Speckle Park

[Heronfish]

They are going really well in Australia at the moment. I thought they were going great in Canada until i read @Heronfish comment.

They chase them here at the saleyards, kind of the reverse to docking, and the crosses too.

I've got a bull i bred from and embryo, and a young heifer also from an embryo. The bull is great, really easy to work and doesn't feel like he needs to push everything over. The heifer is the same. They are Canadian genetics. The bull is very thick but quite short and is carrying very good condition for not much feed. I've put my bull over a few cows with the first due in two months. I've been told by so many people, as @farmerjan says, the meat is fantastic and marbles really well. One guy told me once you've eaten a speckle steak you wont want anything else. He wasn't a speckle breeder either. So hoping for a bull calf i can steer and grow out and find out for myself.

As a curious bystander, I pay attention to the purebred sales and for speckle park it appear Aussies are the ones paying big dollar for speckle park.
From what I have seen here, the market is niche, with some guys using them for heifer bulls, others owning them for the novelty. Just one example. I was at a bred heifer sale this past fall where the stock was primarily red angus with a smattering of simmental and black angus crosses.
Nothing sold for under $2000 until the pen of speckles ran in. They sold for $1700 with one bid.

 

[Big Creek]

Been in the cattle business and they are the best cattle I ever raised but, the buyers will knock your socks off at the sale barn.

 

[Silver]

They don't fit my business model.

 

[TexasRancher]

I like all cattle....but isn't that Bernie Madoff?

 

[Little Joe]

Been in the cattle business and they are the best cattle I ever raised but, the buyers will knock your socks off at the sale barn.

Do you have several, what are you crossing them with?

 

[Idaho]

I personally think that they are about the coolest looking cattle. But the neighbor that runs a few has definitely learned to feed 'em all the way out, to where hide color doesn't matter. And his aren't true Speckle Parks, they're actually almost completely Angus with a certain amount of Simmental, just that the white is strong, with some looking almost completely White Park even at 15/16 Angus. Maybe the main thing with his, is that they seem to carry a poorer disposition as whole compared to the rest of his cattle.

 

[cattleman99]

Neighbor raises them. He's hands off and works 40 hours a week off farm. They work for his situation.

As a result of sharing fence line I ended up with one 1/2 blood (Fleckvieh). She got the Simmental growth and maternal abilities and the Speckle Park colour. She was 1550 when she came in open and I sold her. Kids were young and claimed her and still have a line descended from her. Have purebred Simmentals that look like purebred Speckle Parks. You can't breed out the colour. Have tried breeding that line Fleckvieh, Black and red Simmental. Only time I got a solid calf was when I bred one of the heifers Shorthorn (roan bull) AI to see what happened. Got a solid red steer. Go figure.

 

[Cloudbreak Farms]

Don't hold your breath..........

Ahhh it appears all "farmers" in North America are obsessed with black animals. Very narrow-minded.

 

[Silver]

Ahhh it appears all "farmers" in North America are obsessed with black animals. Very narrow-minded.

That's simply not true.

 

[Cloudbreak Farms]

Big part of the future here in Australia. Big advantages with marbling, temperament and bone density ratio. I use a white Speckle Park bull over Black Angus cows, which gives me 95% speckled colouring with calves. The cross gives me that hybrid vigour! They handle the heat and the cold.

 

[Cloudbreak Farms]

As a curious bystander, I pay attention to the purebred sales and for speckle park it appear Aussies are the ones paying big dollar for speckle park.
From what I have seen here, the market is niche, with some guys using them for heifer bulls, others owning them for the novelty. Just one example. I was at a bred heifer sale this past fall where the stock was primarily red angus with a smattering of simmental and black angus crosses.
Nothing sold for under $2000 until the pen of speckles ran in. They sold for $1700 with one bid.

Little bit more than a niche market in Australia now. Plenty of Speckles going through the sales yards in the eastern states.

 

[Rmc]

Not all in the us a obsessed with black hides. But when you have three companies controlling most of the processing plants they use anything they can to get a animal for cheaper. Another thing they use to ding prices on is rat tails. Don't know a single characteristic a black hide or rat tail changes in the quality of meat . But when you control the market you can dictate what is acceptable. Or what traits you can dictate discounts on.

 

[Redgully]

Little bit more than a niche market in Australia now. Plenty of Speckles going through the sales yards in the eastern states.

When i semen tested my speckle bull a few months back we collected 200 straws, i don't know why, kind of seemed like a good idea at the time. Fast forward to today and have already sold 120 of those straws just by word of mouth. Spoke to my embryologist the other day and it came up in the conversation. He was telling me he works for a lot of dairies and they are finding the speckle cross over the dairy breeds is giving great results compared to other breeds. He said most use angus but the speckle calves are easily adding more muscle and growth to the calves and are becoming really sought after as the meat has greater marbling. The down side, the bulls struggle to reach the big cows. So they are mostly going with a round of a.i. and then they run with clean up bulls.

And that is just here in the west, over east they are really taking off.

 

[Cloudbreak Farms]

When i semen tested my speckle bull a few months back we collected 200 straws, i don't know why, kind of seemed like a good idea at the time. Fast forward to today and have already sold 120 of those straws just by word of mouth. Spoke to my embryologist the other day and it came up in the conversation. He was telling me he works for a lot of dairies and they are finding the speckle cross over the dairy breeds is giving great results compared to other breeds. He said most use angus but the speckle calves are easily adding more muscle and growth to the calves and are becoming really sought after as the meat has greater marbling. The down side, the bulls struggle to reach the big cows. So they are mostly going with a round of a.i. and then they run with clean up bulls.

And that is just here in the west, over east they are really taking off.

Agree with what you're saying. The breed is moderate in size, which for your breeders I prefer because they don't eat as much. The SP/Friesian cross is very popular at the minute. I know one of the bigger dairies in WA is using SP over their Friesians instead of Angus now, which is a very good push for the breed.

 

[Lee VanRoss]

Big part of the future here in Australia. Big advantages with marbling, temperament and bone density ratio. I use a white Speckle Park bull over Black Angus cows, which gives me 95% speckled colouring with calves. The cross gives me that hybrid vigour! They handle the heat and the cold.

How cold is cold down there?

 

[Cloudbreak Farms]

How cold is cold down there?

Not Canada cold by any stretch!
Where I am based....
Winter maximums range between 10 degrees Celsius and 14 degrees Celsius. Not sure of the Fahrenheit conversion.
Summer maximums range between 30 degrees Celsius and 40 degrees Celsius

 

[southalberta]

Unsure on sale barn. Private sales even commercial people pay premium.
Ps. Most dumb like a Holstein.

 

[Lee VanRoss]

Not Canada cold by any stretch!
Where I am based....
Winter maximums range between 10 degrees Celsius and 14 degrees Celsius. Not sure of the Fahrenheit conversion.
Summer maximums range between 30 degrees Celsius and 40 degrees Celsius

Smile.....Thanks!