French cattle producers who want to improve one of their native herds are staring across the pond.
Bryan Hicks is Canada’s first Charolais breeder to export semen to France, where the breed originated.
Hicks, who farms near Arthur, Ont., has spent decades refining his cattle based on carcass development and a homozygous polled trait.
“They don’t win any prizes at a purebred cattle show. I’ve tried,” he said.
“They are too lumpy due to having extra muscle that packers refer to as meat.”
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Hicks brought a line of his best cattle to Canadian Western Canadian Agribition in Regina last month, including Hicks Revolver, which is the source of the genetics he is selling to France.
“I’m here to develop the market,” he said.
“Win? No, I don’t think so, but get some awareness of what I have to offer the beef business? Yes.”
Hicks offers heritable larger jump muscles, bigger, more defined loins and front shoulders, larger calves from his bulls and the pair of genes that deliver all polled progeny when paired with homozygous polled cows, or 50 percent horned calves when paired with heterozygous dams.
The result are meaty calves, polled genetics and savings for French commercial cattle producers, who comply with strict European Union animal welfare regulations regarding horn removal.
“It’s $100 per head for a vet to remove those horns in the EU. Nothing to sneeze at,” he said.
“French breeders have seen what I have to offer from marketing I’ve done in England, and they wanted their own.”
Hicks Revolver and its sire have spent time in North America’s show rings, but Hicks said the “flat tops that win ribbons aren’t present in my cattle. You can pour a couple of cups of water into the (hollow) on their backs that is built by the additional muscle.”
However, he said that is what makes them attractive to feeders, packers and the French.
Hicks said he sources his genetics from animals that meet his phenotype goals and then selects from generations of calves.
“It didn’t happen over night, but it did happen and that’s what matters. My cattle are judged by the marketplace,” he said.
A second bull, Hicks Sir Winston, is the animal that will be siring calves in France.
Charolais Optimal is handling the semen in France, Semex looks after getting it there and Foundation Sires in Listowel, Ont., collects it locally
Charolais arrived in Canada from Mexican-American animals in the mid-1950s and as purebreds in 1967.
