Commercial Focus

DSK Commercial Operation is run in conjunction with the studs with the majority of females being used as embryo transfer recipients.  A lot of females from our stud herds are also used as recips and then bred to either Angus or Charolais bulls to maintain our Charolais/Angus cross genetics.  Only 80 bulls are kept each year from a stud herd of 400 Angus and Charolais combined stud females as well as implanting over 100 embryos per year.  Our entire cow herd numbers 550 adult breeders with the retention of  30 commercial or crossbred females as well 60 Angus and Charolais stud females.  The rest of the steer and heifer progeny are grown out to reach 450kg liveweight on grass where available before being opportunity grain fed for an average of 90 days where they have reached a liveweight of 600kg at milk tooth.  These steers and heifers are then trucked to the Tamworth Cargill facility where the steers average 325kg or 54% and the heifers average 290kg or 52% of a liveweight of 550kg.  The difference between the purebred Charolais and Angus or crossbreed carcase yield’s are minor and the results show that choosing long bodied animals with adequate muscling on a wide and deep frame equates to dollars in your pocket independent of breed statistics. Right across the breeds and into our commercial female herd, our emphasis is on strength, capacity, structure & maternal traits and we believe we have the right ingredients in our cow herd to breed great sires for the future.  It is the cows that have to do the work in the paddock and the genetic maternal influence of the sire is a major factor in our sire selection.
 

Recent DSK Hoof and Hook Results

• Grand Champion Pen of 3 Steers on Hook Dubbo Beef Spectacular 2008.
• Overall Grand Champion Pen of 3 Steers Dubbo Beef Spectacular 2008. 25 points ahead of the next pen (Hoof and Hook)
• Brisbane Royal Carcase Comp 2008, Yearling Pure Charolais steer by DSK Aussie Gold - 2nd in class on hook and Virtual Taste Test Winner.
• Grand Champion Pen of 3 Steers on Hoof Dubbo Beef Spectacular 2009.
• Grand Champion Pen of 3 Steers on Hook Dubbo Beef Spectacular 2009 (for the 2nd year in a row).
• Overall Grand Champion Pen of 3 Steers Dubbo Beef Spectacular 2009. 27.5 points ahead of the next pen (Hoof and Hook)
• Sydney Royal 2009 10 month old Pure Charolais Steer, 1st in class on hoof, 1st in class on hook and 2nd in the Virtual Taste Test.
• Rockhampton Beef ‘09 National Beef Carcase Competition, 1st in (out of 55 pens in this class) Export Grain Fed 300-420kg carcase weight; Total score for pen of 3 car-case’s, 221.97 including 10 bonus points (only 3 teams in the competition received this)
• Orange National Feild Days Pasture and Grain Fed Trials 2009; 1st in Pen of Carcases 361 - 440kg carcase weight; 1st in Calculated Yield of Saleable Meat
• Overall Winner in Class 2 on Pasture and Grain.

Proof of our Commercial Focus

Profit = Maximum Return - Minimum Input

Profit comes from not having the most muscle or the most marbling, but from having just the right amount of muscle on a long, wide, high yielding frame that fattens easily without getting over-fat and for meat quality’s sake shows a moderate amount of marbling content.

All these steers have been bred at home and apart from the Orange Pasture and Feedlot trial steers, were fed at home using our own mix on a short to medium grain feeding time. It should be noted that these steers were all milk tooth cattle and mostly purebred Charolais that still showed adequate marbling scores. All carcases were high yielding with good fat cover and MSA grading specs. We regularly feed steers bred at home or sourced from breeders using our sire genetics and having killed many hundreds of young cattle over just the last few years at Cargill Tamworth, over 98% of our kill hits the top grid making maximum profits with minimal feed input costs.