Breeding for carcase quality In May 2020 our steer Q119, which had been prepared by Chevalier College, won the Supreme Champion Carcase at the South Coast Beef Association Steer Spectacular with a score of 99%. The steer featured in The Land under the headline of “near-perfect score“. Story here, opens in new tab. After the […]
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These comments on the coat colour of Murray Greys were originally posted some time ago on our website but have now been updated following further testing and field observations.
Read moreAt Cadfor Murray Greys we call ourselves “The Quiet Achievers”. This is no marketing gimmick – we only keep and breed quiet cattle. People that have inspected our stock or bought our bulls nearly always mention the quiet temperament of our cattle are and how easy they are to handle. We are so confident […]
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Some decades ago when Murray Greys were winning all the carcase competitions I recall a comment from an industry judge. He paid a compliment to the early breeders of Murray Greys saying that they had established cattle with the best and most even coverage of finish or fat cover. Talking with various people since that time, the importance of getting an even coverage on ribs and rump has been emphasised.
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We ran our Murray Greys at Picton for about 35 years and never had a problem with feet despite keeping many cows into their teenage years. The herd was fairly early maturing and we had a couple of dam lines that tended to be roly poly fat. The pasture at Picton was essentially C4 tropical type grasses like paspalum, kikuyu and natives such as kangaroo grass.
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At Cadfor we have been deliberately breeding some black Murray Greys in recent years. Some people do not agree with this or ask us why. It is a decision we have not taken lightly but in our situation it is vitally important to promoting our cattle to local commercial cattle breeders. Because some overseas breeders have asked us about our black MGs we will give a detailed explanation.
Read moreLast year we used semen from the leading Angus sire, Ayrvale Bartel E7, in some of our best Murray Grey cows. The main reason was to get a benchmark to compare some top Angus calves against those of our breeding. The calves are on the ground now and we have been reviewing the experiment.
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I remember reading an interesting paper entitled “Effect of breed on the profitability of commercial beef production” written by Holmes and Sackett some years ago but I mislaid it. Going through some files I found it again and reproduce the findings here.
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You see a bull described as a ‘curve bender’, so what does this mean? In essence it means that, although the bull has above average growth in his calves, they have below average birthweights. In other words his calves are born small but grow fast – the Holy Grail of bull breeding!
Read moreWe have been breeding Murray Greys for 40 years. After a lifetime of breeding we are more enthusiastic than ever about the breed and about the quality of animals that we now offer the commercial cattle breeder.
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