Tough day for Limousin breeders at national fixture

At the breed’s national show and sale interest was subdued due to a general lack of buyers. See the full results and analysis here.

A lack of buyers meant a tough result for Limousin breeders at the annual sale.

The Limousin National Show and Sale could only produce a top price of $11,000 twice – once for a female and once for a bull – in a sale where the bull clearance was less than 50 per cent.

The highlight was the top-priced bull which was sold by the Maclure family from Tarcutta, NSW.

Bek Bayley from Tarcutta, NSW, with Keajura Park Speedloaded S8, the top price bull at the Limousin National Show and Sale at Holbrook, NSW.

David Maclure said it was the first time the family had exhibited at the national fixture after starting the stud in 2016.

The bull, Keajura Park Speedloaded S8 was an apricot bull that was homozygous poll and had a raw measurement for eye muscle of 149 square centimetres.

It sold though Auctionsplus to Brinsley Pastoral Company at Sackville, NSW.

The Maclures had used the 25-month-old bull in their own herd as a backup bull, and had figures of +62 for 600-day weight, +4.2 for eye muscle area and +69 for docility.

Keajura Park, run by David and his two sons, Hamish and Edward, has just 15 cows but uses an extensive embryo transfer program to expand their herd.

And as well as topping the sale, they were buyers of genetic packages at last week’s sale, paying $800 each for three embryos from a joining of Balamore Gryphon 930G and Red Oak Miss Magic Prize Q1, a combination which has a homozygous poll pedigree and estimated breeding values which included short gestation length, moderate birth weight and strong growth.

Action from the Limousin National Show and Sale at Holbrook, NSW.

But it was a tough day for the Limousin bulls, with just 11 of the 24 offered selling to average $5955.

The sales’s top female price of $11,000 was paid for a July 2021-drop joined black Limousin heifer Aruma Starlight sold by Phoebe Eckermann from Two Wells, South Australia. Starlight was sired by Richmond Crusader SRD 53c and was polled.

Of the 17 females offered, 11 sold for an average of $6864.