This press release from the Wagyu Expansion Conference that was held by our partner, the Australian Wagyu Association, makes very interesting reading..
Semen sold for $28,000 a straw, bulls to $105,000 and a heifer in utero made $95,000 at the Elite Wagyu sale at the Wagyu Expansion Conference in Albury MSW on Wednesday. All three are Australian record prices for the breed and stunned the 400 delegates in attendance.
The common thread with all three lots was they all sit in the top one per cent of the breed’s Fullblood Terminal index (FTI) indicating the growing acceptance of Wagyu Breedplan figures generated by the rapidly expandingWagyu database of growth, fertility and carcase information.
The $28,000/straw semen sale was for a package of 10 straws making it a $280,000 transaction. The vendor was the Japanese owned Macquarie Wagyu stud and specialist Wagyu feedlot on Queensland’s Darling Downs managed byAnthony and Chantal Winter. The donor sire was the deceased Macquarie Y408, with an FTI of +$595, the second highest ranked bull in the Wagyu database.
Buyer was Hendrick Markram’s South African based Miku Wagyu, a relative newcomer to the Wagyu breed who also paid $95,000 for a heifer in utero offered by Laird and Sonia Morgan, Arubial Pty Ltd, Condamine Qld.
The buyer was on the telephone from South Africa giving bidding instructions to Jeremy Cooper of Wag-You dot com who said the genetics would remain in Australia to breed cattle that may be exported at some point in the future.
Fourth generation Queensland cattle producer Ian Hewitt and his son Cameron went to $105,000 to obtain the two year old sire Mayura L0010 for their new Wagyu enterprise based at Hanging Rock Station, Charters Towers, Qld. Offered by the de Bruin family’s Mayura stud at Millicent SA, this sire is in the top one per cent of the breed for FTI and marbling.
The bull will go to a semen collection center near Rockhampton before heading to his new home where a couple of thousand Shorthorn X Brahman cows will be joined to Wagyu each year with the F1 females retained to increase the Wagyu content in the herd.
Ian Hewitt said they intended to become heavily involved in the Wagyu industry to elevate marbling levels and generate feedlotter interest in their cattle.
Roger Hocking’s Summitt Agricutural, Albury, NSW, headed the volume buyers outlaying $86,200 for live cattle and genetic lots.
The sale averages were:
7 females average $25,570
28 embryos averaged $2600/embryo
10 bulls averaged $20,799
170 semen straws averaged $1962/straw