2018 would have to be the most memorable year for Texas Angus in more ways than one. The stud has been awarded top honours at Beef Australia 2018 in May followed by clinching broad ribbons once again at Sydney Royal Beef Challenge this month.
Texas Angus was awarded 1st place (in Australia’s largest and most competitive carcase competition of 1077hd and the largest class of the competition by 330 head) for 100 Day Grainfed Export Chiller Bullocks at Beef Australia 2018. And last Friday took out the Grand Champion 70 Day Domestic Pen and Grand Champion 70 Day Domestic Individual of Sydney Royal’s 2018 Beef Challenge. This was the fourth conservative year for the stud to receive a broad ribbon at this very ‘industry relevant’ event.
Texas only entered 3 pens for the 70 Day domestic competition and 2 of the pens had 2 individual animals eliminated because their weight gains were too big. These 2 milk tooth heifers had the highest ADG of both the domestic and export competition (3.22 & 3.14kgs/day), and both pens placed 1st and 3rd in the profitability section. The 1st place pen returned $1,120.19/hd profit and were $835.15/hd more profitable than the average of the 55 domestic pens in the competition. The remaining pen of 6 we had left ended up taking top honours by blitzing the MSA Eating quality with 375.37 points.
Similar to last year’s results Texas Angus also won the Taste Test which in our view is a very proud achievement as this is an endorsement of eating quality and our breeding program is hitting all market specifications. It should be noted this is the only competition in the country that undertakes a blind taste test by a panel of expert RAS Judges. Each striploin is sent to Sydney direct from the processing plant and a sample is cut and cooked exactly the same for the blind taste test which is similar to RAS wine judging. We congratulate the RAS Cattle committee for introducing such an industry relevant section.
Once again we had the highest marbling animals in the domestic and equal highest in the export section. Which follows on from placing third highest marbling at Beef Australia’s 100 day grainfed export class and 4th in the entire 1077hd competition. These successes have emphasised Texas Angus’s point of difference is that our breeding program of high performing pure bred Angus will hit market specifications without compromising the ever important eating quality. In a nut shell Texas Angus cattle not only marble BUT they are also profitable for the commercial operator, feedlotter and butcher – from farm to fork!
Sydney Royal Beef Challenge is one of Australia’s prestigious cattle competitions that has been running for 7 years and this year had 510 head which is a great number considering NSW and parts of QLD are experiencing the worst drought on record. 2015 was the first year Texas Angus entered the competition and it has been a great platform for us to benchmark our breeding program against some of Australia’s best commercial cattle.
The Beef Challenge is a commercially-focussed feedlot competition that is unique to others. It represents all stages of the process including
*Live Assessment
*Weight Gain
*Carcase Judging (MSA Standards)
*Profitability
* Eating Quality (Blind Taste Test by a Panel of Judges in Sydney)
Congratulations to all other place getters and a big thank you to RAS Cattle Committee, MacCue Family Wilga Feedlot, Bob Jamieson Agencies Kilcoy Pastoral and all sponsors inlcuding Angus Australia for being a part of such a great beef industry event.
