The Folkslee Story.
Folkslee Bazadaise Stud relocated from Bundaberg to the Malarga district 55klms south of Biggenden on
the 22/12/09 having purchased a 720 ha property at the foothills of the Burnett Range called “IRONIE”
on which they can further develop and expand their stud & commercial operation.
The Johannesens started the Bazadaise stud in 1995 with an artificial insemination program into base
cows. Prior to that, Rodney had been raised in the dairy shed and then in his teen’s his parents sold the
dairy herd and switched to beef. This early experience with cattle has continued to grow into today’s stud
operation with some of his commercial cows tracing back to the original beef herd of 1972. He first
became aware of the Bazadaise breed when he read about them in the “Town & Country Farmer” and liked
the general description of their characteristics. Following the magazine article and before settling fully on
the breed Rodney did a trial of cross breeding with 6 or 8 other breeds using mostly artificial
insemination. He used a female base of mainly Santa Gertrudis with some Angus, Murray Grey, Red Poll,
Brahman & Charbray added to give a broader result to the trial. He found the Bazadaise cross
performance was as he had read and gave a better return on his leased wallum country than the other
crosses.
The only area that Rodney could find fault was that Bazadaise are a naturally horned breed. A special
focus was centered on the female lines carrying the polled gene amongst his base cows and a grade up
program was firmly put in place. One of the highlights of the stud has been to achieve breeding the first
pure Poll Bazadaise in the world. We believe there are no short cuts to the success of this vitally
important genetic development. It has been very slow being able to achieve our goals as we have had to
start from scratch but as they say “Rome wasn’t built in a day”
Folkslee Bazadaise Stud takes pride in being at the forefront of Bazadaise genetic development clearly
having the most modern Bazadaise genetics in Australia. Since 1995 the focus has been breeding Bazadaise
for temperament, fertility, softness, structural correctness & polledness with a strong emphasis on
diversity of genetics and suitability to Australian conditions.
Poll Bazadaise.
At Beef 2006 Folkslee Bazadaise Stud presented the world’s first pure registered Poll Bazadaise. Folkslee
Abby-Sylvia was born on 22/7/2005. This was achieved after 10 years of extensive trials, elimination,
heartache, drought and careful selective breeding. Abby-Sylvias dam 7/8 Bazadaise female “Folkslee
Sylvia 192” has been a valuable asset to the Folkslee Bazadaise breeding herd having consistantly produced
pure Poll Bazadaise. More natural Poll Bazadaise females from “Sylvia 192” have been born and are
continuing to produce poll progeny. On the 14/4/2010 we were delighted when “Sylvia 192” produced the
first known Poll Bazadaise bull calf. This calf “Folkslee Frontier” is being used extensively in our breeding
program over unrelated females to speed the production of this valuable genetic trait. Frontier is ticking
all the boxes with his quiet temperament, resilience, correctness, softness, and muscling. But the results
that ‘’Folkslee Frontier” is producing giving in excess of 70% poll calves over horned females is proof of
the strength of his poll genetics.
Further unrelated poll bulls have joined “Frontier” in pursuit of our goal with these unrelated poll lines
showing good potential, avoiding inbreeding while strengthening our poll genetic base. These new breed
lines will not only increase the diversity of our poll breeding program and genetic spread but give more
consistency of polled progeny. The aim of our breeding program is to produce breeding lines of high quality
homozygous poll Bazadaise.