Folkslee Bazadaise & Brangus Stud

THE FOLKSLEE STORY
Folkslee Bazadaise Stud relocated from Bundaberg to the Malarga district 55klms south of Biggenden on the 22/12/09 having purchased a 720 ha property at the foothills of the Burnett Range called “IRONIE” on which they can further develop and expand their stud & commercial operation.

The Johannesens started the Bazadaise stud in 1995 with an artificial insemination program into base cows. Prior to that, Rodney had been raised in the dairy shed and then in his teen’s his parents sold the dairy herd and switched to beef. This early experience with cattle has continued to grow into today’s stud operation with some of his commercial cows tracing back to the original beef herd of 1972. He first became aware of the Bazadaise breed when he read about them in the “Town & Country Farmer” and liked the general description of their characteristics. Following the magazine article and before settling fully on the breed Rodney did a trial of cross breeding with 6 or 8 other breeds using mostly artificial insemination. He used a female base of mainly Santa Gertrudis with some Angus, Murray Grey, Red Poll, Brahman & Charbray added to give a broader result to the trial. He found the Bazadaise cross performance was as he had read and gave a better return on his leased wallum country than the other crosses.

The only area that Rodney could find fault was that Bazadaise are a naturally horned breed. A special focus was centered on the female lines carrying the polled gene among his base cows and a grade up program was firmly put in place. One of the highlights of the stud has been to achieve breeding the first pure Poll Bazadaise in the world. We believe there are no short cuts to the success of this vitally important genetic development. It has been very slow being able to achieve our goals as we have had to start from scratch but as they say “Rome wasn’t built in a day”

Folkslee Bazadaise Stud takes pride in being at the forefront of Bazadaise genetic development clearly having the most modern Bazadaise genetics in Australia. Since 1995 the focus has been breeding Bazadaise for temperament, fertility, softness, structural correctness & polledness with a strong emphasis on diversity of genetics & suitability to Australian conditions.


POLL BAZADAISE
At Beef 2006 Folkslee Bazadaise Stud presented the world’s first pure registered Poll Bazadaise. Folkslee Abby-Sylvia was born on 22/7/2005. This was achieved after 10 years of extensive trials, elimination, heartache, drought and careful selective breeding. Abby-Sylvias dam 7/8 Bazadaise female “Folkslee Sylvia 192” is a valuable asset to the Folkslee Bazadaise breeding herd having consistantly produced pure Poll Bazadaise. More natural Poll Bazadaise females from “Sylvia 192” have been born and are continuing to produce poll progeny. On the 14/4/2010 we were delighted when “Sylvia 192” produced the first known Poll Bazadaise bull calf. This calf “Folkslee Frontier” is being used extensively in our breeding program over unrelated females to speed the production of this valuable genetic trait. The results that ‘’Folkslee Frontier” is producing giving in excess of 70% poll calves over horned females is proof of the strength of his poll genetics.

Further unrelated poll bulls have joined “Frontier” in pursuit of our goal with these unrelated poll lines showing good potential, avoiding inbreeding while strengthening our poll genetic base. These new breed lines will not only increase the diversity of our poll breeding program and genetic spread but give more consistency of polled progeny. The aim of our breeding program is to produce breeding lines of high quality homozygous poll Bazadaise.