With over 50 years of 'blood, sweat, and tears' behind us
Y3K Brahmans is more than a stud, it’s a family legacy dedicated to the perfection of the Polled Red Brahman. Our journey has always been guided by honesty, integrity, and a passion for cattle that work as hard as we do. From developing superior rumen health at weaning to perfecting udder quality and calf shape, every decision we make is designed to give our buyers a head start. Here is why choosing Y3K means investing in a future of consistency and genetic strength.
1.Calving Ease and Shape
Something we have concentrated on for the 40 years we have been breeding stud cattle.
We aim for very small calves (between 20kg & 30kg) and mostly succeed with this.
However, by maintaining correct calf shape, any that are born 30kg to 40kg are born easily and up sucking and bucking within the first hour of life.
2.Great Udders
Vitally important. The photo demonstrate where we want our whole herd to be and we are nearly there. This is not about only getting smaller, more even teats that will never get large or bottle but also about udder size and milk production.
We are striving for these smaller udders with better quality milk.
This is a win win situation, not only better udders but we feel is linked with quicker reproduction times between calves as the cow can maintain weight better if she’s not producing massive amounts of milk.
3.Fertility & Productivity
Maximise production and profit by having fertile and functional animals that produce. Females with a live calf every year and bulls that deliver plenty of strong healthy calves is the goal. There is certainly plenty of factors that contribute to this outcome.
A full inoculation program to help keep diseases out of the herd and as previously mentioned calf shape and size etc but we feel there is also a genetic link and these are the female lines we are looking to continue breeding with.
4.Natural Docility
This is vitally important for so many reasons. For one, it just makes mustering and working in the yards easy, safe and enjoyable. More importantly, though is its links with meat quality and tenderness and production. Naturally quiet cattle graze better and eat better.
Again, this is something we’ve always bred for. This is one area we feel we are excelling. We were very pleased to see that Y3K Billionaire 9002 (PP) is now sitting in the Top 1% of the Breed for Flight Time. We have found his calves to be the most naturally quiet calves of the season.
5.Polled Cattle without Polled Faults
- Light Boned
- Tight skin
- Small
- Bad (narrow) heads
- Lack of Prepuce Control
6.Structural Soundness and Integrity
This is an important factor in longevity and productivity of animals. We’ve worked extremely hard on getting this right. Getting good bend in those back legs and with ample leg length for ease of walking. We have found our fed sale bulls now don’t need their feet trimmed. We have also maintained correct shoulders, body shape and rump angle (important for females to keep the cervix correctly tilted for easy birth) and great feet and legs with front and back legs tracking for ease of walkability.
For the last decade our 2 year old sale bulls have been between 128 and 138 square centimetres in the Eye Muscle. We have not been striving for 150cm EMA for fear of thickening up the calves too much and causing birthing problems.
7.Pedigree Guarantee (100% of Herd DNA Tested)
This is for peace of mind for us and anyone who purchases our genetics. The importance of this was further highlighted when we DNA tested an IVF calf and his sire and dam were not correct. Human error nearly caused us to keep a bull and use him over his mother and sisters.
Furthermore, it prevents any errors with paddock matings too. We should soon have a profile for every female in the herd so that what you buy is 100% the correct pedigree guaranteed. DNA testing also allows for Breedplan Figures for those who are interested in that.
8.Set Up For success
Our whole program is about setting up all our animals for success.
Firstly, we wean all calves at 6 months of age. From here they go onto a small grain ration for a couple of months. This is all about developing their Rumen and thereby setting them up for life with a well-developed and healthy rumen.
Secondly, we’ve ramped up our inoculation program. We needle all breeding stock annually for Pesti, Vibrio, 7 in 1 and Botulism. This gives some peace of mind when purchasing animals from us that they are ready to go.Â
With our bulls going to auction we follow a regimented program to again set them up for success. These bulls follow the program just mentioned.
From there, we select our auction bulls and put them in a hilly paddock and give them a maintenance ration of grain hand fed twice a day to ensure consistency of amounts fed. Starting with only a couple of kilograms of grain a day and periodically increased in small increments.
By sale time our bulls max out at 8 to 9 kg’s per day for the last 90 days of sale. With our auction bulls we trim all their feet even though they don’t need it.
Our hoof trimmer, Ashley Morris, has talked us into doing all fed bulls. It’s all about setting them up for success when they go to the successful purchasers place to work. Ash checks all our fed bulls feet and will advise us if there is any issues.
To date, we are only doing our bulls feet to set them up for success, not as a necessity.
9.Genetic Consistency
We believe we are building a herd of females with Genetic Strength and Consistency. These very strong genetic traits allow for quality and consistency. We have only had a breeding herd of around 40 females and they have delivered the results we’ve had to date. We have kept pretty much all our next-generation females for the last few years and culled heavily into the older cattle not meeting our criteria. Ss of the 2023/24 season, we will mate 100 females and the calves on the ground are great. We believe this genetic strength will also be passed on through the sons of these females, hopefully giving peace of mind to anyone purchasing our bulls.
10.Market Relevance
We are striving to breed cattle that will maximise returns in the paddock and at auction/meat works. This not only includes exceptional beef and bone to maximise weight gains achieved, but also moderate fertile and functional females with great udders that produce and raise a calf every year. What we are also trying to achieve is these moderate females that throw much larger male calves. To date, we have a few of our better families achieving this almost to perfection.
11.Development of a Pure Brahman Commercial Herd
Until recent years, our commercial herd was crossed with Euro bulls. We’re now using our stud sires over the commercial females to help us further assess our breeding program.