact Glandon at Welshpool Market Tel: 01938 553438 regarding placing your animals with prospective buyers

COVID-19 UPDATE

31 March 2020

Dear Members,

Due to the Coronavirus restrictions in place the Breedplan Accredited Scanners are not operating until further notice.

To have at least growth EBVs in place, can breeders please weigh their cattle before turn out. As scan data can be accepted up to 30 months of age hopefully the scanners can catch up with the backlog later in the year if the situation allows.

We are up to date with weights at the moment but with communications being a bit hampered if you would like your weights to be included in the next ABRI run (1st May) please send them in with plenty of time available before the close off date.

Email is a must on this so please send to Barbara directly: barbara@breedplan.co.uk

30 March 2020

We hope that you are all keeping safe and well under the current circumstances.

We are trying our best to maintain our usual service and hope that if have contacted us in the past week you have found that we have been able to help you quickly, we aim to come back to you within one working day.

Unfortunately, due to the latest government guidelines we are at present not able to collect post from the Society office, we have made alternative arrangements, but this means that we will not have access to the post as quickly as usual.

In order to help us to process your registrations as quickly as possible it would be most helpful if you were able to submit them online, but if you are unable to and usually submit your registrations in the post, please could you if possible scan or photograph them and email them to us at charolais@charolais.co.uk.

If you do not have a direct debit set up with the Society, payments can be made by bank transfer rather than by cheque, to ensure that all transactions are processed as quickly as possible. Please contact us at charolais@charolais.co.uk for our bank account details.

We will keep you updated as to the latest developments in relation to shows and sales as soon as we have them, in the meantime please stay safe. – The Charolais Team

Commercial demand drives price increase at Dungannon

The market was packed to the rafters for the Charolais sale at Dungannon on Friday 6 March, where bidding peaked at 6,200gns and 33 bulls sold to average £3,465.00 up £86.00 on last year. The sale saw 85% of the bulls forward finding new homes, an increase of 19% from 2019, most of which were purchased by the commercial market.

The day’s top seller at 6,200gns was the pre-show junior champion who also went on the receive the reserve supreme and reserve male championship accolades. Bred and exhibited by Sean McGovern, Clogher, Co Tyrone, Ratoary Ourboy is a 16 month-old by the Royal Welsh show reserve junior champion Montgomery Ianto, and his dam Clooncullane Chloe goes back to the French-bred Mozart. He was purchased by R Pedlow, Lurgan, Co Armagh. Read the full report…

Aberdeen Charolais average up on the year

Charolais trade was led by a strong commercial interest at the Aberdeen and Northern Marts multibreed Spring show on Wednesday 26 February, where Charolais averages climbed by £481.25 from last year to £4,943.75 for the 12 bulls sold and bidding peaked at 6,800gns.

The supreme and breed champion was the top selling Charolais of the day, at 6,800gns. Bonnykelly Officer, a 20 month-old bull by the 10,000gns Carlisle reserve intermediate champion Gretnahouse Ivory, exhibited by Robert Leggat, New Pitsligo, Aberdeenshire, was snapped up by PAK Junor, Dores, Inverness-shire. His dam Bonnykelly Fern is sired by the 9,000gns New Deer show champion Newhouse Challanger. Read more…

Charolais remain king at Stirling

Charolais once again sold the highest number of bulls as well as producing the biggest average of all breeds sold at the Spring round of the Stirling bull sales. They also matched the top price of 25,000gns not once but twice, sold a total of 117 with 15 bulls to five figures and a strong commercial interest saw 74 sell for 5,000gns and above. The breed’s average of £6,633.85 was up £571.18 up on the year while the clearance rate was 79% at the sale on Tuesday 18 February. Read more…

 

 

We need your help please

Since we have changed our DNA testing to SNP testing, we have had to re-test a lot of the old bulls that were previously tested on MS.

Unfortunately, lots of the samples that were on hold were not suitable to be re-tested and therefore there are still lots of bull which don’t have a SNP profile.

This is a problem because it means that we have to test their progeny on both the old and new technologies (SNP & MS) if we need to sire verify them.

Therefore we are appealing to you our members to help us out.

Please could you have a look in your semen storage to see if you can spare us a straw or two.

Please visit Semen Samples Required for DNA Testing to look at the list of samples we require.

If you can donate a straw of semen for one or more bulls on the list, we would be very grateful. Please contact us at the office to let us know.

 

Why Myostatin?
Knowing the myostatin status of your animals, will help you to select bulls with the most appropriate myostatin traits for your breeding program. This will lead to better calving ease and help with the ever-present trend to improve carcass confirmation and quality.

There are both advantages and disadvantages of breeding with animals carrying the myostatin gene, which is why it is imperative that you know the carrier status of your breeding animals.

Read more…

Charolais Youth

2020 Regional Qualifier Dates

Charolais Youth Year

This year’s regional qualifiers began with the Welsh & Midlands qualifier, which was once again held at Welshpool livestock market with the help of Welshpool livestock sales, on the night proceeding the April Charolais sale.

The market, which was redeveloped and opened on its new and existing site in 2009, is capable of holding in excess of 1200 cattle and 15,000 sheep, and holds weekly sales of prime sheep and cattle as well as fortnightly sales of dairy and store cattle, selling in excess of 500,000 sheep and 10,000 cattle annually. In addition to the livestock market, WSL also offer other specialist services, including land valuations and surveys, farm and livestock sales and a range of grant and government subsidy services. Read more…

Charolais Youth Page
Facebook Page