Polled Wagyu

Since 1994

When the Hammond family of north-west Tasmania founded their wagyu herd in 1994, one of the original female embryos calves was polled. Over the next 20 years of breeding, before the Hammonds decided to focus on utilising the polled gene, she produced many polled daughters, who produced many polled daughters; all sired by proven fullblood bulls.

The polled animals were part of their commercial purebred and fullblood herd, and treated the same. Their aim was to produce terminal animals with carcass performance, and replacements that were balanced in terms of maternal as well as carcass characteristics.

SHIFTED FOCUS

In 2013, they finally began to shift focus to their polled cattle.

The Hammonds began in 2013 by purchasing a half share in Bar R 52Y, a heterozygous polled bull, from prominent U.S breeder Dr Jerry Reeves. They used Bar R 52Y over their poll purebred cows, producing their first homozygous poll wagyu calves and embryos. Additionally, the Hammonds have used 52Y over their entire 1800 head commercial purebred and fullblood herd for the past 3 years. To date, this has added over 500 heterozygous polled replacement females of varying genetics to the program.

In 2014, in order to lift the proven genetics to the highest level, the Hammonds joined forces with top Australian breeder Scott de Bruin. There could be no better sire in Australia to add to the polled foundation than Scott’s renowned ADBFA0139 MAYURA ITOSHIGENAMI JNR (AI). Polled embryos were implanted into recipients on the de Bruins property, and calves born in late 2015. This project is into its second year of production.

The Hamblin Family

In 2015, the Hammond’s partnered with the Hamblin family who run a 6000-head wagyu herd over 46,000 acres in central Queensland and the Darling Downs. Together they produced over 200 embryo calves in the first 12 months, which were carried by the Hamblin’s crossbred wagyu cows. Additional embryos have been implanted since.

Crucially, the Hamblin partnership allows Poll Wagyu Pty Ltd to breed and raise poll wagyu in the Queensland environment. Our bulls are suited to the range of Australian conditions and need not spend valuable time acclimatising.

The Hamblins have been breeding wagyu for 18 years through artificial insemination, in-vitro fertilisation, and embryo transfer. Several of their high-performance sires, including MOYFD0507 MOYHU F D507 (AI), have further strengthened the genetics of our cattle.