No Time For Crossbred

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32351, 17 July 1970, Page 8

No Time For Crossbred

Mr H. Williams, of Victoria, who judged at the national Angus show and sale at Dannevirke last week, had some critical comments to make about crossbreeding. Telling New Zealand cattlemen to “stick with the traditional British beef breeds.” he said that Australian breeders were concerned about the extent of cross-breeding, particularly with exotic cattle. Some Australian breeders, he said, were trying to gear the cattle industry to the country’s 20 per cent export trade. “This is what we call our chopper trade—l think you call them canners—and they consist of cast-off cows and old bulls.”

Mr Williams said Australia might one day have graded (payment by grade) beef, and these “mongrelised” cattle would “get the axe.” Of the Angus in Australia, Mr Williams said that breeders were aiming for more size and scale, but this did not mean a big, plain type of beast. They still wanted good breed characteristics. The Angus breed was growing in Australia. Fourteen thousand stud calves were registered last year—a rise of 5000 in four years. Mr Williams was asked what he thought of the Murray Greys—a breed which is riding the crest of the wave in Australia at the moment. “We have no quarrel with them,” he said. “They are 99 per cent Angus. They are all right”