Northern BIN Steer Project
The joint Northern BIN Steer Project between Australian Brahman Breeders’ Association (ABBA), Droughtmasters Stud Breeders Society (DSBS) and a consortium of Santa Gertrudis Breeders with funding assistance from the Meat & Livestock Australia Donor started in 2015 and is now in its tenth year. The project purchases the steers from the Repronomics project from Spyglass and Brian Pastures just after weaning and Background them on industry properties. The Northern BIN Steer Project is providing growth and carcase data which is assisting in the availability of genomically enhanced EBVs through the “Single Step” analysis and a future Tropical crossbred analysis. This is possible as the Brahman and Droughtmaster steers (from Spyglass and Brian Pastures) and Santa Gertrudis steers from Brian Pastures have been run together since birth, having only been split during the joining period of their dams in the Repronomics Project.
To date the Northern BIN Steer Project has purchased ~ 3500 steers of which ~1600 are Brahmans by more than 100 different sires. The sires of the steers are either proven sires with a large number of registered progeny (few of which have been performance recorded with BREEDPLAN) or young up and coming bulls.
Data collected on the steers includes 400 day, 600 day weights, carcase scan at 600 day weight and prior to slaughter. Steers are also structurally scored at the scan prior to slaughter. MSA data is collected in the meatworks and a meat sample is taken and sent the meat science lab at the University of New England (UNE) where Shear force and IMF data are collected.
Brahman BIN Project steers a perfect fit for ABBA’s BEEF 2024 Dinner
By Matthew Noakes.
Photos by ABBA & Carmen Howells, Studio Thirtytwo.
Between the Brahman BIN and Northern repronomics project to date close to 2600 steers have been killed and data collected. Most of these cattle have been processed at the TEYS Australia Biloela meat plant. Collecting this information and an inch thick striploin sample of each carcase can be quite an imposition on a meatworks day to day operation. The staff at Biloela have always been more than co-operative and obliging.
In 2024, Brian Pastures BIN steers (Cohort BP 22) have been some of the best that we have processed to date. Ninety nine percent of these steers graded M.S.A.
These steers averaged 324 kg with 10 mm of fat predominantly 2 teeth with only four, 4 tooth steers.
Thirty eight percent of these steers were in the premium range of 54.5 index or better with the highest M.S.A. index being 56.55. This is a significant result as originally Brahmans weren’t supposed to achieve indexes over 54.5.
Two out of three processors would have accepted 96 percent of these steers into their premium grassfed programs.
ABBA BIN Sire EBV’S
Click on the each sire below for the full EBV
