Beef’s Best Kept Secret

Commercial Breeders say: “They have good female characteristics, a good genetic background for mothering and milk, and they have good dispositions.” and “I switched because of the quick breed-back early pubert, and milk and beef traits. I wanted a good all-round medium sized fertile animal, not one that’s extra large and to hard to keep.”

Gelbvieh (pronounced Gelvee) are the performance + maternal European beef breed with, have high milking capacity. Gelbvieh calves are moderately sized at birth but grow quickly with remarkable daily weight gains and large eye muscle areas. Gelbvieh are an exceptional cross over British breeds and Tropical Breeds alike and have been used commercially from the top end of Australia to thecolder parts of Tasmania – in fact in Canada they are born and forage in the snow.

Gelbvieh cattle have:

1.    the earliest puberty of any beef breed (only dairy breed Jersey is earlier),

2.    can be joined at 13 months to calve at 22 months - instead of at 24 to 30 months with more terminal breeds like Charolais.

3.    can be used as terminal sires but their heifer progeny can be kept as breeding females.

4.    puberty, fertility and milk production is superior to other European cross females which has been established overseas with massive crossbreeding trials.

5.    a calm and quiet temperament

6.    the largest rib-eye muscle area per 100kg of all breeds. (studies carried out at the Clay Centre, Nebraska USA) and high cutout yields.

7.    the largest testicles of all breeds in the Clay Centre research which probably explains why the females are most fertile.

8.    Pure and Gelbvieh cross cattle are sought after by feedlots for their feed conversion efficiency, fast growth rate, muscle and fat cover..

Gelbvieh bulls are an excellent choice to cross with Angus females to produce a black calf which outperform the pure Angus Gelbvieh bulls taken to AI centres for semen collection have had the most virile semen counts and quality seen of any breed. They should not be co-joined with a different breed of bull if you want equal numbers of calves. An Inverell breeder tells the story of running a Gelbvieh and a proven Hereford bull with 60 Hereford cows; 23 calves dropped in the first 10 days of calving - 21 of them were Gelbvieh.

Milking Ability:

Originally Gelbvieh where bred for milk production as well as beef, they have exceptional udders and milking ability - like 1000 litres more than Hereford or Angus per lactation.

Weaning Weight:

Gelbvieh produced the highest weaning weight per cow exposed to breeding at Clay Centre - which reflects their good performance in fertility, milk and growth. Weaning weights are usually more than 200kg at 7 months.

Gelbvieh is included in most of the new composite breeds now being developed in North America.

The reason we crossbreed is to add or combine desired characteristics or reduce or eliminate undesirable ones. A phenomenon called hybrid vigour also occurs and is seen as production increases above the expected production mean of the individual parents.

Gelbvieh have a quiet calm temperament, are moderately framed with excellent growth and carcase traits coupled with longevity. They are easy fleshing, and produce an abundance of milk (the females have great udders and exceptional maternal traits).

It can be concluded from the Clay Centre research that Gelbvieh is the one single cattle breed which incorporates more of the commercially important traits in their genotype than any other breed.

Apart from Europe, the breed is also found in the USA, Canada, South America, Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia and other neighbouring countries.

Gelbvieh = Growth + Milk + Muscle.

Gelbvieh doesn't force you to choose between maternal and growth traits. Gelbvieh gives you both!

- it’s the best kept secret in the Australian Beef Industry.