One in every four beef animals registered with Australian beef breed organizations in 2008 was an Angus.

There were 52,369 Angus calves recorded in the primary and secondary registers in 2008, about the same as the total for the next two largest breeds.

Over the past decade, the percentage of Angus calves registered in the nation’s beef cattle herd books jumped from 18.3% to 25.94%.

But it is in the British Breed section that the Angus dominance was even more pronounced jumping from 32% of the British Breed calves registered a decade ago to 50% in 2008.

Australia now is home of the second largest recorded Angus herd in the world behind the United States which gives Australia a great opportunity to strengthen its position as a major supplier of Angus genetics to the world.

During the year, scan results were collected on 28,900 Angus, birth weights on 48,300 and 200 day weights on 38,700 providing valuable data to build high accuracy genetic profiles on the 1.2 million animals in Angus Australia’s database.

“What this means is the Angus breed offers the largest range of genetically described bulls to the Australian cattle industry with around 15,000 available for selection annually at on-property sales and privately,” according to Angus Australia’s CEO Dr Peter Parnell.

“The information on the 7,000 Angus bulls that appeared in online catalogues on angusaustralia.com in 2008 was visited 200.000 times by potential buyers indicating the widespread interest in using performance figures to assist selection,” he said.

The full report containing the 2008 registration statistics plus historical data for all breeds can be found on www.arcba.une.edu.au.

Dr Parnell encouraged commercial beef producers to source their replacement bulls from herds which breed registered and performance recorded Angus cattle.

“The source of your replacement stock can have a critical impact on the future performance and health status of your herd”, he said.