By Richard Fox, The Land
Photo by Richard Fox, courtesy of The Land

BY DIVERSIFYING his Poll Merino stud into a commercial Angus property, Central West farmer, Duncan Clowes, "Valdemar", Millthorpe, has been able to progress his business to be at the forefront of the Angus industry.

Mr Clowes, who has been on "Valdemar" since 1982, had been focused on the superfine Merino wool sector before buying Angus cows a decade ago.  And since then, "Valdemar" has flourished.  "Farming is all about risk management and diversification and that's what I've tried to do here," he said.  "Angus is the leading breed in promotion and production, but I may be being biased."

Mr Clowes, his wife, Eilleen, helped out by farmhand, Josh Lynch, have bought 200 Angus cows, with Te Mania blood, off AuctionsPlus in the past few seasons to beef up his herd.   "We look for a bit of everything when we buy and even though a lot of people are against estimated breeding values (EBV), we look for good EBVs," Mr Clowes said.

"AuctionsPlus is great because we can't always travel to the sale and we are committed to the Te Mania genetics here. 
"Angus is a great breed and because of our genetics, we demand a bit more of a premium than the average joe bloke."

Initially running Herefords, Mr Clowes switched to Angus after backgrounding Angus steers for a friend.  "I bought Angus cows and put Angus bulls on the Herefords and gradually moved to Angus," he said.  "But now I'm completely Angus, in the last two years, I have invested $240,000 in Te Mania genetics and I'm happy."

The "Valdemar" Angus steers are often sold to a feedlot in Glen Innes, while Mr Clowes also sells through his local saleyards, the Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange, Carcoar.  "Last year, we didn't get such a great price for some of our calves," Mr Clowes admitted.  "I've got a few mates with cropping places in a warmer climate and I might in the future background the calves there.  "The only way to evaluate what you're doing is at the point of sale.

"We will probably do a lot more artificial insemination to take us further forward."  However, it's not all about Angus for Mr Clowes and the team at "Valdemar". 

He is still passionate about Poll Merinos, although increasingly looking to the sheepmeat sector as the next move forward.  "I can't see a real premium in wool at the moment," he said.  "I'm not going to sacrifice wool quality to get good meat, but meat is the way to go."  Mr Clowes secures a clip from 14 to 17 microns on all of his 4000-strong flock and has electronically tagged each of them - a time-consuming effort but one that he thinks the industry should embrace. 

"We've had a bit of a problem with the electronic tagging, it requires a lot of work, but the process as a whole is a lot quicker as a result," he said.
"I think it's good for the industry; it's a lot of extra work and a lot of commercial guys can't be bothered but it's a good thing for the industry."

JOINING a well-known interstate genetics team has helped Duncan Clowes, "Valdemar", Millthorpe, expand his commercial Angus operation.

Becoming a member of Team Te Mania, run by Te Mania Angus, Connewarre, Victoria, a year ago has allowed Mr Clowes to network with other growers in NSW and beyond and gain access to genetics and semen from the Te Mania set up.

"The only way to get the best genetics is to get into the progeny test groups," Mr Clowes said.  "We do a lot of performance testing with our sheep through (artificial insemination) and the Te Mania genetics are all performance tested."

Mr Clowes and his wife, Eilleen, now run about 500 cows with Te Mania genetics on their 1619-hectare Central West property.  And the venture seems to be paying off.  After a few good returns, Mr Clowes sold the top-priced pen of steers, 203 Angus steers, which ranged from $675 and topped at $770, to average $699, at the huge 10,000-plus head Blue Ribband weaner sale at the Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange, Carcoar, in April. 

"It gives you a bit more motivation being part of the Te Mania team," Mr Clowes said.  "We get feedback and it keeps us up to speed with what's happening in the industry." 

By Brian Clancy, The Weekly Times 

One Victorian beef business has staked its financial future on the right genetics.

EIGHTY per cent of Scott and Julia McKay's beef business is driven ‘‘by what goes down their throats''. The other 20 per cent is in the breeding or the genetics.

‘‘But by gee, you (have to be right) with the genetics,'' said Scott, who runs a breeding herd of 1000 Angus cows and heifers producing weaners on Habbies Howe at Highlands, north east of Seymour.

