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ABOUT US |
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Breeding Philosophy Our cattle breeding philosophies are the same as our commercial clients. We believe that maintaining an efficient, productive cow herd is the only option for successful, self-sustaining profitable cattle production. The Palgrove stud and commercial breeding herds run under very real commercial production systems, so we have been able to easily identify superior cows that demonstrate the following economically relevant traits:
Every Palgrove bull that leaves the front gate is a product of a disciplined genetic breeding system with emphasis on moderate birth, efficient weight gain, ability to lay down fat cover off-grass or in the feedlot and survivability. He must be able to add real value to a purebred stud or commercial crossbreeding female herd and our client’s profits. To achieve this, we place selection pressure on multiple, balanced EBV traits, then only cattle that pass our strict visual appraisal for structure, quality, doing ability, temperament and soundness make it into our sale drafts. Commercially unprofitable cattle are eliminated. This has been the same philosophy that has served us for over 40 years. |
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History PALGROVE CHAROLAIS was founded by Peter & Valerie Bondfield and is one of Australia’s original Charolais studs, with the first Charolais X calves born in 1970. The cattle were originally upgraded from quality Shorthorns and Brahman females. From the beginning, we believed that we had to adapt the French Charolais cattle to fit Australia’s commercial environment, so established a strict culling programme based on birth weight, calving ease and body shape. To this we added fast growth and medium maturity. This resulted in a functional “Palgrove type” Charolais that exists in the herd today – cattle with natural doing ability that are highly fertile. In the mid 1990’s we recognised that further adaption was needed to balance the Charolais muscle and add fat cover to fit market specifications. Palgrove was one of the first breeders to utilise Ultrasound scanning and DNA markers to identify pedigrees that could deliver on both of these in a balanced package. We now input more than twice as much scan data and weight information than any other Charolais breeder in Australia and the accuracy of our Breedplan figures is extremely high.
Our bull breeding programme continues to evolve with the needs of our clients directly driving our selections. Palgrove has extended its genetic base beyond the purebred Charolais and now offers a range of options to commercial beef producers with our Charolais/Angus; Charolais/Shorthorn, Charbray and our newly designed UltrablackTM Brangus bulls. |
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Herd Management
The Palgrove female herd is managed under a strictly commercial operating system, with cows expected to calve unassisted; calve by 2 years of age and continue to produce a calf every year. The majority of yearling heifers are AI’ed or joined to yearling bulls and those requiring assistance are culled along with their progeny.
Health:
All sale bulls are inoculated twice with 7-in-1 and 3 Day Sickness and 3 germ tick blood vaccinated. Palgrove is an accredited TB and Brucellosis free herd and all of our properties are recognised as Johnes Disease Protected.
Pestivirus:
We believe we have a responsibility to ensure that clients’ herds are not exposed to the risk of exposure to Pestivirus. We've undertaken a program of testing all of our sale bulls to ensure that they are negative persistently infected (PI Negative) for Pesti before they are sold. We also have a program for vaccination of all heifers and natural exposure strategies are put in place in our mature breeding herd.
Services
1. Breeding Advice
We encourage clients to seek out our advice or call any of our staff for assistance. There is a lot of conflicting information about breeds, markets and production systems. Let us advise you of the most profitable genetic combinations and production systems to match your environment – call anytime for this free service.
2. Marketing Assistance
We are in constant contact with feedlots, backgrounders, agents and processors looking for progeny out of our bulls. Check out our Commercial Markets Page for up to date market information and see if we can assist you to place your cattle more profitably.
3. Management
The Palgrove team is available on a consulting basis to assist in developing a full scale breeding and production programme for your enterprise. We are also able to organise ongoing management of your enterprise would be happy to provide a quote for your enterprise – contact David Bondfield.
4. Contract Breeding
There are a host of breed combinations that will assist our clients to meet their specific market specifications and fit their environment and production systems. We assist clients under a number of contract breeding arrangements and can design specific breed combinations to fit most requirements, with bulls delivered when and where required.
Locations
Breeding females are located on all of the Palgrove properties (See Locations below) and sale bulls can be inspected at any of the stud’s locations.
- ‘Strathgarve’ at Dalveen is the headquarters for the stud where a core number of the breeding herd is based and the annual bull production sale is held. It is situated on the New England Highway 30 kms south of Warwick and 31 kms north of Stanthorpe in Queensland.
- The ’Killaloo’ property at Drillham is a bull depot and fodder production property and runs many of the male cattle. Killaloo is situated on the Warrego Highway, 21 kms west of Miles - 120 kms east of Roma.
- The Ben Lomond properties are located 32 kms south-west of Glen Innes. These properties run the majority as well as growing out Palgrove’s weaner heifers.
- The Rhodesia property is located on the Capricorn Highway, 28 kms east of Emerald. This property carries a large proportion of our private sale bulls for ease of movement to central and northern Qld.
