Our primary aim is to improve the profitability of our own commercial cattle. We have developed our commercial herd entirely from our own pedigree genetics.
We hope to achieve this by maintaining a commercial focus in our pedigree herds. Our two-hundred and twenty home-bred commercial cows run with Chapelton Angus and Shorthorn bulls every season. Their calving and carcass records are fed back into our pedigree breeding program.
Our genetic analysis currently considers over 3,000 carcass records and over 15,000 pieces of calving data. We are pelvic measuring our replacement heifers to further this analysis, and have a five-star completeness rating for Breedplan recording.
These insights allow us to focus our breeding strategy on temperament, fertility, calving ease and calf survivability. In addition, we also consider soundness of structure and balance, carcass confirmation and growth rate at a detailed level. Above all, we hope to produce cattle that perform whilst increasing ease of management.
Accordingly, we give our own management data and stockmanship more weight than EBVs, and we believe that herd health is prerequisite for profitability.
We only retain the best heifers as replacements. Pedigree and commercial cattle are run on a forage focussed system where input costs are strictly controlled, and they must perform in this environment for their progeny to be selected as replacements.
Chapelton bulls and heifers offer our customers the opportunity to benefit from our rigorous and commercially-focused selection programme. We are happy to show people our commercial herd and the potential these genetics hold for efficient and profitable beef production in a forage-focussed environment.
If you wish to discuss our system in greater detail, please contact us.
