Building on what has been a tremendous couple of months for the Aberdeen-Angus breed in terms of exports of UK-bred cattle, the Netherton herd of the McLaren family, Perthshire, have announced the private export sale of eight heifers and a bull to the Carrera family from Catalonia, Spain.
The Carrera family farm on the south face of Pyrenees Mountains where they are establishing a new farm, with the help of the European Welfare Quality TM Project. They have developed the family business through Carrera d’en Bas SL and now run 200 cows and seven bulls. Sourcing of further calves from across the Pyrenees region enables the family to finish 500 cattle a year.
The reason behind the addition of the Aberdeen-Angus cattle is to produce meat with more marbling for sale through their butchery in the Cooperative of Vall d’en Bas, as this is now more of a requirement from their customer base. The plan now is to start their own pure bred herd and use the new stock sire Netherton Mr Administrator K575 over the rest of the commercial herd.
Netherton Mr Administrator is part of the shipment of Aberdeen-Angus cattle to Spain
Mr Administrator K575 is a son of the top Australian sire Ardrossan Admiral and is out of one of the top TLA Northern Samuria daughters which is now a foundation cow in the Rull Herd. Mr Administrator was selected for his high marbling figures being in the top 5% of the breed, as well as his easy calving, good growth rates and Terminal Sire Index which place him in the top 15% of the breed. He is also a full brother to the February Stirling sale bull Netherton Mr Admiral, which sold for £10,500 to Threeburnford Angus.
The eight 2011-born heifers are mainly by Netherton Big Edition H460, who is the herd’s senior stock sire, as well as the top Canadian sire HF El Tigre 28U. Six of the heifers are a result of the herd’s ET programme and include two daughters of HF El Tigre; Netherton Beauty L605, who is the much admired heifer calf out of Netherton Big Edition’s full sister and Netherton Karama L592, who is a daughter of last year’s show cow who was Breed Champion at Fife and Dunblane Shows before being sold for a five figure price to Saville Angus.
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