The Blakestown Herd
History
Patsy and Alicia McCabe founded the Blakestown Pedigree Charolais Herd in 1989. The original breeding stock comprised of 5 maiden heifers purchased at the World Charolais Congress in France and 6 maiden heifers from the Skidoo Herd. In 1990 this was complimented with another 28 heifers from some of the best herds in France. This was combined with the brilliant stroke of luck in Blakestown purchasing as its first stock bull, FAROUK (by Commandeur) at ony 4 months of age. Like the Egyptian pharaoh after which he was named, Farouk founded a dynasty that firmly established the Blakestown herd and supplied numerous bulls and heifers to many successful Irish herds.
Subsequent purchases of further breeding stock proved difficult in order to maintain the consistency in the herd production. Failures were consigned to the factory rather than unloaded into the National Herd. The search continued for top genetics and a suitable stock bull. As luck would have it for the Blakestown herd, 2 exceptional animals were found within a few years: OBELIX is a magnificent specimen of the breed. His pedigree is a complete outcross for most Irish breeders. He proved to be an easy calver and his produce are as consistent as peas in a pod. SEIGNEUR is quiet simply a Rolls Royce in term of pedigree and performance. He is the product of the union of some of the best male and female families in the French Charolais herd. His progeny are exceptional. Rarely can a bull give femininity to his daughters and muscles to his sons like Seigneur can. His full brother REED STAR is currently one of the most successful show bulls in France. Blakestown is not, however, content to rest on its laurels and continues to search for the gentics to further improve the herd.
Philosophy
The Blakestown Herd is unique because we continue to source the best French Charolais pedigrees as stock bulls. Each sire is tested on 20 females and if his production is not satisfactory he is immediately slaughtered because it would be reckless to allow a bad sire to dilute the herd. That is why you can be confident in the quality of Blakestown stock.
The entire Blakestown Charolais Herd is derived from the very best (RR4) of accredited French mother lines and so the genes accumulated over the past 20 years assures easy calving with generous milk yield from females and consistently high conformation traits in both bulls and heifers.
Blakestown enthusiastically supports I.C.B.F. programme to supply Irish BLUP figures. However, breeders should be aware that this ambitious project is only in its infancy and is limited by the fact that the stastics are currently exclusively confined to Irish data, which excludes many of the superior French ancenstors of much of the Blakestown herd. We are confident that our figures will progressively improve in the immediate future as the Irish data base absorbs the French data and as Blakestown cattle penetrate the Irish market.
With our selective breeding programme which sources top quality animals from a broadly based genetic pool, we hope to provide both pedigree and commercial breeders with a choice of solid foundation stock for their own herds.
Finally, Patsy and Alicia would like to thank everybody for their support and look forward to meeting you at charolais events throughout the year.