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European Beefmaster Herd is Growing

by Joe Mask | Published August 16, 2017

 

By Doyle Sanders, BBU International Committee

Lukasz Karmowski and his dad, Jacek, are now the proud owners of the first Beefmaster ET calf born in Poland.  Beefmasters are a unique American breed with leading feed efficiency and heterosis for strongest weight gains for all American and European beef breeds.

The bull calf was born on 11 August 2017. The Karmsowski’s Radzicz Ranch is near Radzicz, in western Poland.  The calf is a DBL D BAR Ranch “D’Vinci” son with the Dd-1112 donor dam.  The recip used is from their Limousin herd.

This family has been raising Limousin cattle on their farm since soon after Poland received independence from the Soviet Union- around 1990. They annually market about 200 bulls into Germany and Romania from their farm.  And they knew they needed to improve their product.  In 2014 they read about Beefmasters in their National Polish Beef Breeder Association journal.  After some research into how Beefmasters could improve their beef quality, fertility, feed efficiency, and carcass merit, among other key traits; they contacted DBL D BAR Ranch in Industry, Texas looking for semen to cross breed their Limousins.

There are EU constraints for CSS semen but further research by the Sanders resolved the issue by providing EU certified embryos instead.  The first Beefmaster EU shipment was made to Giulio DeDonatis near Rome, Italy; in early 2014. Using embryos also allowed them to form their own seed stock Beefmaster purebred herd.

Following the first successful shipment into Europe, the Karmowski’s ordered their first shipment of EU Certified embryos into Poland from the DBL D BAR Ranch.  Difficulties arose in their breeding season, however when their initial ET test attempt in 2015 proved no successful transfers.

In January, 2016, the Karmowski’s attended a USLGE/BBU Beef Workshop at Texas A&M University with their new Polish ET adviser and some beef officials from SGGW University and the national ProOptiBeef program focused on improving national beef quality. During the Workshop, they learned various lessons that helped them improve their ET operations to a pregnancy rate of 80% which they have now sustained on 2 further attempts. Typically 50% was considered acceptable.

They obtained a second embryo shipment and are starting to create their seed stock herd of at least 50 purebred Beefmasters- then cross breed to upgrade their Limousin herd of over 350 dams- to arrive at a 400 head Beefmaster herd by 2020-2021.  They are planning to expand their Polish Beefmaster market into Romania and other Baltic nations with demand growth of these genetic benefits unique to this American breed.

Congratulations to the Karmowski’s in joining the growing family of Beefmaster breeders around the world.

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