News from the Menalpyn Property and Herd.

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Composite cattle well put together

GREG and Sally Chappell, Dulverton Angus, Shannon Vale, Glen Innes, New South Wales, have used a composite Lancaster bull to improve musculature and marbling qualities in their herd.
Having been involved with Meat Standards Australia Greg was keen to buy a bull that threw calves with high scores for eating quality, tenderness, marbling and saleable yield. And he was also keen to add an infusion of Gateway Simmental genetics into his herd after researching Genestar testing data from Jim and Lyn Butcher's Gateway stud, Montana, United States.

The Lancaster bull was by Gateway Lucky Dice, with a 5.5-6 frame score.
"I bought him to increase muscling, but I have maintained maternal attributes," Greg said. "He suits what we want to do."

The Chappells, who have offered only composite bulls for the past six years, have sold three bull calf drops by the Lancaster bull to Queensland and the New England area - a total of 40 bulls to Qld and 12 to locals.
"Usually we don't sell yearlings but all of these were sold-on as bull calves, with the top five progeny being sold at 13-14 months," Greg said
About 60 daughters have also been retained by the stud to build-up breeding numbers.
Heifers are joined at 320kg at 13 months.
"Once they are joined we cull from then on based on the weight gain of their progeny," Greg said.
And although Lancaster bull has never been used over heifers - at 1180kg he is too heavy - his daughters have had no calving problems, their calves usually about 33-42kg at birth.
The Chappells run 250 composite bull breeding cows and 300 Angus cows on their 1300ha stud with the help of their manager Arron Graham. - MIRANDA KENNY.

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March 23rd saw the completion of a very important step in the development of Lancaster Simmental, with our Inaugural Bull Sale taking place under fine conditions with a great turnout.

The sale itself went extremely well with a pleasing top price of $5250 (Lot 9, pictured right) and an average of $3277 across the 18 lots sold. We were delighted to welcome Jim and Lynn Butcher from Gateway Stud in Montana to our inaugural sale.

The Butcher's stud is a major source of genetics for the Lancaster herd, and bred GW Lucky Dice, the sire of most of Lancaster's Black Simmental bulls in the sale. It is worth noting that the Lucky Dice genetics were particularly popular with all of his progeny being bidded on in the first few minutes of the helmsman auction.

Thanks very much from the Lancaster team to our agents Bruce Treloar, Jono Spence and Bertie Butler for helping make the day go smoothly and to everyone who turned up to make it an enjoyable and successful day, and of course a special thank you to all our buyers - congratulations and we are sure you will not be disappointed!

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