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Speckle Park breed on rapid growth trajectory around the world
By Kim Woods
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The Speckle Park International society membership has grown to 512 including one member each in the USA, Singapore, Ireland and Qatar, 12 in Canada, 40 in New Zealand and 455 in Australia. It is not only the flashy coat colours of the Speckle Park making people sit up and notice but the explosion in cattle numbers across Australia, New Zealand, the US and Europe as producers embrace the breed.
The membership comprises 12 life members, 34 juniors, 235 full stud members, 65 commercial and 166 associate members. Animal registrations peaked at 2939 for 2020 with 2900 registrations recorded up until November 2021. A total of 734 transfers of animals have been completed since January 1, 2021.
SPI has a female inventory of 3384 head and of the 2021 born calves registered, 629 are AI sired and 589 are the result of embryo transfer programs. Up until November, a total of 591 DNA orders had been received by SPI for 2021. In 2015, Australian bull sales totalled 81 head to average $4563 and by 2017 this had jumped to 126 sold to average $10,309.
Numbers rose steadily to 2020 when 275 bulls were cleared for an average of $8431 – this almost doubled in 2021 when 434 bulls averaged a $11,081.
In the stud females, a total of 55 head were sold in 2016 to average $5734. By 2019 this had jumped to 171 females sold to average $7563. In 2021, 370 were sold at double the 2019 average at $15,598.
World records for stud cattle were smashed in Australia with a bull topping at $65,000, a weaner heifer at $75,000, PTIC heifer at $70,000, joined cow and calf making $57,000, the highest priced female flush of $32,000 and the highest priced embryos at $5500 per embryo.
In the store and prime markets, Speckle Park and Speckle Park infused cattle were in heavy demand from restockers, backgrounders, processors and lot feeders.
The breed was able to run a stand-alone commercial sale at Shepparton, Vic, in November for the first time.
The national herd rebuild, a return to favourable seasons and strong export market kicked prices nationally to a top of 985c/kg for steer weaners, 878c/kg for heifer weaners, and $2880 for unjoined commercial heifers. Feeder steers topped out at $2585 and heavy grown steers at a whopping $3101. But it was the demand for purebred females and F1 vealer mothers which drove prices for heifers and calves to $4550.
Speckle Park International chairman Alex Pateman said the breed’s calving ease, growth, early maturity, carcass traits, meat eating quality, and eye appeal had won favour with commercial beef producers.
Mr Pateman said northern Australian herds were using Speckle Park bulls over their Bos indicus females to inject muscling, hybrid vigour, growth rates, fertility and marketability.
He said members entering commercial purebred and Speckle Park infused steers and heifers in carcase and feedback trials were quantifying the breed’s value proposition with consistently high scores in average daily weight gain and MSA Index for eating quality.
Mr Pateman said the calving ease and carcase traits had proven popular with the dairy industry wanting high value dairy beef calves and F1 vealer mothers to value add.
“As with anything worthwhile, building the Speckle Park breed in Australia comes with its challenges,” he said.
We have exciting times ahead in Speckle Park, the world is our oyster.
According to the Australian Registered Cattle Breeders Association, Speckle Park International ranked in the top 13 of all breeds in 2020 with 2874 primary registrations (females only) and a total of 3670 registrations. The primary registrations have jumped from 468 in 2011. Internationally, Premier Cattle Company will host New Zealand’s first Speckle Park female and genetics sale in March 2022 with embryos export qualified for Australia, Canada and USA.
Speckle Parks have taken off in every country where they have been introduced but the US has always lacked the genetics and live animals. But, thanks to a budding coalition of breeders, the US now has access to semen, embryos, heifers and bulls.
Launched in November was the American Speckle Park Association with board members Robert Harris, president, Ronald Carty Jr, vice president, Cory Ducherer, Keith Kissee, Tina Williams, Bill Hewat and Col Keyser.
The Association has partnered with the National Centre for Beef Excellence to handle registrations and the herd book, and the website www.amercianspecklepark.com is live. A second group has also been established, Speckle Park Cattle USA, with a website, www.spcattleusa.com, due to go live soon.
Speckle Park was recognised as a pure breed in Brazil in January 2021 followed by the formation of Speckle Park Brazil, the first shipment and implantation of embryos from Australia.
In Europe, Lanmore Speckle Park held the first auction of the breed in Ireland in October, attracting interest from home and abroad.
The top price was €2200 (AUS$3438) for a heifer and cows topped at €2000 (AUS$3125), embryo packages to €975 (AUS$1523) and implanted embryos to €1400 (AUS$2187).
Speckle Park International magazine - 2022 edition News
Speckle Park spreads its wings to global beef powerhouse
Pregnancy testing the recipients in the ET program. The Speckle Park Brazil implant team.
Speckle Park has been recognised as a pure breed in Brazil, a feat which hasn’t been accomplished since Angus were accepted in the country 35 years ago.
The breed is hoping to make inroads into the global beef giant’s 230 million head national herd, which includes 35 million dairy cattle, and inject meat quality, carcase yield, weight gain and hybrid vigour. The opportunity to target the Brazilian cattle industry came along six years ago when, through mutual friends, the Wattle Grove Speckle Park principals Dale and Belinda Humphries met Pedro Demartini, a Brazilian national living in Australia. The Humphries were confident the meat quality and high yields of their Speckle Park genetics would suit the tropical and sub-tropical grass and grain finishing Brazilian environment.
