In today’s Beef Buzz, Senior Farm and Ranch Broadcaster Ron Hays speaks with Anne Anderson, who says her journey with Speckle Park cattle began in Canada during efforts to build a supply alliance. “We went out to buy some cattle and the one that brought the most money was speckled. Well, you’re a new company trying to get started, and if you can get $30 more for this hide that’s speckled, I thought we’re gonna go buy all the speckled cattle we can find.” She started small, purchasing ten head, and was surprised by the results: “They called back and said, These were wonderful. These are Y1 primes.”
As she continued testing groups of cattle, the pattern held true. “For the most part, not much fat on the outside, internal marbling. The cattle were moderately sized.” When carcass data was shared with Canadian breeders, demand exploded. “People thought, if I can just get $2,500 for my top heifers, that would be great. I want you to know, the top heifer bought by the people from Australia brought $18,000.” That global attention made it increasingly difficult for her to purchase cattle, as values skyrocketed in the early days of selling this breed.
Anderson recalled how Australia quickly seized on the opportunity. “At that sale, Australia brought every straw of semen they bought. We couldn’t afford to buy any because by that time, I decided I wanted to bring them to Texas.” Eventually, she was successful in bringing Speckle Park genetics from Canada into Texas, noting that “it’s not just the purebred animals, but the crosses are phenomenal as well.”
She compared the breed’s efficiency to her past experiences with Wagyu. “I fed them, and I decided I was going to feed one group of 30 out by ourselves… it took me 32 months and a fortune to get them ready for the market. So then we did some Speckle Park babies… they could finish in 20 months, in contrast to 32 months, and the performance was similar.” That discovery led her to crossbreeding.
The Speckle Park breed is one of the more interesting stories that has come out of the early years of Cattlemen’s Congress- and it’s expected a strong showing of the emerging breed will be again shown and be a part of their national sale planned for the sixth Cattlemen’s Congress this coming January in Oklahoma City.
Partnering with Oklahoma cattleman Brett Morris, Anderson expanded into Speckle Park-Angus crosses. “We crossed them with Angus and then we had those two comparisons, and the Angus Speckle Park performed better than the Wagyu Speckle Park. So we gravitated, we sold the Wagyu cattle, because for us, we could make more money with Angus Speckle Park crosses.” She admits the purebred population is still small, but sees strong potential: “It’s just early days of the industry… but it’s a really good cross.”
The Beef Buzz is a regular feature heard on radio stations around the region on the Radio Oklahoma Ag Network and is a regular audio feature found on this website as well. Click on the LISTEN BAR for today’s show and check out our archives for older Beef Buzz shows covering the gamut of the beef cattle industry today.
