ABS AUSTRALIA BEEF INFOCUS 2025

Making Ever y Pregnancy Count, A Better Joining Plan

Adop tin g the Winning Game Plan can si mplif y you r fa rm’ s joinin g season.

An optimal breeding program aims to make the most of ever y pregnancy on farm. The ‘Winning Game Plan’ is all about creating a personalised strategy for your joining season and making it easy to implement.

In the most basic form, you aim to generate additional heifers from your best cows with Sexcel semen and a value-added beef animal from the tail end of your herd using Beef InFocus.

N UE R A GE N E T I C S

NuEraTM is the genetic engine behind Beef InFocusTM

ABS produces hundreds of NuEra bulls each year, but only the top 4% qualify for Beef InFocus, which means the best of the best beef sires are available to

Our BeefAdvantage® Index calculates our beef sires’ per formance on dair y to assist you in choosing beef sires who won’t compromise reproduction in your dair y.

Benefit s For Dair y Farmer s

CONCEPTION RATE

GAINED per 1% point increase in fer tility rate.

GAINED per 1% point decreased in

GAINED per 1% point decrease in stillbir th.

GAINED per reduced day in gestation length.

This year’s program has just been sexed semen and ABS InFocus, we haven’t used any conventional semen,”

Josh & Lilli Philp

Gavoc, Western Australia

Using specialist dair y -beef semen in a three-way -cross herd has eliminated bobby calves and opened a lucrative new income stream for one southwest Victorian dair y farm.

And there are expectations this move could deliver a windfall of up to $100,000 a year, without any extra work. Gar voc dair y farmers Josh and Lilli Philp have joined more than half their 800-head herd to

ABS Beef InFocus™ this year – af ter successfully trialling the dair y -beef semen last year

“This year’s program has just been sexed semen and ABS Beef InFocus, we haven’t used any conventional semen,” Josh said. “It means we don’t have bobby calves, and yes, that’s one of the plans, but the other plan is to value - add our crossbred herd ”

Flatter milk production, a shor ter spring joining and a ‘second oppor tunity’ for quality cows, are just

family has obtained from using a program. The fact they also get valuable ABS Beef InFocus animals delivering a “cash cow” later in the season is just a bonus.

The Boyd family, Ranleigh Farms, at Foster and Yanakie have 37 ABS Beef InFocus Jersey and Friesian-

cross calves that were born in December. Grazing in the paddock at their dair y farm, Estelle Boyd said “You couldn’t tell half of them were out of Jerseys and half were out of Friesians”.

Earmarked to be sent to the family’s out block, until market or seasonal conditions dictate a sale date, Estelle and her son Brett have used ABS Beef InFocus as a ‘tool’ to

Milking Red, Jersey and Holsteincross cows the Philp family hasn’t had the option of selling “black and white” heifers to the live expor t market to diversify their income, like many other dair y farmers.

ABS Beef InFocus has enabled them to boost the value of their calves while also providing a market for male and female of fspring.

It gives our good cows another chance to get back into the herd but breeding them to ABS Beef InFocus means they are also producing a beef calf that has value.”

Estelle and Brett Boyd Foster, Gippsland

“Because we shor tened our spring joining, we created more empt y (cows) ,” Bret t explained. “But instead of being culled, we gave them another joining chance in Februar y, to calve in December, and if they are any good, we move them into our autumn calving group It gives our good cows another chance to get back into the herd but breeding them to ABS Beef InFocus means they are also producing a beef calf that has value ”

We have bred our Jerseys that way, to spit out whatever we join them too. Plus Beef InFocus is sold as calving ease, so it was a no-brainer for us.”

James Couch Nullawarre, Western Victoria

Improving his dair y herd was the impetus for James Couch to use dair y -beef semen. For the Nullawarre dair y farmer, it was a simple equation.

Joining the bulk of his herd to ABS Beef InFocus™ – semen that includes proven high fer tility beef bulls – delivered in-calf cows, but more impor tantly, it helped cut costs. It’s not only cheaper semen compared, to what he’d normally

use, but it provides a valuable and saleable animal.

James knew exactly where to spend the savings. “It meant we could spend an extra $4 to $5 a straw on our Sexcel® to get the exact bulls that we absolutely wanted,” he said.

“I’m pret t y confident they are going to come out black and with beef characteristics,” James said. “I have no issues with them coming out

Australian dair y farmers are embracing specialist dair y -beef genetics to reduce bobby calves and diversify farm businesses. Nearly 14 per cent of all ABS semen sold to dair y farmers last year was ABS Beef InFocus™ – a genetic product designed to breed a quality and consistent beef animal from a dair y cow.

Increasing demand for a genetic of bobby calves and animal welfare

in the dair y industr y comes as leading New Zealand milk processor Fonterra has ordered its dair y farmer suppliers to stop killing bobby calves. Fonterra New Zealand suppliers must now raise bobby calves for beef, slaughter them for calf veal or the pet food market.

ABS Australia technical and genetic ser vices manager Matt Aikenhead said more dair y farmers than ever are looking for a sustainable solution to phase out bobby calves.

of a Jer sey because we have bred our Jer seys that way, to spit out whatever we join them too Plus, Beef InFocus is sold as calving ease, so it was a no-brainer for us ”

Beef InFocus sires have been proven in more than 300 herds globally and are the only beef-dair y cross product with validated dair y calving ease data.

Dair y -beef of fers a solution to the dair y bobby calf challenge and the beef industr y issue of supply consistency in the face of global warming.”

Matt Aikenhead

Technical and Genetic Ser vices Manager, ABS Australia

“Globally, specialist dair y -beef semen, such as Beef InFocus, has been available for more than a decade,” he said.

“In Australia, it’s grown in popularit y recently as dair y farmer s have teamed it with sexed genetics They breed replacement dair y heifer s from their best genetic merit animals and use Beef InFocus to join the rest of their herd and create a valuable protein product for the beef market ”

INFOCU S BL AC K

BEE FADVANTAGE

Calving Ease (heifers)

Calving Ease (cows)

Gestation

Calf

Calf

BEE

matt.aikenhead@genusplc.com rex.barry@genusplc.com alan.blum@genusplc.com gerard.eccles@genusplc.com brian.enbom@genusplc.com darren.fletcher@genusplc.com shane.gardiner@genusplc.com kim.hodder@genusplc.com marcus.rees@genusplc.com rhiannon.schellekens@genusplc.com adele.walker@genusplc.com

marcus.rees@genusplc.com bruce.ronalds@genusplc.com jessica.sharp@genusplc.com amanda.wollin@genusplc.com