Charolais breeders opt for Breedplan
Charolais cattle breeders have joined the exodus from UK-based performance recording, with the British Charolais Cattle Society’s (BCCS) announcement that from 2007 the society will be using the Australian-based Breedplan programme.
Announcing the move BCCS chairman Jimmy Wilson said the Society’s council had spent many months considering the options available to it and felt Breedplan was the best option for breeders.
“Breedplan has been developed specifically for beef cattle breeders and currently handles about 65% of the UK pedigree beef sector.”
Mr Wilson added that using Breedplan, which is operated by the Agricultural Research Institute, would enable breeders to register cattle by post, on the telephone or via the internet through its state of the art web enabled database.
BCCS joins a long list of beef breed societies, including the Aberdeen Angus and British Belgian Blue societies, which have chosen Breedplan in favour of UK-based recording services provider MLC Signet.
It had previously been thought that BCCS would join the BASCO database developed by the Limousin Cattle Society and the Suffolk and Texel Sheep Societies.
BASCO chief executive Steve McLean told Farmers Weekly there had been discussions with BCCS, but he believed they had opted for Breedplan as BASCO was still developing the performance recording arm of its database.
“But once development is complete I believe we will be able to offer everything ABRI does and more.”