KWA News | 23rd August 2024 - Koolang Wagyu Australia

The Season

Normally we would be at the end of winter at this stage of the year. Spring has arrived early. The grass has changed to that glorious green which one only finds in spring. Clover is appearing in all our paddocks and combined with 100mls of rain in the last six weeks we are looking at a pretty good season. Effectively, spring is three weeks early and very welcome.

Progress

We are in the middle of calving and very pleased with progress. There are over 70 Full Blood calves on the ground. Each one has been caught, tagged, weighed and recorded within 24hrs of birth with the help of our new calf catcher. This machine is manufactured by Branxholm Fabrications Pty Ltd in Tasmania. It is a really heavy duty machine which given the rocks in some of our paddocks is very important.

We are populating the website with the latest data on our Bulls for sale we expect it to be updated by the 1st September. There are some terrific yearling bulls available with Marble score EBV’s greater than 2. There are also half a dozen 2yr old bulls which are looking very strong as they come out of their winter coats.

Unfortunately our star bull from 2022, KWAF22T0053 had a nasty accident and had to be put down. Luckily we use artificial insemination and embryo transfer extensively and while he will be missed we have good coverage with our exisiting bulls.

The Market

F1 markets are generally stable with a slight upward trend. We look forward to seeing this consolidate towards the end of this year. There is good news across the Australian cattle market as the shortage of meat in the US continues to provide a solid foundation for our markets here. There is some divergence between different feedlots in their grid prices for F1 Steers and Heifers. The overall trend is positive. Clearly, the preference for quality genetics is being felt across the industry.