NEW IN 2024 - OUR FIRST ON-PROPERTY SALE - WEDNESDAY 2nd OCTOBER 2024
To be offered for sale: 24 bulls, 5 heifers and 5 cows with calves at foot
Helmsman Auction, interfaced with AuctionsPlus
11/09/2024
Catalogue
To cap off a wonderful day of videography, look what turned up in our mailbox (our new sale catalogue, not the husband)!
11/09/2024
Videography
Whilst I really enjoy taking photos of the farm and bulls, we felt it would be best to get the professionals in for our first sale. Ruby from Mavstar Photography was recommended by everyone I spoke to and she did a marvellous job creating and loading the videos for AuctionsPlus.
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2/09/2024
Scanning and vet checks
The usual scanning and assessment by Liam Cardile of Beef Xcel was carried out in early September as well as bull breeding soundness exams. We were especially keen to see the results with our upcoming sale. Liam has been coming to scan and assess our cows for over 10 years now and we've seen his taste in beer develop over time! We appreciate Liam's appraisal of our cattle - you can't beat having someone with a trained, impartial eye look over your cattle. If Liam says cull, we cull, however much we like the animal and its breeding - there's usually only one or two but this year it was pleasing that there weren't any.
Because we sell our bulls as yearlings, it is always a difficult balance to time the vet checks relative to selling. Too early and the young bulls just won't be mature enough but we can't leave it too late because our clients need to know whether the bull will be fit to work, or whether to look at other bulls. The first semen sampling can often yield poor quality samples and abnormalities that resolve when re-tested in 2-3 weeks time. The first test is a bit like cleaning the pipes out for some bulls but it does mean there's often a bit of a nervous wait between their first test and the re-test.
5/08/24
Re-veg planting
With the help of our friends, Luke & Jewels, we've planted a couple of hundred trees and understorey shrubs to fill in gaps and spaces along our exsiting treelines. We put out some wattles along the front fence to make it look pretty and hopefully the all the understorey we planted will encourage some more of the little birds, like thornbills, wrens, finches and robins.
21/08/24
Lot stickers
Butt stickers!!! We wanted to try an idea from UK cattle sales which should make it much easier to inspect the animals at our sale and our friends Daniel and Alison Derooey at Spectrum Screen Printing Studios produced these vinyl stickers which have come up a treat! It took a little trial and error to work out how to get them to stick - the self-adhesive backing was completely defeated by the bulls' woolly coats but we found the Kamar glue worked really well and the stickers show up really well on grey and silver coats.
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8/07/24
Sale catalogue selections
We have been finalising the sale catalogue for our inaugural on-property sale which involved poring over cow lists and Breedplan figures and then getting all the cows, bulls and heifers into the yards for a visual inspection. We sell our bulls as yearlings, shortly after scanning & assessment and veterinary bull breeding soundness exams. Any bulls that fail these tests will not be included in the sale, so to ensure a top quality selection of 20 bulls in the sale, we have picked out 24 for the catalogue. We also aim to offer 5 heifers (6 selected for the catalogue) and 5 cows with calves at foot. Females will be unjoined. I am pleased to be offering some females that I wouldn't normally sell, giving people access to our top quality genetics - but that has meant some very hard decisions for me in the yards!
2/07/24
Dry season
We've had an extremely dry autumn and winter so far. I think it's the first time I've been feeding all mobs up to the point of calving and I'm not 100% confident the cows will be going onto grazing height feed after calving, the way things are going. We had some rain after ANZAC Day which is when we can usually reliably expect our autumn break but it wasn't enough to get full germination and sustained growth and the next rain didn't come until mid-June. With such a late break, even though the paddocks are green, they aren't jumping away as they normally would due to the cold temperatures. I've made a commitment to myself that I'll provide bulls that will give our clients the best experience and I believe that pasture and hay is the best way to do that so I've had to purchase some extra protein hay to keep the young bulls moving forwards for the sale.
23/06/24
Visit to Rogialyn and Cadfor
Last weekend Davo and I had a little road trip to NSW. David and Roger at Rogialyn have very kindly given us the chance to select a number of their elite females to bring back to Mount Major Murray Greys. Davo’s very excited about the new bloodlines he has chosen. It was also a terrific opportunity to swing by Cadfor and catch up with Rod and Helena, and see the dam of our newest herd sire, Cadfor Taurus T126. We are very grateful to everyone at Rogialyn and Cadfor for their wonderful hospitality - we had a fantastic weekend!
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4/05/24
Sowing has gone quite well and we’re just waiting for a bit of rain now. I have re-sown Front Bush after the flooding. Smaller paddocks around the house and at West’s have gone into six species mix to provide a bit extra summer feed. I’ve also put in 50 ac to oats and had a really good clean up of those paddocks after the summer flooding – it’s been good to get on top of those weeds. There’s plenty of sub-soil moisture so we don’t need much rain for germination and the pastures will jump away.
