Te Mania Angus has dominated the breed's EBVs for years - and is showing no signs of slowing down - with more than twice as many Angus Group Breedplan trait leaders as any other stud.

Adding to that success is Te Mania Angus' insistence all sale bulls are stringently - and independently - assessed for structure. With the results published alongside each bull in all sale catalogues.

Te Mania Angus can deliver calving ease and be commercially profitable with the fast-growing, high-marbling bulls wanted by the feedlot industry, processors, and, most crucially, consumers.

Te Mania Angus director Tom Gubbins says his family's business has been going to great lengths - "lengths above and beyond that expected by the rest of the industry" - to further improve that accuracy. 

He says Te Mania Angus does that in many ways, such as keeping animals together in large contemporary groups to achieve more effective progeny in each group which can then be compared in one environment. 

"The phenotype (what you see) is made up of the genotype (inherited factors) plus the environment (all other factors)," Tom says.

"If we put animals in large groups where the environment is the same, then we can compare genotypes," he says.

Te Mania Angus also progeny tests a significant cast of sires each year - both on-property and through the Team Te Mania commercial progeny test herds. 

Sires such as Te Mania Berkley B1, Te Mania Africa A217, Te Mania Yorkshire Y347, and many others, have sons in this year's autumn sale team as well as steer half brothers in the Team Te Mania herds, spread across SA, Victoria and NSW.

Tom says these progeny test herds contribute valuable information on sires, which further increases the accuracy of the of the sale bulls, through the sire line. 

He says while this is a time consuming and expensive program, Te Mania Angus remains committed to this principle - and its success is clearly reflected in Breedplan and in demand from major feedlots for Te Mania Angus blood steers. 

"As we all well know, EBVs can change as more information comes to light, because EBVs are estimates of the animal's genotype," Tom adds.

"The more information made available, the more accurate the estimates and the reason why an EBV may change," he says.

In this year's autumn on-property catalogue for Mortlake on March 19:

123 out of 160 bulls are from homebred sires.

• This progeny testing has resulted in Te Mania Berkley B1 being identified as the top sire on Australian Group Breedplan for the $Index for Long Fed/CAAB Market, the $Index for Heavy Grass Fed Steers and the $Index for Short Fed Domestic market.
• Te Mania Africa A217, who has 12 sons in the sale, follows closely behind in the Top Five ranking for these three markets.
• Te Mania Yorkshire Y437, 16 sons in the sale, progeny tested through 59 herds and is an acclaimed Trait Leader for Group Breedplan for 11 out of the 16 published traits.A trait leader is a sire in the top 5 pc of the breed for that trait, and with an accuracy of at least 80 pc for that trait.
• Te Mania Ambassador A134, progeny tested through 22 herds, is the highest sire on Australian Group Breedplan for IMF.

"In our breeding program these short generation interval, high accuracy animals also give us the opportunity to make faster genetic gain, therefore improve our herd and the herds of our clients at an ever-accelerating rate," Tom adds.

"It also means we can use more of our own-bred sires, which we practically know much more about," he says.

"With this extra accuracy we can make more specific breeding decisions than the rest of the industry, for example keeping a lid on birth weight.

"And because of the number of bulls in the sale, we have large numbers of very low birthweight bulls while pushing growth hard while keeping mature size at a viable limit. We can also do this while boosting marbling and other important carcase traits."

Parallel with its genetic progress is Te Mania Angus' focus on structure.

Tom says the stud is continually expanding its structural assessment program to optimise soundness and performance in its stock.

He says the program involves an independent assessor from BEEFXCEL analysing the structural composition of the herd on an individual basis.

The program used at Te Mania comprises of an annual assessment of all sale bulls, an annual assessment of all breeding females and donor cows and any animals deemed inadequate are immediately culled.

Article provided by Western District Farmer

Te Mania Berkley B1, the highest bull on Australian Group Breeplan for the Long Fed/CAAB Market, Heavy Grass Fed Steer and Short Fed Domestic $ Indexes