Polled Club
Success for Polled Welsh Black Cattle
The 2009 Smallholders and garden festival weekend held on Saturday 16th and Sunday 17th May at the Royal Welsh Agricultural show ground proved to be successful for both the Society and the Polled Cattle club.
The Society won best beef promotional stand with £100 cash prise money as its reward. The Polled Rhuddel cow and calf exhibited by the polled Club chairman Mr Colin Evans, Nantymoch, Gwynfe near Llangadog in Carmarthenshire attracted a great deal of interest and enquires from potential cattle buyers.
The Club members continued with their promotion of the Polled cattle at the one day NBA Beef Expo event held in May at the Three Counties Show ground in Malvern.
Two 15 months old Polled bulls exhibited from the Morlais herd c/o Mr Hywel Rhys Davies and Son Dafydd of Cefn Dod Farm Patnership in Hirwaun near Aberdare in Glamorgan, resulted in several commercial and dairy farmers seeking to purchase the bulls to place on their cattle.
During the show a homebred 2 year old maiden heifer bred and exhibited by Mr Elfed Williams, Station Court, Sennybridge, Powys won the Champion Native Beef animal.
The heifer Cwmcynog Katey was sired by Cathedine Hywel Calon Ddewr a polled bull from Mr & Mrs Eric and Lodes Davies of the Cathedine herd in Brecon.
Within a week of these successes for the Polled Cattle Club, three homebred polled heifers from the Ruddel herd c/o Mr & Mrs Colin Evans in Carmarthenshire were exported to Denmark. Rhuddel polled cattle have been exported to Denmark for three consecutive years and to Germany in 2007 and in 2008.
Semen sales of Polled Welsh Black Cattle genetics have also been exported during recent years to Australia, New Zealand, Germany and Canada.
An open day is to be held on Tuesday 22nd September to commence at 2pm. The hosts and venue are Mr & Mrs Eric & Lodes Davies, Lower Cathedine, Bwlch Breconshire LD3 7SZ.
Warm welcome to all
Telephone 01982-551111 at the Society Builth Wells office to confirm farm Walk attendance and for further information details regarding Polled Welsh Black Cattle Breeding.
Rhuddel Joseff a polled bull which was exported to Denmark in 2007
TRADITION AND TECHNOLOGY
The Rhuddel herd was established in 1998 with selective purchases from the Idloes, Cathedine And Morlais herds. The decision to establish a Polled Welsh Black herd was an easy one to make, with incomes falling and less labour on farms not having to dehorn calves made sense. Our aim initially was to sell heifers and bulls at the society sales, but there was not the demand for Polled Welsh Black cattle in this country, despite the fact that we have bulls achieving 2 kg/day liveweight gain and killing out E and U grades at 58 to 65%. After increasing the herd to over 20 breeding females we were getting into a situation where quality breeding heifers were worth no more than the slaughter value. The grand plan to sell quality heifers was suddenly falling apart and something had to be done about it. After much deliberation and research we decided to set up a website to advertise our cattle worldwide.
The use of technology in its different forms has helped us to make sales to breeders in numerous countries. Breeders of Welsh Black Cattle have a tremendous asset for which there is a demand worldwide. Tapping into this demand is not as expensive or as difficult as many think. A website can be set up for £800-£1000, this then advertises your herd 24 hrs a day 365 days of the year all over the world.
Since setting up our website www.rhuddelwelshblack.co.uk we have had visitors to it from in excess of 55 countries. We are in contact with Welsh Black breeders in Germany, Canada, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand on a regular basis. Sales of cattle and semen abroad within the first 9 months have more than paid for the website. Having marketed the product we are now unable to supply any more breeding stock until we wean this years crop of heifers in March 2009.Semen for Idloes Lewis-Benji has been sold to 5 countries including Nigeria, it is through the website that we are able to make cattle breeders around the globe aware of the attributes of Welsh Black cattle. The website gets all sorts of enquiries from farmers looking for advice to those who wish to purchase either cattle or semen. We get asked all sorts of questions about our stock such as hip height and scrotal circumference of a bull, the EBV of a heifer or bull, pictures of sire and dam of a particular bull or heifer to mention just a few. Without email or the website it would be difficult to supply this information. An important part of selling through the website is to give as much information as possible to assist buyers in making a decision as to which bull to use by A.I. or which bull or heifer to purchase.
Signet recording assists us in giving potential purchasers useful information along side GeneStar. The GeneStar test gives us scores for marbling, tenderness and feed efficiency. In this climate of increasing feed and fertiliser costs I feel that a high score for feed efficiency is an important factor in the purchase of breeding stock. If a breeder sells direct to a butcher then marbling and tenderness may be of higher importance. However I cannot emphasise enough that you must not lose sight of other important traits such as ease of calving, locomotion, docility and conformation to name but a few.
There are other avenues which need to be researched such as a test for determining if an animal is homozygous for the polled gene. I have recently being in touch with a Canadian company who can offer this service but it gets quite expensive as you need to test a horned sibling if you have one, and both parents plus the animal you require the result for with each test costing $65.00 Canadian. They also require that all cattle are parentage tested . I have been in discussion with Merial with regard to the test and they inform me that it is possible but would be dependent on about 200 cattle being tested and accurately recorded for polled, scurs or horned. Some other breeds have this test available to them and if we want a share of their market then we will have to move quickly.
Polled cattle are preferred in some countries where their Ministries of Agriculture or equivalent are actively trying to “breed the horns off the national herd”. In Australia 47% of all cattle are naturally polled 1% have scurs and 52% are horned, the 52% that are horned cause $22.5 million worth of damage to hides, bruising to carcasses and other injuries .
The story is similar in Canada where breeders are actively addressing the problem by purchasing more polled bulls than ever before. There is plenty of evidence of this swing such as the Simmental breed which registered 18% of the bulls polled in 1989 but by 1999 that figure had risen to 32%. The charollais has also followed this trend with polled bull registrations at 38% 1988-90 and showing a significant increase to 65.5% by 1998-2000.Looking at information from Ireland they are also steering farmers in the polled direction.
In both Canada, America and Australia scientific trials have been conducted to determine if there is any difference in all aspects of production and performance between horned and polled cattle from the same breed. These scientific trials showed no difference thus proving that this myth is just that a myth.
Trials conducted on dehorning young calves with an anaesthetic also proved that the calf is in considerable pain once the anaesthetic has worn off and there is talk from Europe of dehorning becoming a vet only procedure. It is evidence like this that is driving the forward thinking large extensive farmers around the world to favour polled cattle. This is not something new but a trend that has being developing over 20 Plus years.
Sadly a lack of Polled Welsh Black Breeders in the UK is allowing other polled breeds to supply cattle that we are unable to .We as Welsh Black breeders need to be aware of what markets are available to us not just at home but all over the world. With the use of websites, gene technology and accurate recording we can gain a share of what is potentially a huge market.