Thread: Wagyu calves

Got myself some Wagyu calves, which is a first for us. Not by design they just happened to be available from a new guy who’s moved here from the Hawke’s Bay. Nice and cheap cash deal too.

Applied the rubber band and put them into a nice small house paddock with a daily feed of calf nuts and they seem happy as. Really quiet which is helpful.

So I see that generally this cattle breed is kept for longer than the standard black white or brown white face. Which isn’t a problem for us because we learned that in general leaving our steers until they were rising three-year-olds resulted in much better quality Homekill beef. In fact I’ve fed my black white face beef to Angus farmers and I have commented that they thought it was Waygu, such was the marbling.

Any of you fellas got any of these on your blocks, ready for conversion into your favourite dinner?

No, but use Murray Grey or MG/Gelbvieh cross for freezer fillers on our own farm. Have had patchy results from all the pure breds or crosses that haver made their way onto our plate.Some fantastic, some meh!

I reared 40 wagyu this year to weaning and absolutely love them over any other calves. Very clever and great natures. We have been lucky enough to have wagyu from a 2yo but wasn’t all it cracked out to be, time is definitely their friend.
If I were to rear beef I would hands down to Belgian blue. Had one in the freezer last year and was by far the best meat I have ever eaten, was only a 2yo but amazing size, yield, marbling and couldn’t fault it.

We did a few bloody stubborn scraggly looking things with no zest for life compared to other breeds.
Have a few Brahman on the go this season, now they are cool, super easy to rear and real conversation starters

Originally Posted by Ryan_Songhurst

We did a few bloody stubborn scraggly looking things with no zest for life compared to other breeds.
Have a few Brahman on the go this season, now they are cool, super easy to rear and real conversation starters

NOW you talking...back in 80s they called them tarindikiss spelt wrong but sounds right..... the AI folks were putting pure bulls across herd cows and heifers,the female calves were being shipped overseas to start herds with increased vigour and great drought and parisite resistance.....two things to note...they hit ground and RUN LIKE STINK...you have about an hour to get a hold of them or will be bulldogging off motorbike......fences??what fences to calf..... and the colours are amazing..... but the best bit,the calving,even heifers poke out big calves just like spitting out sausages,its like the calves have no bony corners to get stuck...its always amazed me the breed hasnt been kept on for heifer for just that reason...photos of your wee fellas please.

We have one being processed at the moment. A 3 or 4 year old (can't remember) steer, killed out at 390kg.

Absolutely horrible things to rear (used to do lots of them under contract until I was threatened with divorce by the calf rearer), slow growing, but taste nice.

Originally Posted by Rich007

We have one being processed at the moment. A 3 or 4 year old (can't remember) steer, killed out at 390kg.

Absolutely horrible things to rear (used to do lots of them under contract until I was threatened with divorce by the calf rearer), slow growing, but taste nice.

I had neighbor with big fat cheque book sitting on one shoulder and grumpy wife sitting on the other shoulder... Decided domestic bliss was the right route

@Chelsea, they’re big units those Belgian Blues, I snapped these beauties around Ypres a few years back.

Originally Posted by ishoot10s

@Chelsea, they’re big units those Belgian Blues, I snapped these beauties around Ypres a few years back.

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I have been trying to convince the farm owner to use short gestation Belgium blue instead of short gestation x bred at the tail end of calving. We do AB all mating. But he’s worried about calving difficulties because they are such big units but I believe they have been “refined” to be easy calving. Still haven’t convinced him but once he gets a taste of one he won’t be able to resist.

Originally Posted by Chelsea

I have been trying to convince the farm owner to use short gestation Belgium blue instead of short gestation x bred at the tail end of calving. We do AB all mating. But he’s worried about calving difficulties because they are such big units but I believe they have been “refined” to be easy calving. Still haven’t convinced him but once he gets a taste of one he won’t be able to resist.

We used 40 straws of Belgium Blue last year in addition to the Charolais that we usually use. Cool calves, but significantly more calving difficulties. Back to all (aside from Sexed Friesian) Charolais this year

Originally Posted by Rich007

We used 40 straws of Belgium Blue last year in addition to the Charolais that we usually use. Cool calves, but significantly more calving difficulties. Back to all (aside from Sexed Friesian) Charolais this year

More difficulties from size? That’s what farm owner is worried about but I see LIC I think it is has advertised “easy calving, SG” straws.
We are currently cleaning up with Angus and then SG dairy. All our SG dairy are trucked so I’d rather use a sought after SG beefy and sell them if not rear them.

Originally Posted by Chelsea

More difficulties from size? That’s what farm owner is worried about but I see LIC I think it is has advertised “easy calving, SG” straws.
We are currently cleaning up with Angus and then SG dairy. All our SG dairy are trucked so I’d rather use a sought after SG beefy and sell them if not rear them.

Mine were 'easy calving' too (although through CRV). There were certainly some big calves, but then we had some big Charolais calves too with far fewer issues.

I guess I'm just saying, be aware that the calving may be easier than normal for a BB, but it will be harder than you are used to.

Agree with the idea of creating additional value in the calves, we haven't bobbied anything for 6 years now.

We've got a small herd of Dexters. Knocked two 2yo steers on the head last weekend. Little cows, known for good temperament and marbling.They had hook weights of 186 and 194kg respectively. They'll be processed and into the freezer next weekend.

It's our first foray into homekill, so I'm looking forward to the results.

Wagyu were the next great thing when I was at uni - that was about 30 years ago.

While I was there we also visited a farmer in Hawkes Bay who was doing Belgian Blues, but he was using embryo transfer into Chianina draught cattle as they are big enough they could birth the calves naturally, as apparently Belgian Blues calves are mostly delivered by caesarian in Europe.

The most marbled steak we have ever had was from a Hereford-Friesian cross heifer, she was morbidly obese, but the steak was beautiful! I'll have to track down the photo of the steak.

Our Gelbvieh cows are by far the best mums we have ever had. When ringing the steers and with all the mums separated out into the yards paddock most of the herefords and some of the MG will be off scoffing their face on the fresh growth. Not the gelbvieh's and MG/Gelb X's. They'll be there leaning right over the yards rails staring us in the eye, and every time they catch our eye they'll bellow, covering us in spit. Happy as clams the minute you give them back their calf. In the paddock they are generally glued at the hip for the 7 months from birth till they go to the sales.