WHY SPECKLE PARK?
They improve the bottom line. Simple.
Speckle Park are fertile, easy calving and their carcase attributes continue to turn heads. High yield, great marbling, excellent weight gain. Their docile temperament is also a bigger advantage than it at first appears. It not only makes life easier for those dealing with the cattle but it is also profitable.
MEETING DEMAND
A significant amount of the consumer base desire grass fed beef because of it’s more natural rearing and its additional flavour. Speckle Park, with their texture and marbling, provide a tender, juicy and flavoursome product off grass.
They also perform well in grain fed situations where they demonstrate wonderful feed conversion. This quality and versatility can satisfy a variety of customer requirements.
“Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers”
- Seth Godin
Speckle Park is the product customers desire.
FERTILITY
“Reproductive performance is a key determinant of profitability in a beef cattle enterprise.”
- Southern Beef Technology Services
There is no getting around the fact that fertility and calving ease are the biggest influences on the bottom line. High conception rates and high birth rates are an absolute must in a profitable beef enterprise. Speckle Park are renowned for their early sexual maturity, good scrotal size, ease of calving and ability to get back into calf. Their feed efficiency enables them to stay in optimum condition for re-joining post calving. Te Mooi's breeding program has a heavy focus on these traite.
SUCCESS
The success of Speckle Park in feedback trials in Canada and Australia has been nothing short of extraordinary.
They show great feed efficiency and produce a high yielding, highly marbled carcase. In 2017 in the Paddock to Palate competition Speckle Park cross animals placed first in the pen of six carcase in the trade section.
This comes on the back of winning the MSA Meat Eating Quality 70 day trade team in 2016. Speckle Park crosses have also won the Beef Spectacular Carcase Competition for three consecutive years, including receiving the Riverine Premium Beef Champion Pen in 2016.
TEMPERAMENT
Temperament is not just about convenience and ease of operation. It’s about profitability. Highly strung cattle don’t perform as well as docile cattle.
In a study done by researchers at Mississippi State University they found the most docile cattle were 50% more profitable that the most excitable animals. A similar study quoted by the CSRIO saw an increase in daily weight gain of 0.38 kgs in the most quiet cattle versus the most excitable.
Speckle Park are known for their docility. Temperament is a trait with mid levels of heritability so it can improve quickly through selection. Like with structural soundness, we have our cattle independently assessed for temperament and select heavily for this trait.