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Business View Australia - July 2015 131
“We produce our own feedlot mix
over here. We have got our own
mixing equipment. The feedlot mix
we use is not a super strong mix.
We take a little bit longer and it
costs us a little more. We get them
on a five to one or a six to one ratio
of feed and weight gain. That’s not
great but it’s good.
“Somebig feedlots get themdown to
a ratio of four to one on a really strong
feedlot mix. That’s really testing the
metabolism of the individual animal
and results
in a bigger
p e r c en t age
of illnesses.
We
have
hardly
had
to treat any
animal here
for
feedlot
illness. We
would rather
do it a bit
safer
than
push the animal too hard.”
The DSK Angus and Charolai s
farm uses a unique selec t ion
process for determining the
at t r ibutes of the cat t le that i t
breeds . Whi le Chr i s Knox does
rel y on gene selec t ion and i s
a st rong suppor ter of modern
breeding techniques, he uses
hi s deep knowledge and vast
exper ience of the breeds to
choose the best bloodl ines .
Speaking about the method he
uses, he says, “There is a lot of
technology involved. We have got
gene markers and genomics as
selection tools. We have also got
a breed plan. But we use these as
indicators, we don’t swear by them.
“We still do a lot of our cattle
selection and base our breeding
p r o g r a m
on
our
own visual
appraisal to
get the type
we
want.
We
have
tried to stay
away
from
mains t ream
lines,
not
b e c a u s e
they
are
mainstream, but because we just
see problems within those lines. We
have been lucky with the selections
that we have made and at the
present time we are concentrating
on bringing in a lot of genetics out
of North America and Canada.”
One of the areas that Chis Knox
feels requires more work is the
We still do a lot of
our cattle selection
and base our
breeding program
on our own visual
appraisal
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