Premium Fullblood Wagyu Quality breeding with Integrity

Lisheen Wagyu

 Lisheen is a farming property located in the hills north of Melbourne, in Victoria, Australia, near the town of Romsey.   The property has been developed to become the home of “Lisheen Wagyu” and is now one of the most productive cattle properties in the district.   At Lisheen, FullBlood Wagyu cattle graze improved and native pastures over terrain ranging from highly productive creek flats to steep hills, encouraging growth and muscle development.

Lisheen Wagyu commenced out of a larger F1 and F2 breeding program which initially commenced in 1995 after identifying the potential of Wagyu cattle.   Crossbred Wagyu cattle were originally supplied to the live trade to Japan and more commonly to Australian feedlots in later years.   This provided a knowledge base of what works and more importantly, what doesn’t work, with feedlots regularly wanting more cattle from my properties….which tends to indicate that I was getting it right !!!

The Lisheen Wagyu fullblood breeding program was originally started with the view to breed more suitable herd bulls for the cross-bred programs.   It evolved into a seedstock production program with the aim to breed a small herd of high quality, performance recorded, fullblood Wagyu cattle that have both, quality in their pedigree, and EBV’s in the top 10% of the breed in Australia.

There is a belief at Lisheen that the relentless pursuit of marble score, at the expense of virtually all other traits for these cattle, may actually limit the genetic potential of Wagyu – so at Lisheen there has been a main focus on producing easy to manage Wagyu cattle that have growth, maternal and fertility traits while maintaining carcass traits – a difficult balancing act !!

The initial aim for the first 5 years was to breed animals with these traits as a base to build on.   The next phase is about infusing higher Marbling, marble fineness, meat and fat colour, and tenderness qualities.

All Lisheen Wagyu cattle are DNA tested, Parent verified, and are also routinely tested for recessive genetic conditions, PI (Pestivirus) status, SCD (Fat melting point), and Tenderness before registration.    As new testing processes have become available they have been adopted, and in some cases pioneered, with additional testing always being considered.   The testing regime is primarily used to gain as much information as possible which is then used to aid with breeding decisions to ensure that the most favourable genetic and carcass traits are identified and maximised to improve the quality of the Fullblood herd.

Comprehensive records are maintained about all aspects of cattle breeding, testing and health with a great deal of care taken to ensure accurate records are produced – particularly Breedplan data.   This also offers potential bull and genetics purchasers more information to ensure that any purchase decision is well informed.   Cattle are raised under normal paddock conditions and all Breedplan information is gathered under these conditions – there is NO grain feeding of bulls.    Potential purchasers can, therefore, have confidence in the Breedplan data submitted (and the resulting EBV information), and that bulls in particular, will continue to perform if used under similar paddock conditions. The genetics and breeding choices are regularly tested through a proven feeding program to produce carcasses for assessment.