Inside the Cornish Beefmasters stud

By Mike Burgess | 14 October 2024 | 7:00 am

Marcel Stapelberg, co-owner of the Cornish Beefmasters stud, spoke to Mike Burgess to give him a better understanding of why and how the family established their stud in less than a decade.

Two-year-old Cornish Beefmasters stud heifers. Photo: Stapelberg Family

The Cornish Beefmasters stud is defined by 250 cows run on predominantly sourveld in the Indwe/Dordrecht regions of the Eastern Cape. The Stapelbergs’ first exposure to the Beefmaster breed was via a Karan Beef holding station they agreed to have established on their farm, Milford, near Indwe in 2008.

It was here that, for years, they were able to witness how Beefmaster calves outperformed their counterparts from other breeds.

“The Beefmasters simply outgrew calves from other breeds,’’ says 28-year-old Marcel Stapelberg, who co-owns the stud with his father, Willem, and his uncle, Hennie. “The Beefmasters’ incredible growth potential made us really take notice.’’

By 2014, the Stapelbergs had started using Beefmaster bulls in their commercial cow herd, and the ensuing ‘genetic revolution’ convinced them to register a Beefmaster stud in 2017.

“The fertility and weaner weights in the commercial herd improved significantly,’’ says Stapelberg. “We then committed to starting a Beefmaster stud.’’

Marcel Stapelberg says: ’The top genetics we started with made the establishment of a quality stud relatively simple.‘

Top Foundation Genetics

Once the Stapelbergs made the decision to establish a stud, it was agreed that only top-quality Beefmaster genetics would be sourced as a foundation.

Stapelberg, his father and uncle all committed to pooling their financial resources and purchasing the very best Beefmaster genetics available from the Bos Blanco Beefmaster stud near Kroonstad and the WO Beefmaster stud near Vrede, both in the Free State.

A total of 70 individual animals were relocated to the Indwe/Dordrecht region, where soon the impact of certain carefully ed bulls became satisfyingly evident.

“You simply need to invest in top bulls, as your herd is the sum of the quality of your bulls. In my opinion, a bull breeds back to his dam, so we have always tried to acquire bulls from the best dam lines.’’

In the years that followed, bulls were purchased from other studs, too, most notably from Pat Bailey Beefmasters near Komga in the Eastern Cape. And although several helped define today’s Cornish Beefmasters stud, some stand out head and shoulders above the rest.

For example, Bos 15 5035, bought from the Bos Blanco Beefmaster stud in 2018, and PB 19 109, bought from Pat Bailey Beefmasters in 2021, helped produce exceptionally fertile females that could produce early-maturing offspring.

Fertile Females

The goal at Cornish Beefmasters is to breed medium-framed cows of between 480kg and 550kg that are fertile and functionally efficient on the veld but also exhibit good mothering abilities and produce enough milk to raise quality weaners of at least 50% of their own weight.

Stapelberg explains that ion, where using estimated breeding values plays a pivotal role, is all about balance and steering away from genetic extremes. He illustrates this by highlighting the consequences of being tempted to for too much milk to produce heavier weaners.

“If you go for too much milk, you will lose out on long-term fertility. You do not want cows with too much milk that may wean big calves on occasion but will not be able to produce a calf consistently year after year.”

The Cornish stud herd achieved a conception rate of 96% in 2024 and weaned bull and heifer calves at six to seven months with average weights of 290kg and 240kg respectively.

The average calf weight at birth is 37kg, and some of the stud’s top cows have outstanding inter-calving periods (ICPs), including Bos 10 050 with an ICP of 364 over 12 calves, WO 13 691 with an ICP of 366 over eight calves, and COR 18 005 with an ICP of 345 over four calves.

In single-sire herds, cows are normally put to the bull from the beginning of November to the end of February. On occasion, ed heifers were artificially inseminated, but they are mostly put to the bull at 24 months, also in single-sire herds, three weeks earlier.

“Heifers take longer to recover after calving than cows do,’’ he says. “So, we ensure that they calve a little earlier than the cows so they have more time to recover before they are put to the bull again.’’

Once the heifers have produced their first calves, they receive extra nutritional support before calving again. “These females will be put onto the best grazing available, receive more licks, and in late winter even some chicken litter.’’

A 16-month-old self-bred Cornish Beefmasters bull in the Dordrecht district.

Management

A standard inoculation/dosing programme is adhered to at Cornish Beefmasters, but considering that the cattle run on redwater and gallsickness veld, the control of ticks is extra challenging.

“Cases of redwater in particular have increased radically over the past 10 years, and with changing weather patterns will only get worse,’’ says Stapelberg.

Nevertheless, in the interest of building the herd’s immunity to tickborne diseases, cattle are only dipped once in summer and once in winter. Ticks are, however, carefully monitored on the animals, and if it is felt that the tick load has become too heavy, injectable compounds are administered.

“We try to let them build immunity as much as possible,’’ says Stapelberg. “But if we need to use injectables like Ivomec Gold [a preferred product], we will do so and give them protection for 2,5 months at a time.’’

Cattle run predominantly on the veld and receive a basic phosphate/salt lick in summer and a urea-based protein lick in winter.

The winter lick also contains crushed maize, and the urea content is increased gradually from 15% to 25% as the winter progresses.

There is a focus with the larger commercial Beefmaster herd in particular of about 700 cows to engage in ‘semi-high-density grazing’, where groups of 150 animals are used to graze more unpalatable grass.

Stapelberg believes the Cornish Beefmasters stud has come of age due, in large part, to the quality of their foundation genetics, which have been effectively consolidated into the stud’s current offspring.

He is confident about the quality of the animals that will be available at the first production sale in September.

“I am not nervous,’’ he says. “I know we have done what we need to do to offer buyers quality animals.’’