About the Breed
The Parthenais breed originates from France in the Deux Sevres region where its herd book goes back to 1893. It has a wheat coloured body with characteristic black points to the ears, nose, tail and eyes together with hard black feet. Now being more widely used throughout France, where it is recognised as having the highest meat to bone ratio of all French breeds at 77%. The majority of beef in France comes from purebred cattle, however, producers are now recognising the crossing benefits of the Parthenais, and are using the Parthenais to improve the performance of their other breeds.
FARMING SYSTEMS - Because of their area of origin in France they are very well adapted to cope with all extremes of climate. The breed is double muscled, although not excessively so, and always weighs particularly well, being deceptively heavy. They perform well off grass, and stand varying conditions, suiting most systems.
BULLS - Bulls are vigorous workers, being extremely fertile, and are at their best when confronted with plenty of females.
CALVING EASE- Despite being a heavy muscled breed they are easy calving due to the light bone structure. Average birth weights for bulls are around 44 kg. The mature bulls weigh up to 1000-1300kg and cows from 750-1000 kg.
CROSS BREEDING - Cross breeding trials on Friesians in the UK have produced easy calving black calves with good conformation. Feeding trials on these crossbreds on an intensive rearing system to finish around 450kg at 10-11 months show live weight gain as high as 1.75kg/day.
QUALITY HEALTHY MEAT - Statistics show the Parthenais to be highly productive, fertile producers of high quality lean meat; exactly the type of meat sought after by today’s supermarket buyers.
They have a high killing out percentage of over 67%, being one of the highest of all continental breeds. This, combined with excellent conformation and a healthy low cholesterol lean meat, explains why Parthenais meat in France fetches a premium of over 25% in the markets compared with other breeds. There is only 8.8% fat in the carcase and a net meat content of 77%, with 41.25% of this being high quality cuts.
IN THE UK - Pedigree herds are increasing throughout Britain, due to live sales, embryos and importations. Pedigree breeders are constantly being requested for cattle, and the demand is enormously encouraging with more and more producers coming to recognise the Parthenais potential.
Semen, embryos and cattle are all available contact the Society today and put the Parthenais where it works the best and is the best in your herd!