British Blue Bull Book

Volume 6 - 2008

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Understanding Breedplan

Why Buy British Blue Genetics?

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Bull Book Trait Leaders

CHAIRMAN’S INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the new edition of the British Blue Cattle Society’s ‘Bull Book’ of British Bred Semen Sires.

British Blue breeders have come a long way in developing the ‘British Type’ of Blue, since their introduction into the UK in the early 1980’s. They recognised their future importance to the modern commercial beef market, being fine boned, heavily muscled, docile animals with tremendous growth potential, leading to a very high percentage of saleable meat.
In 2006 a ‘Pedigree Breeding Index’ was been introduced, as a further selection tool.

British Breeders have selectively bred the ‘British Type’ of Blue, with great emphasis being placed on:

Ease of Calving
Short gestation period
Good Mobility and Structure
Excellent Temperament

This has resulted in the breed now enjoying the distinction of being a NUMBER ONE for AI use as a terminal sire in the UK. The experience of British dairy farmers using Blues over many years for easy calving, fast finishing cross-bred stock has led beef farmers to follow their example. Now, with ever greater use of the independent, unbiased BLUP recording data, breeders know that they can rely on a British Blue sire to produce cattle for a wide range of conditions and management systems.

This ‘Bull Book’ contains a selection of British Bred Sires with semen available for a range of markets both at home here in the UK and overseas.

If you are interested in our Genetics please make your own arrangements to contact the owner of the bull directly. If semen is currently not collected to your particular market protocol it may be possible to rectify this when future semen collections are made.

When one calculates the number of calves sired by a particular Beef Breed, the British Blue is the UK’s 5th most popular Beef sire, with over 1 million Blue sired calves being born in the UK in 2003. The British Blue’s growth in the UK is market driven, with meat processors profiting from up to 15% extra yield of saleable meat being obtainable from a Blue X quality carcase. This yield has not been at the expense of eating quality with a Sirloin from a Blue X carcase recently winning a ‘Best Scottish Steak’ competition at the Royal Highland Show in Edinburgh and The Balmoral Show, Belfast.

British breeders are proud of the quality of their cattle and are confident that you will be equally as proud of your calves, which have been sired by our genetics. We look forward to doing business with you.

Jim Barber
Chairman British Blue Cattle Society

NOTES

Total Breed Evaluation

For a total analysis of the complete pedigree population, visit the Breedplan International Database.

Semen Status

This gives an over simplified indication of the markets for which semen has currently been collected. You are strongly advised to check carefully before making an overseas purchase that the protocol to which the semen has been collected conforms with the current import protocols applying to in your country.

Future semen collection can possibly be made to a specific overseas protocol should the size of any future orders warrant it.

Society Approved Terminal Sire
Such an animal would only be from a recorded herd and can only be called such, if each of its individual EBV traits were average or above breed average at the last bi-annual BLUP run.

Semen Royalty Status

This applies only to pedigree calves registered in the UK. It is a dual pricing method of marketing semen. A ‘Royalty’ having to be paid to the owner of the semen should a future calf be registered as a pedigree on the British Herd Book.

Contact For Semen

To follow up an interest you may have in a bull, please contact, in the first instance, the person mentioned in the ‘Contact for Semen’ box. For enquiries of a more general nature you may contact the Society office on
00 44 (0)1768 88775 or info@britishbluecattle.org

Recording Your Herd

If you are interested in recording your herd, contact, in the first instance, Barbara Webster at Pedigree Cattle Services, 6 King’s Place, Perth, Scotland, PH2 8AD.
Tel: 01738 622478. Fax: 01738 636436 Email: Barbara@breedplan.co.uk

Or, The British Blue Cattle Society office, Fell View, Blencarn, Penrith, Cumbria, CA10 1TX
Tel: 01768 88775. Fax: 01768 88779 Email: info@britishbluecattle.org

Why Buy British Belgian Blue Genetics?

