Australia - $200 offer for Wagyu-Holstein bobby calves
Published:August 28, 2006
Source :Farm Online
A major Victorian beef company has announced it will pay $200 a head for week-old bobby calves next year.
The Ballan-based Beefcorp will increase its price from $170 to $200 for calves of Holstein females artificially inseminated to Beefcorp Wagyu bulls.
Beefcorp managing director, Nick Sher, said dairyfarmers should now be considering locking in the forward price for bull and heifer calves delivered in 2007.
He said as far as he knew, it was the highest price ever offered in Australia for these crossbred bobby calves, with a key attraction that bull and heifer calves bring the same money.
The Wagyu-Holstein cross calves will enter the Beefcorp production system.
Typically, that involves calf rearing, grazing and then lotfeeding over a total of more than two years to provide high quality beef for markets such as Japan, South Korea, China, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and Australia.
"You will see other bobby calf prices below $50 this spring" Mr Sher said.
"So we hope the huge price difference encourages more dairies to join our program."
