Letter from Europe: Hybrid beef bulls prove their worth in Britain
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Only 40 years ago, British beef cattle breeders fought to stop the import of 'exotic' continental beef breeds. Now genes from both British and mainland European cattle are merged in hybrid lines, resulting in still better performance
by NORMAN DUNN
Surely the biggest changes in the last 40 years in beef production feature the ever-increasing number of breeds involved. I won't say "new breeds," because their respective forbears were often first described 200 years ago or even further back in time – in forgotten corners of France, in Italy or way up in the Bavarian Alps.
Britain – or at least the breeders of its established beef breeds in the mid-20th century – was more than a little reluctant to allow "exotics" such as Charolais, Fleckvieh, Limousin and Chianina across the English Channel back in the 1960s. Although continental bulls and semen were, by that time, allowed in for crossing with dairy cattle, breeding females had to stay out. Incidentally, these first continental breed crosses with Friesians and Ayrshires did more than anything to confirm wholehearted acceptance of the European mainland breeds by British commercial farmers. This was because the calves proved to be amazingly high performance feeders.
Having recognized these benefits, ordinary calf producers and cattle feeders were greatly irritated by the establishment – mainly Angus and Shorthorn breeders – stopping these foreign cattle getting a foothold in the United Kingdom.
This led to some comical adventures behind the scenes on the more progressive farms. As a student, I heard about one enterprise where a purebred Charolais heifer had been imported into Britain from a herd in Texas.
The import was only allowed on the basis that the animal would not be used for breeding pure Charolais animals.
As noted earlier, continental breed semen was already used in dairy cattle crossing and this farmer also had a dairy herd. So, to get around the ban on pure breeding, the local artificial insemination man was ordered to come and inseminate some dairy cows with Charolais semen whenever the imported Charolais heifer was "bulling."
The minute the A.I. pick-up had disappeared down the farm road, attempts were made to transfer some of the valuable Charolais semen into the lonely Charolais heifer hidden away in an adjoining barn.
But, outside in the normal world, common sense soon took over and within a few years females from a wide range of breeds were being shipped into Britain to start new purebred herds. (Historical footnote: British breed stalwarts were among the first to found herds of continental breeds and even today some remain amongst the most important breeders, which shows there is certainly nothing wrong with their business sense.)
Nowadays, the list of these incomers is long indeed and includes Belgian Blue, Simmental, Salers, Aubrec and Maine-Anjou with one of the more recent being Parthenais. In the 1800s, this dual-purpose animal had been only registered as a "regional breed" in its homeland, the Deux-Sèvres area of mid-west France. By the 1970s, French breeders had concentrated on producing for beef and started a very intense selection policy for easy calving and high growth rates of lean meat. The sometimes double-muscled Parthenais has quickly become a favourite crossing breed for dairy cows in other parts of Europe, as well as North America.
Next step in the evolution of high performance beef production is definitely the development of hybrids, which involves taking the best from not just two, but three or more breeds or lines, and adding a huge helping of hybrid vigour.
Now an increasing number of farmers in Britain are doing their own thing (usually with carefully thought-out, computerized breeding programs) with cross bulls. For instance, Belgian Blues, bred selectively since the 1980s to become "British Blues, are paired up with Limousin or Parthenais for such hybrid bulls. The results, used on commercial beef cows, are calves earning top prices nowadays from feeders who value their growth, muscling and high health.
Oh . . . and the first attempt at purebred Charolais production mentioned earlier? Well, as most veterinarians reading this would guess, it never worked. As far as I know, the beast was never served with any other breed. So what could have become the first producer of a purebred Charolais calf in Britain probably ended-up as the island's oldest barren heifer.
Norman Dunn writes about European agriculture from Germany.