A “quality“ catalogue of 70 Bullamakinka Santa Gertrudis sires drew buyers from the Northern Territory to Glen Innes, NSW, to post a top price of $34,000 and average $12,786 on Wednesday, 4 September.
The Bullamakinka sale was interfaced with StockLive providing a live telecast and online bidding, which was used by Ian Shaw from Glen Leigh stud at Glen Innes to make the winning bid of $34,000 on the most valuable lot, Bullamakinka U50 (P) AI.
The two-year-old polled bull weighing 866kg is an AI son of Waco Napoleon N80 (P), a sire purchased by Bullamakinka for $82,500 in 2018. U50 boasts an eye muscle area of 137sq cm, scrotal circumference of 45cm and 92 per cent semen morphology.
Repeat buyers Peter and Sharon Seawright from Jazmaree Santas at Injune paid the second top sale price of $32,000 for Bullamakinka U100 (PP), a two-year-old sire weighing 936kg with an EMA of 138sq cm and scrotal circumference of 41cm.
Regular Bullamakinka clients, Darryl and Carmel Waugh of Goovigen, paid third top price of $30,000 for Bullamakinka U198 (PP) to put over their Brentwood Santa Gertrudis stud females.
The 21-month-old is a son of Bullamakinka Queenslander Q80 (P) and caries Wave Hill bloodlines on his dam’s side.
Northern Territory cattleman Bill Scott invested in 15 bulls as a first time Bullamakinka buyer and remarked on the well-presented draft of sale bulls. He’ll join the sires to commercial females on MacDonald Downs Station, northeast of Alice Springs.
Vendor Craig Hindle was very happy with his decision to sell at WQLX Longreach. He said this year’s average of $12,786 for 70 lots was well up on last year’s average of $9453 for 86 bulls.
“It was a good sale with a strong average and full clearance and we saw new buyers in addition to long term clients,” said Mr Hindle.
“Buyers were chasing mainly polled bulls with good skin and plenty of growth and it was encouraging to see the spread of bidders, with bulls going to the Northern Territory, throughout Blackall, Longreach, Winton and Boulia and a fair few back east, as well as down to New South Wales.
“The top-priced lot was a really neat bull, similar to his sire, a lovely quiet, easy doing bull with good skin, frame and muscle. We’ve always had a fair percentage of our bulls going to seedstock producers and we’re happy that they like our cattle.”
For the second year, Mr Hindle’s Bullamakinka stud offered its draft of select sale bulls at WQLX’s state of the art undercover selling centre, with the bulls travelling 1000km to Longreach from their home base at Pittsworth on the Darling Downs.
He said with the majority of Bullamakinka sires making their way to repeat buyers in the central west and western regions, WQLX was an obvious choice as a sale venue.
“Bringing our entire draft of bulls to Longreach makes them more accessible for commercial breeders in this area and the Northern Territory and underlies our emphasis on supplying bulls for the commercial breeder market,” he said.
AAM regional manager, James Thompson, described the sale as an excellent result for the Western Queensland Livestock Exchange and proof of the quality of service at the Longreach selling centre.
“Access to StockLive’s online service also spreads the pool of potential buyers and with vendors of the quality of Bullamakinka achieving top results, we’re certainly seenig the value in WQLX to reach a large pool of potential bull buyers,” Mr Thompson said.
Sale agents were GDL Blackall, Simstock Rural Agencies, with StockLive providing a live telecast and online bidding.