The Valsrivier Bonsmara breeders’ group from Bothaville celebrated 21 years of selection and breeding expertise at a production auction on 16 April, characterised by good average prices and strong demand for females.
By Johan Norval
The group of five focuses on functional and productive cattle. Cornay Botma of the farm Gladderif near Bothaville says there were few buyers, but those present who bid seriously were not deterred by high diesel prices, weak maize prices and foot-and-mouth disease.
The bull HTC 230110 from Botma’s Hentacor stud was the most expensive, selling for R130 000 to JB van den Berg of the farm Talana between Bothaville and Kroonstad. Van den Berg, who had started a stud a month earlier, also paid R70 000 for another Hentacor bull, HTC 230068.
Two other notable bulls were HTC 230198 (R105 000) and HTC 230041 (R90 000), also from Hentacor, which were sold to Hennie Botma of Klipkraal and Gideon Nel of Kommandodrif respectively.
The other members of the breeders’ group are Chris Joubert (Stukpan), JB van den Berg (Van den Berg Boerdery), Andries Els (Bloemzicht), all from Bothaville, and Thabo van Zyl (Visagieskuil) of Wesselsbron. The auction was held on Valentia, Els’ farm.
The average price of the 19 bulls was R68 158. The average prices for commercial female animals were: cows (3-in-1s) R30 833, pregnant cows R19 615, cows with calves R24 091, pregnant heifers R18 259 and non-pregnant heifers R14 469.
Vleissentraal Bloemfontein hosted the auction in collaboration with SwiftVEE, with Mike Killassy as auctioneer.
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