Unfortunately, after passing all the hurdles for blood testing and qualification for export we found that Tony was one of those bulls whose semen doesn’t survive the freezing and thawing process. His fresh semen quality and quantity was excellent crush side. It’s not known why some bulls don’t freeze and thaw but he’s one of them. We will try and collect him later and see if this improves as he matures, which is possible. Next time we’ll be doing an on-farm collection to test for freeze-thaw ability before sending off to the export collection centre.
30/03/24
Weaning
We weaned the calves this Easter weekend and gave a second vaccine booster shot. Any bulls that are potential candidates for semen collection for export were given a 5-in-1 because the 7-in-1 includes leptospirosis. NZ has brought in an antibody-free test that does not distinguish between vaccinated and exposed animals. The new bull pens are working extremely well. They keep the animals contained but they still have room to move, with feed, water and shade. The weaned calves are really loving the sub hay they’ve got on offer, which is a big step up from the canola hay they’ve been eating to date. It’s good to be able to separate the bulls and heifers as well, so you can get a better view of the quality. The day after weaning we had a quiet walk around the pens - it’s going to be difficult to pick the top 20 bulls for our first on-property sale in October! Bulls that are looking good at the moment are Union (looks sensational – he’s a calf and a half that bull), Umpire and Ulysses. The heifers are a really good even line – they’ve got the softness and the shape that I’m after. I will be picking out 5 for our sale which is going to take some thought. The real standout among the heifer calves is Delvene U30, Strzelecki’s full sister, but there are some really good Josies and Lucys in there as well.
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200 day weights
I have been very pleased with our 200 day weights. After flooding earlier in the year and some damaged pastures, we've actually had some good rain around Christmas which has allowed the remaining lucerne to kick off and provided some nice green feed. But it's going to make it hard deciding which bull to keep this year, with such evenness across the line.
Tony off for semen collection
Mount Major Tony is currently at OvaSem, over at Kyabram, being collected for export for New Zealand. Tony's is my favourite Intensity son - he's a lovely, thick bull out of Mount Major Delvene Q37. He's got outstanding carcass attributes, a very big set of testicles, very good feet and just and excellent all round bull. Tony had some light work joining heifers so we'll get his first calves in the spring. We've retained some semen for our own use but he is certainly providing that softness and thickness that we're after. Photo credits to Andrew Cullen of Cullen Marketing for some terrific shots of Tony.
Josie H11
Josie H11 is Mount Major Kingswood's dam and my favourite cow. She has had more than 10 calves now and still going strong - super sound and breeding extremely well, despite being the second oldest cow in the herd. We're just about wean her 10th calf, Uluru.
Beef Week Grand Tour
We were open for Beef Week again this year, always a good opportunity to talk cows with new and old friends. But this year, Ted, myself and a local Hereford breeder decided to go on a tour and visit some other studs in Western Victoria and South Australia. We visited 14 studs in 4 days. It was not just Murray Greys and Herefords, we went to look at some Angus studs as well. It was good to chat to other breeders and interesting to see how other people do things. We picked up a few tips that we'll use in our sale, such as yard/pen layouts and how to present cattle. It was wonderful to see the professionalism of all the Murray Grey studs with good setups and well presented animals. Boonaroo Angus and Days Herefords were both impressive with their quality of livestock and presentation of animals. Thanks to everyone we visited for the warm welcome they gave us. Pictured here: Mount Major Ted comparing notes with Carrsview Ted
Biosecurity
Biosecurity is a high priority for us. Sometimes it doesn't take much to keep your herd safe. We are getting into the spirit of "Come clean, Go clean" and I like to ask visitors to either change their boots (we have a selection of gumboots on hand) or wash their boots. I have been impressed with a neat bit of kit produced by Shoof - a simple mat with water detergent. When you stand on the mat, the water and detergent goes up into the cracks in the soles of foot wear. It's a very simple and easy way for visitors to clean their boots, with no bending over required, and gives me great peace of mind.
Hot days
We've had a run of days around 40 degrees in March so heat management is at the forefront of our minds - making sure the cows have plenty of water, plenty of shade and easy access to feed. We keep an eye on the water troughs to make sure there are no problems there. We have installed some new, larger troughs in our Northside paddocks - triple the size. The older troughs didn't have the reserve to keep up with cow numbers and consequently the cows would crowd around the troughs waiting for them to refill, damaging pipes and floats. I'm hoping for a few less trough repairs now. The cows especially enjoyed being able to have a dip in the newly deepened dam in the Back Bush!
Troughs at West's
It was good to get the water on to the last of the paddocks round at the new block we bought last year. Having all the paddocks troughed makes it easier to manage paddock rotations. Big shout out to Noah Smith and his little digger.
