Why Red Polls? The benefits of breeding Red Polls
Naturally Polled Which reduces stress and carcase bruising ensuring tender, high quality beef.
Medium Sized This, along with their foraging ability and feed efficiency making them an economic unit to run.
Fertility & Longevity Many Red Poll cows breed well past 12 years of age, reducing the need for high replacement numbers.
Mothering Ability The vealer machine! Red Poll cows have great mothering ability and quality high milk production to maximise calf growth.
Coat Colour Solid red coated with good eye and udder pigmentation, which avoids sunburn and minimises eye problems.
Temperament Red Poll are quiet, easily handled cattle that can thrive in any environment.
Dressing & Yield In carcase competition Red Polls have displayed exceptional dressing percentages and yields of saleable beef.
Breed Attributes
Red Poll Cattle are just not plain red cows. Last century, when farms were more self-sufficient and they kept cattle for their own meat and milk production, the cattle most commonly used were Red Poll. They had ample milk of excellent quality and produced tasty, well textured, tender beef. These easy care, fertile, no fuss cattle were the choice of farmers back then and those traits that were recognised as so important then, are still the traits sought today by the Beef Industry.
The Industry is much more sophisticated since the day of the house cow, with the focus moving away from the local trade to export and that has introduced a whole range of market variations. Our cattle can meet these demands and fill a wide range of requirements on their own or in crossbreeding programs to improve the traits of other breeds.
Firstly, profitability in the Industry depends on live calves that grow at a constant rate, typically putting on 1 to 1.5 kgs per day from birth until sale. We have the fertile cows, with docility and mothering ability who will perform under a whole range of conditions to produce these calves with ease every year for twelve years or better.
Secondly, the Red Poll tastes good! This was proven several times nationally in taste-test trials where, over a range of products, Red Poll beef was the most outstanding. This probably had a lot to do with the nature of the animals. They can be mustered, handled and transported with minimum fuss and will adapt to changing conditions exceedingly well. You can guarantee that these cattle will respect fences. Also, they are naturally polled and have no pigment problems and so tolerate the sunny conditions of Australia well.
The Red Poll bull is a most useful tool. He has a well-housed penis and heaps of libido. You can rest assured that he will get his fair share of cows and probably more and it would be fair to expect a Red Poll bull to service 40 cows or more and some will do up to 70 cows. They are very fertile with the BREEDPLAN average for testicle circumference being 37cm. So they are well endowed! The flat shoulders and generally flatter, rather than rounder bone structure is conducive to easier calving. This is not at the expense of muscle, because the Breed is above average for this trait. Our carcase successes attribute to this.
The Red Poll matron is something special. She will deliver you a calf every year until you decide to replace her in the herd and this can be over 14 years of age. Red Poll females come into puberty at 9 months of age and earlier and will have their first calf at 24 months of age and every year after that. They have ample milk to nurse their calves until weaning, usually at 8 months and will keep on feeding those calves if you don’t wean them. Any female herd based on Red Poll calves, is a naturally productive herd.
Red Poll cattle have moved with the times and are commercially desirable for today’s market. Profitability is determined by fertility and the ability to maximise kgs per hectare with a minimum of effort. This breed of cattle can satisfy the commercial expectations of a modern industry.