Second top female price of $80,000 was paid for a Fullblood heifer offered by Cameron Hewitt and family’s HP Wagyu, Taroom, Queensland and bought by Lotus Park Grazing, Marlborough Qld.

HIGH-ranking donor type females were in strong demand during the Elite Wagyu Sale held during last week’s 2024 Australian Wagyu Association Conference, where females sold to international buyers for up to $130,000.

The sale formed one of the social and business highlights of this year’s AWA conference held in Cairns.

Topping the event, which offered 70 elite Fullblood females and bulls, semen and embryo packages, was Mayura T1474A, a Fullblood ET heifer offered by the de Bruin family’s Mayura Wagyu from Millicent, South Australia. She was bought by US Wagyu breeder Santos Patross, Landgraf Cattle Ranch, Red Rock Texas for ET program work.

Well short of the Wagyu female breed record of $400,000 set at the same sale in 2022, the sale of the top priced heifer, and other lots, reflected the present trading conditions for Wagyu cattle and beef, both in Australia and overseas.

In total, 15 of 22 females offered sold, averaging $42,333; 14 of 19 bulls averaged a somewhat disappointing $24,571; 15 of 18 semen lots averaged $2740; and eight of 11 embryos averaged $9687.

The top priced heifer was sired by one of Mayura’s emerging young sire prospects, Mayura Quantum Q0141, whose first eight carcases have produced an average digital marbling score of 12.37, with carcases averaging 50kg heavier than the group average.

The sale heifer sits in the breed’s top 1pc for marbling score and Self-Replacing Index, and top 5pc for eye muscle. She produced a Breeder Feeder Index figure of $532 (value above average), Self Replacing Index of $345, Fullblood index of $307 and F1 index of $288.

Second top female price of $80,000 was paid for a Fullblood heifer offered by Cameron Hewitt and family’s HP Wagyu, Taroom, Queensland and bought by Lotus Park Grazing, Marlborough Qld.

She was sired by home-bred HP Wagyu Reliable R0157, whose EBVs balance maternal and carcase traits, excelling in milk, carcase weight, marbling and marbling fineness.

Her dam has produced four carcases each grading AusMeat marbling score 9+.

Bull results were somewhat disappointing, topping at $50,000 for Door Key UO12, offered by Door Key Wagyu, Guyra NSW and bought by Arubial Wagyu, Condamine Qld.

A son of one of the breed’s super-sires, Mayura L0010, his EBVs displayed excellent carcase merit, with a Breeder Feeder Index figure of $517, Fullblood Index of $286 and F1 Index of $271.

Second top priced bull at $42,000 was one of the purebred homozygous Poll Wagyu entries, named Poll Wagyu 932G. The calf was bought by Richard and Dyan Hughes’ Wentworth Cattle Co, Clermont Qld. His dam, a high-performing Strathdale poll program cow, has produced 74 carcases averaging Beef Marbling score 8.97, with eye muscles averaging 108sq cm and carcase weights averaging 444kg.

Ray White Rural handed the sale.