Award Winning Cattle
We were thrilled to walk away with the Champion Carcase at this year’s Kilcoy Show. We entered 14 purebred steers into this year’s Feedlot & Carcase Trial with a total of 97 steers entered with exhibitors choosing 67 steers to be judged on the carcase. The cattle entered Smithfield Feedlot, Proston in January and were fed for 101 days before slaughter at Kilcoy (KPC) on Saturday after the cattle were judged live at Kilcoy Show on the Friday.
The winning steer was out of one of our single sire commercial paddocks, he is by Ivanhoe 1101. This bull has really impressed us since his first drop of calves, he was quickly promoted to stud sire duties and the majority of bulls we have for sale this year are by him.
The winning carcase had the largest eye muscle area of the competition at 103cm2, the only carcase to measure over 100cm. The two tooth steer dressed out at 52.45% for a carcase weight of 321kg. He achieved maximum points for P8 Fat Depth, Fat Colour, Eye Muscle Area, pH and scored well for Rib Fat Depth, Weight for Maturity, Marbling and Fat Distribution.
In addition to our Champion Carcase, we also had steers place in equal 7th and equal 12th place.
We had one steer dress out at 54.25% and one at 53.81%. We were happy enough with the scores of all our steers, a few of them were out of spec on fat cover – feed conversion at its best! We had the largest and fourth largest eye muscle measurements in the competition at 103cm2 and 96cm2. All the steers scored well on Marbling with four steers achieving maximum points.
In the feedlot weight gain component of the competition we finished fifth (3.32kg/day) and tenth (3.14kg/day). Our fourteen steers averaged 2.57kg/day which is spot on the competition average of 2.58kg/day.
It’s been nearly four years since our last carcase championship at Esk Show in 2013. We continue to enter these competitions as we believe the feedback is invaluable as seedstock producers as we strive to produce cattle that are commercially relevant, profitable and best suit our environment.
Many thanks to the hardworking committee of the Kilcoy Show Society Prime Cattle section and thank you to the team at Hayes & Co, Smithfield Cattle Company and KPC for your contribution in maximising the returns for all exhibitors.