Semen and embryos, many collected to export standards
Top quality stock for sale
Vast experience of both pure and cross breeding
Unbiased and impartial BLUP’d Beef Recording through ‘Breedplan International’ The global leader in Genetic Evaluation.
Internationally recognized data

The “British Type” of Blue

British Breeders imported Belgian Blues into the UK, in the early 1980’s. They recognized their future importance to the modern commercial beef market, being fine boned, heavily muscled, docile animals with tremendous growth potential, leading to a very high percentage of saleable meat.

British Breeders have selectively bred the “British Type” of Belgian Blue, with great emphasis being placed on:

Ease of Calving
Short gestation length
Good Mobility and Structure
Excellent Temperament

This has resulted in the breed now enjoying the distinction of being NUMBER ONE for AI use as a terminal sire in the UK. The experience of British dairy farmers using Blues over many years has led beef farmers to follow their example. Now, with ever greater use of the independent, unbiased BLUP recording data, breeders know that they can rely on a British Blue sire to produce cattle for a wide range of conditions and management systems.

Conclusion

The number of British Bred Sires listed in this publication grows with every new edition; we now feature 24 in this fourth volume.

Over 500 copies of this printed version are produced annually; the document also appears on the Society Web-site where over a 1000 pages from it are being accessed each month.

One of the beauties of recording beef animals with ‘Breedplan’ is that the format of the presentation of the EBV and Index data is understood throughout the world, whether you use British Blue genetics in Australia, Chile, the USA or throughout Europe.

Over the last 25 years British Breeders have developed the ‘British Type’ of Blue. Where the great emphasis has been place on: -

· Ease of Calving
· Short gestation length
· Good Mobility and Structure
· Excellent Temperament

Easy calving blood lines now being sought after worldwide, backed up by ‘Calving Ease’ EBV’s. The majority of calves born to semen exported to Australia and Chile have been born naturally and with no difficulty.

The introduction of the new selection tool the ‘Pedigree Breeding Index’ with an even greater weighting towards calving ease is a further step in this direction.

Two overseas visitors recently commented : -

Clive Marshall – Hurvitz Group.
A Cattle Breeding Company, Lobatse, Botswana.

“I must comment and say how overall impressed I was with the structural correctness of the Blues at the Show. I remember when I first saw Blues at various shows in the early 1990’s and they were bordering on being structurally dangerous.

The cattle I saw at Beef (Expo) 2004 are a far cry from those days and this has to be attributed to the British breeders ability to be totally intolerant of anything that isn’t sound. It is a credit to British breeders that in such a short space of time, a breed that has been bred for many years, with basically no selection for mobility, can be corrected to such an extent so that they are generally very mobile and sound.”

Alexandre Zadra is head of European Breeds at the huge
‘Lagoa da Serra’, Owned by Holland Genetics, in Brazil.

“One of the biggest surprises that I got in the UK at Beef (Expo) 2004 was the Blue. I could see from the quality of all the cattle at the event that the British breeder has developed a unique ‘Brand’ of the breed. They were much more balanced cattle than I had seen before with super length, enough muscle and better mobility than I expected. I now know that if you want Blue, there is no need to look any further.”

Disclaimer
Whilst every effort has been made to ensure correctness in the compiling of this publication, from a number of sources, as a marketing service to its breeders, the British Blue Cattle Society accepts no responsibility for its accuracy and in no way endorses any of the bulls listed.

latest news

Woodview Britney, bred & exhibited by Andrew Craig took the Supreme British Blue Championship at the 2008 Royal Ulster Show on Wednesday 14th May. [results]

The Border British Blue Club Annual Carlisle Spring Show & Sale on Friday 16th & Saturday 17th May. [catalogue]

Dungannon Spring Sale 2008
A packed ring, bursting with keen interest, saw the commencement of the spring show and sale at Dungannon Farmers Mart on Saturday 29th March 2008. [report]

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