December 2000

A• Meeting of Westholme Associates at Tarana.

Meetings were held in the Westholme conference room at Tarana NSW on November 9th and 10th.

Attending were,

Westholme Team: Chris Walker, John Hardie, Don Nicol, Hiroshi Kurosaki, James Daniells, Tim Whatman, Rod Barrett.
Gooree Park:   Jamie Edmonds
Greenhills:      Claude Renshaw
Mansei Co.:    Motoaki Shikano
ET Japan:      Daiji Imori

Topics discussed:

Embryo production including supplementary feeding, use of heatwatch, problem with clovers and other grasses, subdivision of smaller paddocks, donor and recipient overweight issues, stress reduction, frequency of breeding for calf, etc

Soil and tissue testing leading to paddock specific programs designed to improve the health of donors, recipients and calves.

GeneSTAR testing all females and potential bulls. Decisions were taken to add GeneSTAR results to the present criteria for culling of full blood heifers. Westholme and Associates will be moving expeditiously toward more than 50% of donors being 2 star ranking.

Heatwatch programs now in operation at Westholme were discussed for possible implementation with associate herds.

Japan Quarantine capacity and programs to work for enhancement and additional opportunities.

Calf performance in Japan feedlots of Westholme and Associates calves previously shipped to Japan.

Line cross breeding for successful progeny enhancement using Fujiyoshi, Kedaka & Tajima blood lines. The error of using geographic or prefectural names to describe blood lines such as Tottori or Shimane was also demonstrated by Imori-san.

Cattle inspections of all fullblood Wagyu were conducted under Imori-sans leadership and the opportunity was taken to discuss specifics of every female and to complete culling of future breeding cattle to coincide with the next calf shipments to Japan.