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| CHAROLAIS COMES TO IRELAND |
The forebearers of today’s French Charolais were situated around Charolles in east central France from the fourteenth century until 1772. The Charolles region was used as a pawn, sold, won or traded by one royal head after another. Tariff barriers and custom duties were part of the game and Charolles was virtually forced to keep to itself. This forced segregation greatly benefited the development of the Charolais breed. The Charolais strain was kept fairly pure and of necessity the breeders selected only the best of the white cattle. Records show that there was much rivalry and competition among the Charolles breeders.
After the region was reunited with France in 1772 the Charolles cattle began moving throughout France. Two major branches of the breed ensued, the original Charolles and the Nivernais, which was centered in the French province of Niever. The first Herd Book was set up in 1864 by a Nivernais breeder, Count Charles de Bouille for the registration of Charolais born in the province of Niever. In 1882 the Charolles breeders set up their own Herd Book and began registering cattle in the province of Saone-et-Loire. To avoid pedigree confusion the two Herd Books merged in 1919 with the older Niever Herdbook assimilating the Charolles book. The new single Charolais Herd Book became the cornerstone of the breed's selection and development programme.
The breed continued to expand and spread throughout France. During the long period of its development it was considered a multipurpose breed being used not only for meat and milk production but also for draught purposes. With the mechanization of farm work in the 1920’s the need to produce animals for farm work ceased and breeders were able to concentrate on producing animals for meat production. The breed standard was modified to emphasise physical conformation and the thickness of muscular tissue, thereby achieving large carcase weights with maximum meat content and little fat or other waste. In the early 1960’s when progressive Irish farmers and the Department of Agriculture were looking for a breed of beef cattle which would provide greater growth and quality when crossed with the existing breeding herd the unanimous first choice was the Charolais.
The first importation back in 1964 consisted of eight bulls and nine heifers. So successful was this initial importation that an off-shore quarantine station was set up on Spike Island, to facilitate bigger importations (twelve such importations took place over the next 20 years) whilst at the same time protecting the much valued health status of Irish livestock. Charolais was an abrupt change from the blocky, compact cattle prevalent at the time. They very quickly demonstrated their superiority over the native breeds in terms of growth rate, conformation and killing out percentage.
The first pedigree Charolais calves were born in Ireland in 1967 and ten of these were exported to the USA. The first public auction was held in Maynooth Mart in 1969 at which a bull was sold for 1,100 gns. Realising the potential of the Charolais breed the early Irish Charolais enthusiasts were not content to just sit back. They were determined to make Charolais the leading Irish beef breed and they succeeded. The breed’s main function is within the national suckler herd where Charolais has been the Number 1 terminal sire for the last 10 years.
In 2007, the Charolais bull was the sire of choice on 41% of beef dams.(See Graph below) In the dairy herds Charolais was used on 4.1% of dams. In combining the numbers of both dairy and beef dams the Charolais bull was used on nearly 45% of all the dams in Ireland in 2004.
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