Scott is confident he has the right genetics with Te Mania bloodlines. S c o t t , formerly of Wagga Wagga, said he bought the 1500ha Habbies Howe and its Te Maniablood Angus herd after falling in love with the property in 1998. Three years later, the McKays signed up as members of Team Te Mania, allowing them to lease young, promising Te Mania sires.

It's a two-way street: in return for being able to access the latest Te Mania genetics, team members agree to provide performance data back to the Te Mania breeding program. Scott admits there is nothing unconventional about his two-man, cowcalf operation.

Les Gates has been his farm assistant since 1998. The herd is divided into autumn and spring-calving mobs, a strategy which makes maximum use of the 13-14 leased bulls. Three to four new bulls are introduced each year and the McKays artificially inseminate 300 cows with the best of Te Mania semen sires. Heifers are joined at 15 months.

Breedplan estimated breeding values are a priority for Scott and include positive for calving ease, s l i g h t l y positive f o r birthweight and a 600-day growth of between +80kg and +95kg.

The autumn calvers run in mobs of 250 head, while the spring-calvers are at 1 2 0 . E a c h m o b i s rotationally grazed and moved every three to four days.

Scott said the autumn and spring-calving pattern allowed a better use of the farm, which also includes 400 leased hectares. The goal is to turn off 300-350kg weaned calves at nine months for backgrounding and ultimately finishing for the B3 Japanese market.

Until recently, the McKays were selling their weaners direct to a backgrounder for finishing at the Rangers Valley feedlot at Glen Innes in NSW.

When that backgrounder left farming, the McKays found this year they had no option but to sell their spring-drop calves at Yea in May, where they topped the market at $720 for steers with at an estimated 330kg.

Scott is hopeful that the Upper Murray backgrounder who bought all of the McKays' Yea steers will buy direct next time.

Habbies Howe, once the prized farm of the late educator and philanthropist Dick Webb, is a picturesque valley of hills and low-flat country. The average rainfall is 800mm, although, like most other Victorian farms over the past decade, Habbies Howe has done it tough during the drought and cuts its cow numbers. Habbies Howe can also get very bitterly cold, which provides its own challenges at calving.

Much of the property is sown to ryegrass, cocksfoot and phalaris, although the hills retain an exceptional cover of native grasses - weeping grass, kangaroo grass and wallaby grass. Scott said the weeping grass was a particularly valuable feed, but had to be carefully managed.

‘‘We take the cattle off the native pastures on Melbourne Cup day and return them six or seven weeks after the autumn break,'' he said.

Fertilisers are a major cost. Soil testing dictates heavy applications of superphosphate and lime, though Scott said he was also looking at other fertiliser options, including chook manure.

He said there was little more they could do on the breeding side. That might be a good thing, as it allows Scott and Les to put all their energies into the health of the herd, pasture management and weed and pest control.

Scott said although they had invested heavily in the c o n t r o l o f r a b b i t s , blackberries, bracken and capeweed, there was still more to be done.

In keeping with the objective of boosting marketing options for the cattle, Habbies Howe is EU accredited, carries a Beef Only Johne's disease status and is Certified Australian Angus Beef-accredited.

Planner: ScottMcKay looks over his Seymour district property, Habbies Howe.

By Tom Gubbins

With the GFC now getting further behind us and Asia recovering well, marbling beef product is gaining in demand, and mid- to long-term feed prices are on the rise.

Angus cattle are the breed of choice and within the breed, bloodlines with high marbling are in higher demand. 

Feed costs are also low at the moment, adding to the profit margins in feeding for longer.  Angus cattle are not descended from draft animals, they were founded on meat quality, so we need to continue to maintain and build on this quality product reputation. 

As cattle get older they express more marbling. 

Angus cattle grow faster than they did in the past, therefore they are slaughtered younger.  This is working against the increase in genetic marbling at a given age, so we need to place a lot of selection pressure on marbling.

At Te Mania Angus we have kept this in mind while making our breeding decisions and phenotypical marbling in our client herds (Team Te Mania) is still increasing, while improving growth and other desirable traits.

Marbling is a great way for cattle producers to differentiate themselves from the pack.  As you differentiate, you have to change your traditional selling methods. 

To be financially rewarded for producing a more specific product with a smaller market, you have to build strong relationship with players in the next level of the industry. 

