Uwe Jerathe
In 2006 I started Wagyu breeding in Germany with a lot of enthusiasm and engagement and can therefore look back on an extensive experience. The impulse to go this way came from a report about the meat which is outstanding for many reasons - a contrast to the "industrial meat" which is produced more and more in this time. Class instead of mass - back to taste! As one of the co-founders of the German Wagyu Association, the systematic development and widening of the genetic pool of this breed is my priority. The basis for this comes from my own breeding herd, which includes over 100 animals, and from selected imports. I maintain an extensive network of partnerships with breeders around the world. Besides the USA, the main sources are from Australia. My first embryo and semen imports came from there, in the further course of time I was able to obtain a lot of high quality genetics from "Down Under" for the European market. In the meantime, offspring and genetics from my breeding have found their way into many herds at home and abroad. I also like to share my knowledge with other breeders in order to define optimal matings and to improve the herd structure through specific procedures.
Sarah Jerathe
With me, the second generation of our family now enters the Wagyu breeding. I have successfully completed my master's degree in livestock science and was able to gain initial experience in herdbook breeding during my internship. I have been supporting my father for several years already. Especially the management of the herd and the registration of the animals in the German herdbook are my responsibility. Furthermore I register our animals in the Australian herdbook to get genomic breeding values as part of the decisions for further breeding.
A powerful team!
We have supported our breed association at many events and make our contribution to the establishment of this special breed in Germany and Europe through our voluntary work. Furthermore we are involved with our own presence for example at the EuroTier and regional events. We not only import genetics, but also want to convince ourselves of the quality on site. For example, we participated in Wagyu-Zenkyo 2017 in Japan, the show par excellence for this breed. The meeting there with the head of World K's, the first exporter of Japanese genetics in the 1990s, gave us important input. From him we bought the semen of the bull "WKS Michitsuru", which in recent years has proved to be an extraordinary performer in terms of "marbling". Then, at the end of 2019, a major tour of Australian breeders took place, some of whom we source genetics from exclusively. To name just a few examples.
Our focus is on " Fullblood Wagyu" - breeding purebred animals whose origins are 100% Japanese genetics. There are many very good breeding animals in our herd, which is proven by genomic breeding values and licensing/evaluations.
In order to be able to keep mother cows, the milk yield and the frame of the female animals must be improved - facts that are not particularly important in Japan because the calves are mostly raised directly by hand. In Germany, however, mother-cow farming is a breeding goal, which means that breeders have to further develop genetics here. We have already anchored this consistently in our breeding program years ago and can look back on first successes. Of course, we also have animals with very good marbling values in our herd, from which we obtain embryos or use them as breeding bulls.
Furthermore the breeding of polled Wagyu is an important goal. As the first breeders in Europe we imported the semen from the homozygous polled bull BAR R Arimura 30B by Jerry Reeves from the USA. From this bull descended the first homozygous polled bull in Europe - Kiramusuko 2. Meanwhile there are some very good homozygous and heterozygous polled animals in our stock - together with our breeding partner Steffen Schäfer. Through systematic breeding and further imports we have created a very good basis for the development of this breed.