2016 Sale Summary

LancasterOffered    53  55

Sold       53  55

Top      $16,000 $16,000

Av       $5877 $5154

LANCASTER Black Simmental stud defied the dry seasonal conditions in the Upper South East to post a total clearance and record $5877 average last Friday at Meningie.

Tim, Lise, Henry and Prue Cartledge were rewarded for their commercial focus on weight for age, calving ease and doing ability with stud and commercial buyers from SA, NT and Qld.

Bids flew around the sale ring on top lots but there was also some exceptional value buying with twenty bulls making between $3500 and $4500.

The $16,000 sale high mirrored 2015 but the stud’s average for their rising two-year -old purebred and hybrid bulls jumped $723.

In the break down 27 purebred Simmental bulls (Lancaster 100s) averaged $6019 while 26 three-quarter Simmental bulls (Lancaster 75’s) av $5750.

The sale top was paid for Lot 10-LCS High Profile K125 .

The 810 kilogram homozygous polled bull was pure Lancaster genetics and in the top 5 per cent on the American Simmental Association’s All Purpose index- a profit indicator bringing together many economically important traits.

Tom and Lizzy Baker, Woonallee stud, Furner ultimately won the bidding duel and will have their name engraved on the Lancaster sale bell.

The Bakers were looking for an “outcross heifer bull”  for their expanded Black Simmental stud.  “He has a good phenotype and structure and balance,” Mrs Baker said.

“They are the longest standing black Simmental stud in Australia so why wouldn’t you come here?,” Mr Baker added.

Queenslanders S&R White, Roma led the strong interstate buying charge with Lot 7, LCS Kite K267 for the $11,000 second top price via phone bidding.  They also bought LCS Kakado K282 for $5000.

The TNT Tanker sons were impressive with their growth and softness including LCS Tanker K279 which sold for $10,000 to Deepwater Pastoral Holdings, Tintinara.

With 32 registered bidders it was volume buyers who really made the sale.

Leading this was Ian Johnson, Amherst Livestock Trust, Willalooka who has seen the hybrid vigour advantage in his weaners. Amherst bought seven bulls at $4500-$5000.

Other multiple buyers included Connor Pastoral Co, Tintinara and SA&HL Mumford, Parndana who each bought four bulls.

Three proven matrons offered from the heart of Lancaster’s herd were another highlight, averaging $4500. Two of these elite females including the $6000 top price sold to Craig Wooding, Magpie Park Simmentals, Penola.

The rising seven-year-old daughter of SRS J914 Preferred Beef had been AI’d to TNT Tanker and backed up to Lancaster Hell Raiser. She had been used as an ET donor within the stud.

“Our aim is to breed Black Simmentals like the traditional Simmentals and these should do it,” Mr Wooding said.

Stud principal Tim Cartledge said it was very pleasing to have a total clearance but also see many of their clients getting “good value” bulls in the latter half of the catalogue.

Spence Dix & Co auctioneer Jono Spence praised the Cartledge’s “dedication, detail and discipline” in their stud breeding approach. He said there were “good quality bulls” right to the final lots in the sale and this was reflected in the total clearance .  “Clearance was always the key this year because of the number of repeat clients that are down on their cow numbers, but as the quality of bulls showed through people that had come to only buy one or two bought an extra one or two bulls.”