Discussions with Mr Demartini and his business partner Ricardo Monteiro resulted in the establishment of Speckle Park Brazil. The pair worked with the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Food Supply and the National Association of Breeders Herdbook Collares for more than two years to bring the program to realisation. The recognition was made official with an announcement in Brazil on January 26, 2021, resulting in a flood of inquiry for Australian and Canadian genetics for embryo transfer programs and AI in commercial co-operator herds. A separate company, Wattle Grove Speckle Park Brazil has been established and undertaken the first embryo transfer programs this year, working through Austrade.
“Six years ago we had a goal of taking Speckle Park to Brazil and after many months, weeks, days, hours, dollars and loads of help from hundreds of people, it has finally become a reality,” Mr Humphries said.
Mr Demartini described it as a breakthrough moment for the Speckle Park breed and paid tribute to the Wattle Grove team behind the initiative.
“Exciting news indeed. We are pumped to get the first lot of genetics into Brazil,” he said.
Speckle Park Brazil and Herdbook Collares are handling the stud registrations and coordinating the importation and licensing of genetics.
“It is a slow burn and gaining momentum, but we can’t meet what the demand is already,” Mr Humphries said. “When we first started with the breed our ambition was to take Speckle Park to the world – Brazil is the obvious choice, giving us the flexibility to eventually export to countries including Argentina.”
Mr Humphries said stringent Brazilian import protocols limited the intake of Australian genetics.
“It could be another six to eight years before a herd is established in Brazil. We are in this for the long run and the benefit of the whole breed.”
Four years ago, Wattle Grove exported Speckle Park beef as a trial.
“Hybrid vigour, growth and eating quality will be the big things for Brazil – they eat more beef per capita than any other country and the end product on the plate will drive it,” Mr Humphries said.
He said the uptake of artificial insemination among the large Brazilian commercial beef herds represented an opportunity for Australian genetics long term.
“There are 35 million head of dairy cattle in Brazil. We have done trials in Australia and New Zealand with the dairy cross and it’s going well – we can take that data and information to Brazil.
“But it will be 10-15 years away just to be able to supply the numbers. It’s a slow process and an expensive one but exciting times as well.”
Promoting Speckles to commercial producers in Northern NSW
New and existing cattle producers were introduced to the Speckle Park breed at Casino Primex with a display staged by Sunny Dale Speckle Park. Stud principal and SPI Youth committee member Mikayla Hamilton, Jiggi, NSW, had a busy three days in May at Primex displaying 15 heifers and young bulls, and some fitting service animals to promote the breed in the region. Sparkle Park International contributed banners, booklets and information on Speckle Park Youth, with 80 booklets handed out to interested visitors. “There was a lot of people saying they are going into stud cattle soon or have only just registered their herd, as well as a lot of people introducing Speckle Park into commercial herds,” Mikayla said.
Minnamurra sire quick to win votes worldwide in Sire Shootout
A Speckle Park bull showed his class in the virtual 2022 Sire Shootout by placing fourth out of 103 bulls with 180 votes. The competition was run by Australian Community Media and featured $7000 in cash and in-kind prizes. Minnamurra Quicksilver Q2 was exhibited by Dennis Power, Minnamurra Speckle Park, the largest purebred Speckle Park herd in the southern hemisphere. Sired by Redneck JSF Whiskey 4B and out of Minnamurra 300X Unique J73, the March 2019 drop bull is a half-brother to Plunderer P196, the winner of the Sire Shootout People’s Choice Award last year. Quicksilver came through the 2019 drought on his mother, and thereafter on pasture, tipping the scales at just under 900kg compared to the average weight of the Q bull draft at 752kg. His EBVs across the board are in the top one to five per cent of the breed.Viewers from around the world were impressed with the bull’s exceptional structure, meat yield and IMF figures, placing him fourth behind the winning Droughtmaster Cebella Brunswick.
From Mary’s barn to the world stage – the birth of Speckle Park
A book has been published by a Canadian author with definitive details, anecdotes, and photographs of the origins of the Speckle Park breed. In the book, The Cow that Jumped over the World, author Christine Pike outlines how the breed was a composite of Shorthorn, Angus, Jersey, Highland and Galloway called the Lindsay Lineback devised by Mary Lindsay. Bill and Eileen Lamont bred the Lindsay Lineback to their own Lamont Black Angus bulls to create the Speckle Park breed. Some Speckle Park steers were solid black, some white and some red and white – they were raised for beef rather than their colour. The newly formed Speckle Park Association staged a display at the 1986 Canadian Western Agribition beginning a run where the breed dominated carcase competitions across the country for the next decade. Mary Lindsay was honoured by the Canadian Highland Cattle Society and her photo hung in the Agriculture Wall of Fame while Bill and Eileen Lamont were given a lifetime achievement award by the Saskatchewan Cattlemen’s Association. They were posthumously inducted into the Saskatchewan Agricultural Hall of Fame in Saskatoon. Today there are more Speckle Park cattle in Australia than Canada.The hard bound cover book is written from the historical perspective of Miss Pike and includes more than 300 photographs. To order a copy write to Christine Pike at Box 97, Waseca, Saskatchewan, Canada. The book retails at CAN$95 plus shipping.
Young Sire a new hero for Holland’s Speckle Park herd
2020 was a milestone year for Ireland with the first Speckle Park pedigree animal to be sold to mainland Europe. Lanmore Hero was the first Irish-bred Speckle Park to be exported to Holland, breaking new ground for the breed. The nine-month-old calf was bred by Patrick Morrison, County Mayo, and sired by Templemichael Artic and bought by Robert Asbroek, who will use the bull as an outcross sire on Speckle Park crossbreds. Most Speckle Park cattle in Holland are commercial stock, the result of semen used on the dairy herd, a market also growing in Ireland. Patrick Morrison has one of the longest established herds of Speckle Park in Ireland having registered the Lanmore prefix in 2009.
