ABS Global, Inc.

Beef

ABS Australia is a leader in beef bovine genetics and is a one-stop shop for your semen requirements with a wide selection of beef genetics from around the world at competitive prices.

ABS Australia offers on farm reproduction services and advice and can supply all your heat detection aids and artificial breeding merchandise requirements.

Total Livestock Genetics bull visit policy

TLG has been very accommodating to visitors in the past but with the higher number of bull collections and high demands of bio-security, a new visitation policy is now in place.

TLG will hold an annual bull viewing day.

Other visits to view bulls at TLG must be made with the bull owners.  TLG requires 14 days notice and bull owners must attend with the visitors.

Te Mania Infinity passes

In June 2012, we were advised of the untimely death of Infinity.

Infinity was to be on display at the Te Mania bull sale and was to go to the bull collection centre after the sale.  Unfortunately, at the time of Infinity's passing, there was no semen left in Australia or in quarantine.

Infinity's legacy of redefining the balance of EBVs with super structure, high docility and brilliant phenotype will be carried on through his progeny.

Infinity currently has nearly 6,000 recorded Australiasian progeny in 260 herds, with over 3,200 scans 470 daughters.  In addition, progeny are in many commercial herds as well as in the USA.

ABS international beef team in Australia

Bill Cornell, Beef Product Manager

For twelve days from April 29 to May 10, the beef department hosted Todd Sears, ABS Global Beef Marketing Manager and Vasco Beheregaray Neto, ABS Latin America Beef Product Manager. Their visit was planned to coincide with Beef 2102 at Rockhampton and designed to show the team what Australia had to offer in terms of cattle and genetics. During their stay, they would see the bulls at TLG, attend two seminars, visit key properties and see progeny of the bulls and also the Angus benchmark program. The beef department ran two day beef days at TLG on April 30 and May 1 viewing bulls, followed by a seminar and then dinner at the Commercial Hotel in Camperdown.

On April 30, the ABS team, together with Southern Cross Genetics, hosted a “Beef Global Update” field day in Camperdown, Victoria. The day started off with the introduction of the ABS and TLG teams to the crowd of over 125 beef breeders. This was followed by the opportunity for everyone to view the ABS beef bulls at Camperdown and then at Glenormiston.

The TLG team had done a tremendous effort in washing the bulls and displaying them in individual portable yards. The cattle breeders then had the opportunity to view the bulls housed at TLG. This was a great opportunity for the breeders to inspect the sires they have been using, as well as newer sires they may use. With SCG involvement, our competitor’s bulls were also on display, which actually worked out nicely as the crowd received the ABS bulls extremely well and the comparison only helped us further.

Then the group travelled to the Commercial Hotel at Camperdown for a seminar with speakers presenting information on synchronization and fixed time AI(FTAI), a review of ten key and new bulls coming in from the US and an overview of the US and Brazil beef production systems. The talks were well received with a fair number of questions and requests for copies of the presentations. The evening was a social event with ABS and SCG hosting a dinner and, as you would expect, lots of fellowship, discussion, food and wine.

A breeder talk - Sinclair Munro, breeder of Booroomooka Inspired E124, the bull that is now owned jointly with Aberdeen Estates, Rennylea and NZ interests and, on which, ABS has the world marketing rights.

The next morning, the group was hosted by TeMania Angus which is, arguably, one of the best Angus stud herds in Australia. Te Mania broke a contemporary group of 500 bull calves into sire groups for the crowd to look through. It was very nicely set up and a great experience for the group. TeMania went to a fair bit of effort to be involved and that was appreciated by everyone. The ABS sires TeMania Emperor, Ardrossan Equator A241, Vermont Drambuie and Sitz New Design 458N were represented.

The attendance for day one and the morning of day two was over 125 people, maybe closer to 150, as not everyone was at every part. Great attendance, but the most interesting part was the distances people came to be involved with customers attending from every state in Australia as well as three from New Zealand.

Day two was a repeat session of the bull viewing, seminar and dinner for another crowd of 55 breeders. The ABS team was also extremely pleased to have Jay Weiker and Tracey Newton attend day one and ABS staff from Gippsland and Western districts attend and assist on day two. Thank you to all.

