Belmont Red sales garnering excitement

Belmont Australia president Robert Sherry said the association sale, being held on Monday, September 5, at CQLX, Gracemere, has set high standards in the regulations to ensure that the bulls selected for the sale have passed through the associations' selection panel for temperament, breed type, structure soundness, and semen morphology testing.

"The sale bulls are fully Breedplan recorded with observed traits for growth scrotal size and carcase measurements. DNA sire verification and a horn/poll test is compulsory. The association believe this top shelf approach, and not a minimum entry to the regulations, is the bull buyers guarantee of their purchase," Mr Sherry said.

Karen Seifert and Paul McEniery, Bellevue Belmonts, will make their debut as vendors for the Belmont Australia sale where they'll offer two young sires, while George Seifert Snr, Montpellier stud, will highlight his return to bull breeding by offering a draft at the sale. Paul and Julie Watson, Greenhills Belmont Red, will offer five young sires, and Robert and Jane Sherry, Wahroonga Belmont Reds, will be the volume vendors on the day, where they'll put 24 young bulls through the ring.

The Belmont Red breed was established with an emphasis placed on objective selection for heritable and economically important traits such as growth rate, tick resistance and fertility, these values still hold true today with the breeders in the sale.

"Female fertility and the ability to raise a calf are the main profit driver for a beef business. All the sale bulls are from herds that record female fertility, which is submitted and delivered as a days to calving EBV."

The Belmont Australia has developed two new indexes to aid bull buyers with their selections this year.

"The self replacing index has been designed with the breeder in mind, with a high emphasis on days to calving, with growth and then carcase traits having slightly less influence with all traits contributing to this index. The terminal sire index is about growth and carcase traits. Indexes are a great tool for any bull buyer to have in their kit with all traits ranked and summarised into one easy to compare $index value."

Mr Sherry said the Belmont Red breed is continuing to increase in popularity, with commercial beef industry demand rising.

"This is in no small part due to the work of the outgoing president Jeanne Seifert and her success in modernising the breed, and the Belmont Red brand. During her terms as president, the association has seen a rise in membership and breed promotion, an overhaul of the regulations and the constitution, and the development of new breed indexes."

"In partnership with her husband Ian Stark, in their own business, they're recognised for significantly improving both the phenotype and the genotype of the Belmont Red breed."

For the last four years Seifert Belmont Reds have hosted a successful on-property and online sale. This year the stud will again host their sale at Wonga on Monday, August 1, from midday, where 100 powerful, profitable polled bulls will be offered.

To arrange inspections please contact the individual vendors involved with both sales. The catalogue will soon be released for the Seifert Belmont Reds sale and in early August for the Belmont Australia sale.