A record-breaking price of $360,000 was paid for an Australian Angus bull during its sale, making it the most expensive bull ever to be purchased in Australia.
The sellers of Texas Thunderstruck T383, Texas Angus breeders Ben and Wendy Mayne, referred to the calf as a gamechanger. Texas Thunderstruck T383 was the most outstanding calf out of a group of 350 calves.
“The style and stature of this young sire is something you have to see for yourself,” the Maynes noted in their catalogue remarks. “The style and stature of this young sire is something you have to see for yourself.”
“Presence, power, performance, and financial profitability.”
Beef Central, a service that provides market intelligence, estimates that the average price of an Angus bull sold in Australia in 2022 was $8,106. Thunderbolt’s price shattered the previous record for a brahman bull, which had been set in 2017, and he became the eighth bull in the last three years to crack the top 10 sales.
Macka’s Australian Black Angus Beef decided to make the purchase of Thunderbolt because they have high hopes that the bull will assist them in upgrading their genetic pool and improving the overall quality of their products. Robert Mackenzie, the managing director, was quoted as saying to the media that the bull would more than pay for itself through the sale of its semen alone.
This year, the only offspring of the well-known Poss Rawhide bull to be offered for sale in the southern hemisphere is a bull named Thunderbolt. The Maynes had purchased the rights to use Rawhide’s sperm on an exclusive basis for a period of two years.
The Mayne family’s annual Texas Angus sale brought in a total of $4 million thanks to the sale of 252 bulls, which were purchased for an average of $16,764 each. Thunderbolt was one of the bulls that was put up for auction. In the past, the family established a new benchmark by selling Texas Iceman R725 to Macka’s Angus for a price of $225,000.
Between the years 2021 and 2022, the price of bulls increased by 20%, prompting the emergence of a number of suppliers offering buy-now-pay-later payment plans in order to assist farmers with the increased cost.
According to Angus Gidley-Baird, an analyst for Rabobank Animal Proteins, the industry is currently rebuilding herd levels, which indicates that it is well positioned to grow production in the years to come.
“We had some very dry periods back in 2015-16, and that caused a large liquidation – a large sell-off of cattle,” he added. “During that time, we did not receive adequate rainfall.”
“This means that the size of our national herd has decreased. The seasons become more pleasant in the year 2020. And beginning in the year 2020, we’ve enjoyed a string of solid seasons. People have just been working to rebuild their numbers.”
