John Rafferty, breed director, says 70 bulls will be on auction and 40 female animals will be on auction on 12 August. He says all animals from 30 sellers will be pre-screened and their performance and DNA data are available. Rafferty says it is a quality offering. The auction is on-site but online participation has also been made available... OFM News' Christal-Lize Muller spoke to him...

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He says the Covid-19 regulations have put restrictions in place but the association is well prepared for it. All animals on the auction are stud registered animals. According to him, having 70 bulls on sale is not an exclusive sale because of those sales, 16 animals go back to studs while all the rest of the studs go back to top commercial farms and top commercial producers. The cattle on auction will be available on the Brangus website.  

QR codes are available that will lead to photographs of animals and other information. He says the information is available before the auction next Wednesday at La La Nathi Lodge, 13km outside Harrismith on the N3. People will also be available three hours before the auction to answer questions relating to the animals, for those who want to bid online. That will be available on Swift Vee, Vleissentraal, and the Brangus Association's website. 

He says the Brangus Breed is over the last seven to eight years a growing breed in South Africa and right through the drought every year has shown a steady growth. Rafferty says at this stage it is suspected that the breed is the fourth biggest cattle breed in the country. 

The association is proud of its breed and recently, through the University of the Free State (UFS), finished market research to establish what the perception of the breed in the market is. He says there are some outstanding features that carry the breed forward. This includes natural polledness and safe calving. The breed's ability is a strong issue as well as cow efficiency. 

On next week's auction there is just over 30 sellers out of the 160 members of the association.

Andrew Muller Miller from Vleissentraal will be the auctioneer. For more information call the Brangus Cattle Breeders Association.