Shorthorn Society of Australia

After two years of restrictions and uncertainty around organising events, some levels of normalcy have started to return here in Australia, with shows now back on the agenda. International Dairy Week (IDW) 2022 was one of the first major shows to return. With the “cloud” of Covid outbreaks still hovering, exhibit numbers were somewhat reduced, particularly from interstate, with the risk of border closures still imminent. Despite this, the quality of animals on show was still at an absolute premium. Spectator numbers were noticeably low, but the beauty of modern technology meant that the Illawarra show livestream was viewed by a huge number of people from all over the world.

The IDW Supreme Champion Illawarra, Llandovery JR Joan 982, epitomises the Longevity that the breed has become renowned for. A 7th lactation ten year old, Joan exhibits ideal productive and functional type. She also happens to be the dam of “Jazzy” standing at Genetics Australia, and now Gorbo Stormy Jon has entered collection for Agri-Gene. Being a SunSupreme son, Jon has created a great deal of excitement with both his dam and PGD classified EX95.

Another exciting young bull has just become available in Llandovery Queens Emperor. Emperor is a maternal brother to Glenbrook Queens Prince – with the dam being the much admired Llandovery Jordens Queen EX94 3E. This time the Sire is the high indexing and high fat and protein % bull in Eagle Park Dwayne. Sales of Illawarra semen have been strong, boosted by the addition of an Illawarra bull to the ST Genetics team. Demand for sexed semen has been well above supply, with newer breeders especially utilising it as a tool to increase their Illawarra numbers as quickly as possible. Currently in Australia the Illawarra breed is evaluated within the “Red Breeds” data set, alongside Ayrshires and Aussie Reds (predominantly Scandinavian/Viking genetics). In the near future we are looking forward to the Illawarra breeding values being expressed as a separate data set, which will make it easier to evaluate Illawarra Sires relative to the actual breed average. Bushmills Jazz now has daughters milking in Australia, with early reports being very favourable. There are several young bulls around by Jazz out of high quality dams, and these will be watched closely as A.I. prospects as we monitor the performance of the Jazz daughters further into lactation.

Oxton Fever, Cotonhall Solomon and Oxton Finnan are other UK bulls that have more recently become available in Australia.

It was pleasing to be involved in a constructive zoom meeting initiated by Ryan Barrett involving representatives of Milking Shorthorn related breeds from around the globe. Collaboration is likely to be our best chance at achieving useful Genomic information and continuing this dialogue amongst breed societies will give us the best chance of success. Progress has been limited on the Genomics front for Illawarras thus far, but time has enabled us to assess our options and hopefully navigate the best way forward. We now have plans in place to start genotyping select individuals, commencing with Dams of bulls in A.I. and groups of daughters sired by proven bulls with high reliability. Our genetic evaluation centre Datagene has already started genotyping Illawarra bulls, with a plan of adding as many Sires as they can source straws from to their data set.

Champion Cow lineup from International Dairy Week 2022. IDW Senior Champion is 2nd from right; Llandovery JR Joan 982 EX95. Photo courtesy Fleur Ferguson.

Michael Tuhan Illawarra Development Program Chair