Speckle Park cattle have a very good story to tell to market their farming and beef qualities, finishing farmer Gavin Tayles says.
“In our experience with Speckle Park and dairy crosses, they are easy to rear, have strong sustainability credentials and produce good prime beef from what might have been bobby calves.”
Gavin and his wife Kylie have been increasing their involvement in Speckle Park crosses for the past five years and expect to market close to 200 steers and heifers into the Speckle Beef programme this year.
Up to 80-100 of those animals will be F2 crosses out of once-bred F1 Speckle Park heifers.
They believe Speckle Park is like a dual-purpose breed because of its ability to produce marked calves from dairy cows, strongly identifying those that will be reared for beef and not accidental dairy replacements.
Located at Riversdale in Southland, the Tayleses’ aim is to finish cattle within two years, which is more achievable with the Speckle Park programme.
Until now the limited availability of genetics that offer early maturing cattle means the Tayleses have elected to take their SP-crosses through a second winter, using fodder beet supplementation.
“With the genetics coming through and some refining of our system we expect to be able to bring those kill dates forward.
“The early depositing of intramuscular fat [IMF] and the Speckle Beef programme make that finishing target more achievable.”
Gavin thinks IMF marbling will possibly be stronger in SP-Kiwicross compared with SP-Holstein Friesian.
There is work to be done on the SP genetics package to tailor the right sires to each dairy breed, in terms of calf growth weights, low birth weights, gestation lengths and IMF scores.
Kylie has found SP calves to be very easy to rear compared with some other beef breeds and their F1 crosses.
She has reared 130 SP-cross calves this year and they are hoping for twice that number next year, bought in from dairy farms in Southland who use SP genetics during the later stages of mating.
The marbling premiums over the prime beef schedule make it worthwhile to commit to producing Speckle Beef and gear up for larger numbers, Gavin said.
They have purchased weaners and 18-month cattle to make up livestock numbers.
The capacity of their farm would be around 300 calves reared and finished each year.
In the earlier years the Speckle-crosses yielded and IMF-graded better than other dairy-beef crosses in the same year.
“That added confidence for us to keep on the path we are on and grow our numbers.”
The Tayleses are keen on the utilisation of what would be otherwise wasted bobby calves and the environmental sustainability veracity.
“The dairy-beef calf utilises the carbon footprint of the dairy cow and therefore is an efficient way to provide low carbon footprint beef calves.”
Gavin’s experience of the eating quality of the SP-dairy cross beef he said was at least equal to if not better than that from pure beef animals.
“It is good to see that Speckle Beef in restaurants in New Zealand and also gathering interest in some export markets.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was produced and published with the support of Specklebeef New Zealand.
