ACC Wagyu feeders

ONE of the early adopters of the Wagyu sector’s new Feeder Check DNA selection tool has found the technology is allowing for informed management decision-making, well before carcase results are available on cattle.

Vertically-integrated beef producer Australian Country Choice is the largest family-owned vertically integrated beef producer in the world, with cattle raising operations across Queensland and a state-of-the art export processing facility in Brisbane.

As part of a major business transition, ACC established its own Wagyu herd in 2017, designed to capture increased value and profitability through production of luxury Wagyu beef to support leading global export brands.

Australian Country Choice has relied heavily on genomic and production data to drive genetic selection within its Wagyu program.

The company’s senior manager of southern breeding operations, Ryan Carter, said it had become increasingly apparent that continual analysis of the data, coupled with phenotypic assessment, was critical to producing a consistent and reliable product while continuing to grow the business’s scale of production.

ACC has been an early adopter of the Wagyu Feeder Check DNA tool developed by the Australian Wagyu Association in partnership with Neogen Australasia and CSIRO. The selection tool was launched at last year’s AWA conference in Melbourne.

“ACC has found the Wagyu Feeder Check to be an extremely helpful tool in evaluating our terminal progeny for specific production traits, allowing for informed decision-making well before carcase results are available,” Mr Carter said.

The company has already processed almost 6000 Wagyu cross samples through Wagyu Feeder Check, and received carcase results for 2097 animals.

This was providing compelling data to back operational and production measurements, Mr Carter said.

Those animals ranged from steers killed in 2021 through to 2023 weaners, encompassing F1 Wagyu x Angus through to high content Purebred steers.

Tissue samples are collected at around 12 months of age, with results back before the cattle enter the feedlot.

Genetic merit for a range of traits

Wagyu Feeder Check is a commercially available tool providing data on the genetic merit of Wagyu content animals for key traits including carcase weight, average daily gain, marbling score, eye muscle area and rump fat.

Genetic merit scores (Molecular Breeding Values, or MBVs) are provided ranked from 1 to 10 (10 being highest) for each trait, and can be obtained at or before feedlot induction to improve animal management.

Mr Carter said comparisons between carcase results and Wagyu Feeder Check MBV data on the slaughtered steers demonstrated strong correlation between the MBV Rank of each animal and their actual production outcome for each trait across the cohort.

This was best demonstrated by grouping animals by their graded/actual marbling score and assessing the MBV rank from the Wagyu Feeder Check across that group.

The graph above represents the percentage of animals given an MBV 5 or lower (blue bars) and MBV 6 or higher (orange bars), at each graded AUSMeat marbling score.

In the ACC carcase data, of all carcases that graded marbling score 9, 16.05pc were predicted to have lower expression of marbling as they were evaluated to have a marbling MBV rank of 5 or lower.

Counter to this, the MBV rank 5 and below cattle accounted for 91.74pc of carcases which marbled 3 and 92.31pc of carcases which marbled 4.

Big savings in better sortation

Wagyu content carcases that grade marbling score 4 or below are estimated to cost the industry $1000 per head on average. Prior analysis conducted by the Australian Wagyu Association suggests that removing the bottom 10pc of crossbred Wagyu feeder cattle could save the industry $22 million per year in improved resource use efficiency.

Australian Country Choice has also used the Wagyu Feeder Carcase Weight rankings in a similar analysis, showing a strong trend between actual hot standard carcase weight to the carcase weight MBV predicted by Wagyu Feeder Check.

Grouped into 25kg weight brackets, 94.12pc of Wagyu carcases between 550kg and 575kg were produced by animals with a Carcase Weight MBV rank of 6 or higher (orange bars in graph below), as well as all four +575kg carcases. Of the 155 carcases in the 500kg to 525kg group, only 12 were produced by an animal with an MBV rank of 5 or below (blue bars) for 7.74pc of the bracket.

ACC’s general manager of rural properties, Christian Coffey, discussed the future added value of using the Wagyu Feeder Check Tool.

“We also receive DNA parentage information to provide precise through-chain verification of Wagyu content and to link data back to Fullblood sires through Sire Verification,” Mr Coffey said.

Sires whose progeny averaged favourably in kill data analysis were also highlighted through average progeny MBV rankings. Out of 99 sires used, the top ten by average progeny MBV rank achieved a graded marbling score average of 7.11 across 242 carcases. In comparison, the bottom ten sires achieved an average score of 5.3 across 281 carcases.

The MBV’s on the progeny along with the Sire Verification translates to predicted sire performance.

“This can be used as part of the bull selection criteria when joinings are being decided, giving the ability to predict the potential genetic performance of a sire well in advance of kill data analysis,” Mr Coffey said.

“These sires have the potential to directly influence up to four generations of progeny. With Wagyu Feeder Check, conclusions can be drawn on the future usage of the bull before kill data is analysed.”

Australian Country Choice chief executive Anthony Lee said his company saw the Wagyu Feeder Check tool as an important improvement in sustainability of ACC’s beef production system, by only targeting animals into the company’s Wagyu program that are likely to achieve the high quality standards for Wagyu beef.

“ACC is using this information to improve its Wagyu production supply chain, identifying low profitability animals that will not meet the requirements from long-feeding programs,” Mr Lee said.