Part of the seminar crowd		Part of the group in for the dinner on day one

Todd Sears best summed up the event:
“This may be one of the best ABS brand building events I have ever attended. The interaction of the group, the appreciation for the event and the social aspect was outstanding. People left with more appreciation of ABS and loyalty to ABS, Bill and David. The question by the end of the day was this is great – what are you doing next year? Topping it would be a question that would be hard to answer but interestingly both Bill and David had people approach them that day or the next with ideas for the next year. I think this may well become the social Angus event of the year not to be missed in Australia. We can’t ever forget the social aspect of this business but people also came because of the value of it to their business. Brand building and customer loyalty. We, in the US, will need to replicate this kind of event and the goodwill it provides.”

The beef team had the event recorded on video and in photos. Go to the beef webinars page on this website and the Angus breed page to see added video comments on key bulls by ABS staff and also Australian breeders. TeMania has also posted a review to its website.

Herd visits comments from Todd and Vasco:
Paringa- we had the opportunity to see a few IRON ORE calves as well as see progeny on the various sires Tom is using to create composite cattle. Tom is very pro ABS and is using a lot of our Charolais, Simmental and SimAngus sires in his program. Good discussion on composites.
Wirruna Herefords – has been a source of some recent bulls for ABS Australia. Very good visit, extremely data and information driven herd. Run based on solid production concepts and reliance on data to make decisions. High integrity data.
Ardrossan Angus – looked at some cattle to see various progeny of bulls Ardrossan has with ABS. Operation has grown considerably in the last ten years. Viewed the Angus Benchmark calves in the commercial cow herd. Very interesting to see the large groups of calves they are getting in this progeny test system for the Angus Association. Robert mentioned that the calves will be run through a Growsafe system to collect feed efficiency information.
Caribbean Senepols – quick stop to look at two Senepol bulls that may have interest in the South American market.
Nindooinbah – large and upcoming Brangus producer outside of Brisbane. Very data driven and progressive. An Impressive place with an impressive cattle handling system that allows for the data to be collected easily and quickly and used. They had a fair number of cattle on display for a tour group that was coming through and ABS sires were well represented. Had extremely interesting discussions with herd owner about the cattle business and their operation. Growing very quickly and sexing embryos to grow bull business. Discussion on sorted semen availability – basically said he wants sorted semen and it would be part of his program.

Beef 2012 – Rockhampton
The beef event is held every three years in Rockhampton, Queensland. This is the Australian beef event with over 4,500 beef cattle gathered and over 85,000 people attending. It is an event totally dedicated to beef cattle, the industry and industries adding support to the beef industry. The event is more focused on cattle that are more heat tolerant and adapted to the northern part of Australia with a lot more Zebu influenced cattle. Show cattle – a lot of cattle shows by breed. Display cattle – most breeds would also have cattle on display. Very interesting to see all the various breeds and the promotion surrounding them.

ABS had a site in conjunction with Telpara Hills Brangus. ABS has a close relationship with Telpara Hills as the manager/owner, Stephen Pearce, is ABS’ Brangus specialist. Progeny of several ABS Brangus bulls were on display and in the TH sale. TH had a great sale that was well attended. TH display was second to none. A good showing for ABS and its Brangus lineup.

It was a good opportunity to see some very different cattle from what the ABS team typically would see and also gain more understanding of various breeds and the needs of breeders. Vasco and I had the opportunity to look at some potential options on Braford and Droughtmaster bulls, as well as Brangus. Together, we select a few bulls and had Shane Ashworth from TLG inspect and take bloods from the best candidates.

The whole event was great for the ABS Australia beef team. Vasco and Todd were complimentary of the bull team and Vasco has strongly increased his orders in Australian product. Orders recently placed and those to come are far greater than the semen we sell domestically here in Australia.

In conclusion, I have taken Todd Sears closing comments from his report on the trip:
“ABS Australia has really changed in the last ten years since my last trip. As we now own the business I think it is interesting to see the adaptation and change. The market has matured and is using increasing amounts of domestic product versus a reliance on imported product. If we didn’t own the business I would question how much we would get done. Only trying to import semen would be a diminishing piece of the puzzle versus our involvement in domestic bulls. Also the potential to export is considerable especially into the EU as they have less IBR issues. Bulls will fit a lot of markets and will be beneficial to the global and domestic business. The units exported to Australia isn’t a good gauge of how involved we should be in Australia anymore as the business climate is changing – having a better understanding of what is available out of Australia could be a very strong tool for ABS on the global market.”