IMPORTATION OF TOP CHAROLAIS BULL

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32233, 27 February 1970, Page 6

IMPORTATION OF TOP CHAROLAIS BULL

A group of Canterbury breeders have joined together in a company called Canterbury Charolais, Ltd, to purchase a top English Charolais bull, Cowcroft Equity, for almost $14,000.

■ Landed at Oxford, where the young white bull arrived last week, it cost the Canterbury group about $17,000. When the newcomer was inspected last week by the directors of the company, Charolais breeders and a party of Australian buyers on the Aroha Downs property of Messrs C. L. and J. E. Austin, at Oxford, Mr J. E. Austin, who is chairman of Canterbury Charolais. Ltd. said the breeders in the company had pooled their resources to obtain one of the best bulls that they could to help establish the breed in this country. . Cowcroft Equity, who was born on March 1 last year, when he weighed 881 b, comes from Mr A. S. Harman. of Grove Farm. Chesham. Buckinghamshire, who is president of tbe British Charolais Society. He is by Angola, a Charolais sire with a very good record for ease of calving, and is out of Clairette. At October 31 last year when he weighed 9401 b. Cowcroft Equity had a daily live weight gain from birth of 3.51 b a day. or a performance of 3.851 b a day of age (including birth weight). Mr Austin said that these figures had been achieved when the young bull was not being fed to capacity, as the directors of the company had instructed his owner not to “overdo” the bull in preparation for the long trip that he had ahead of him. Cowcroft Equity was selected for the Canterbury group by Mr Mark Acland. of Mount Peel station at Peel Forest, when he visited Britain in the middle of last year. Mr Acland considered him to be the best bull calf of the breed he had seen when

he visited Mr Harman’s property, and after also seeing the cattle at the R®yal Show in Britain he was still of the opinion that there was nothing to touch him. He was a good feeder making good use of his feed and had a good weight gain, and Mr Acland said he was also impressed by his muscling and heavy .bone. His sire. Angola, was known to be a good sire and since then his dam, Clairette. which had calved as a two-year-old, had been considered by French judges looking for animals of the breed to exhibit in London, to be one of the best heifers in the country.

Mr Acland said he knew that others also regarded Cowcroft Equity highly and Mr R. L. Bell, a veterinary surgeon, who is a Charolais breeder himself on the Scottish border in Cumberland and a member of the council of the British Charolais Cattle Society, Ltd. who travelled out to New Zealand with the bull and other cattle in the Westmorland, said he would say that Cowcroft was one of the best bulls to come out of Britain and one of the best produced in Britain last year.

Mr Bell said that Cowcroft had wonderful bone and great length and a great growth capacity.

A full brother of Angola is said to ha v e weighed 30001 b at three years of age and at the 1968 Smithfield show in Britain the animal with the highest weight for age of any animal of any breed in the show was a Dairy Shorthorn cross by Angola. At a recent Essex show in a strong class for threequarter Charolais a French judge put a daughter of Angola first. She weighed 11401 b at 400 days without

any special treatment. And between April 28 and -lune 28 in 1968 11 of Angola’s daughters put on an average of 31b of weight a day on grass only with one in the buneh doing 3.91 b per day.

Mr Austin said it was intended after a period of rest that Cowcroft Equity should go to an artificial breeding centre. Initially semen from him would be used by the directors of the company and if his progeny were good it was likely that semen from him would be made available to other breeders also.

Mr Bell, who accompanied 30 head of cattle on the Westmorland including 13 purebred Charolais, 14 crossbreds and two Hereford heifers and an Aberdeen Angus bull, emphasised that the cattle had a trying time before, during and after the trip. Basically, he said, they had no exercise for three months. They had to undergo painful tests before going into quarantine in Britain, then fur ther tests for foot and mouth disease in quarantine, then a month’s hazardous journey by sea and about a further seven weeks of testing and confinement in a limited area when they reached this country. He told the party at Oxford that arrangements for the shipping of the cattle to New Zealand had left something to be desired. He said that' the hay provided had been of very poor quality and when four animals had developed pneumonia at Curacao two would have died had he not had a private supply of, antibiotics. Apart from Mr Austin the directors of Canterbury Charolais, Ltd. include Messrs J. O. Acland, of Mount Peel. J. H. Davison, of Culverden, P. H. Elworthy, of Craigmore, Maungati. R. G. Macdonald, of Blythe Downs, and D. E. Robertson, of Scargill. Mr M. .1. H. Davison, a farm management consultant, is secretary.