A relationship that allows you to demonstrate the quality of your product, build an appreciation of that product and then reward you. 

Once you have differentiated yourself from the mainstream commodity producer, you are more like a secondary industry, value adding business, than a primary producer.

If marbling has a genetic limit, we don't appear to have reached it as yet in the Angus breed, and the higher it gets the greater the customer satisfaction gets, whether a feedlotter, processor, wholesaler, chef or consumer. 

As long as we practice balanced selection, where we select for all other important traits such as reproductive and growth performance, improving marbling is not likely to cause problems.

Genetically we can increase marbling independently of subcutaneous fat despite there being a moderate relationship between the two fat deposits.

Subcutaneous fat has many side effects of which some are positive and some are negative depending on your environment and attitude.

Recent findings by the Beef CRC maternal trials show increased genetic fat increases genetic reproduction rate (percentage of calves born) while increasing genetically the amount of food required for weight gain (Net Feed Intake). 

We can address reproduction rate issues with P8 and Rib fat EBVs in conjunction with fertility traits. 

Unfortunately the cost of this is your cow and its offspring will be less efficient all their lives, and have lower retail beef yield. 

The alternative is to subtly reduce genetically subcutaneous fat, and, if required, modify the environment before and during joining to increase animal intake and phenotypical fat.

Again this is supported by CRC research which suggests you can improve reproduction by increasing fat genetically or environmentally. 

You can then enjoy all the positive genetic correlations, with lower subcutaneous fat.

Findings from the Trangie research herd show in the same trials reducing net feed intake (increasing feed efficiency) also reduces methane production. 

Genetically-reduced fat reduces NFI, which reduces methane. This may be drawing a long bow, but agriculture has plenty of long bows drawn on it.

This all happens genetically with very small correlation between subcutaneous fat and marbling. 

By Sheena Coffey,  Stock and Land

Better data and individual herd management pushed Tonga Station, Mansfield, and Te Mania Angus stud, Mortlake, to invest in Sapien Technology software systems.

Despite being different operations - Tonga runs both a commercial herd and trading operation, but is also a member of Team Te Mania - they are able to use the same software programs to make better informed and more efficient decisions.

Managing director of Sapien Technology, Robert Wyld, who developed the software programs used - Koolcollect, which collects data, and Superkool, a central and online database that sorts and backs up all information collected - said the programs provided the opportunity for both stud and commercial operators to manage their cattle mobs on an individual basis.

"They can identify superior genetics in their herd and also quickly identify poor performing animals," Mr Wyld said.

Cattle going through the yards at Tonga Station under the direction of owner Mark Calvert-Jones have their National Livestock Identification System tag scanned and their weight is instantly recorded by software beside the crush.

"We regularly weigh all animals so we can accurately project which will be sent to the feedlot for optimum price," Mr Calvert-Jones said.  "Koolcollect makes our life so much easier".

The software is also used at pregnancy-testing time to record joining status and allows empty breeders to be drafted separately at the time of scanning. 

At Te Mania stud, where record-keeping is a vital part of management, the system allows the stud to quickly and efficiently record information without error.

"Our system enables them to keep full pedigree records and submit that data to Breedplan," Mr Wyld said.  "It makes their job a whole lot easier to record and store that information."

Tonga Station and Te Mania both use Superkool as a back-up facility and central database.

The latest component to the program, Koolperform, has already been used at Te Mania and will be released by Sapien Technology soon.

It will allow Te Mania to collect different types of reports and analyse this data and handle all Breedplan information.

Tom Gubbins, farm manager of technology and media at Te Mania, said the system had been extremely beneficial in the stud operation.

"The system follows the logic of what cattle people do; it works with them," he said.

"It saves us a lot of time and also improves the accuracy of recordings significantly because there is less human error involved in writing the wrong tag down."

By Brian Clancy, The Weekly Times

A LACK of accuracy in breeding estimates is set to delay the commercial release of DNA testing in beef.

This is according to Beef Co-operative Research Centre chief scientist Dr Mike Goddard.

Dr Goddard said the commercial release of DNA markers in breeding values could be delayed by up to another two years.

He blamed the delays on the inability to validate DNA markers against sufficient numbers of cattle with known traits.

Addressing the Team Te Mania beef field day at Habbies Howe, near Seymour, last week, Dr Goddard said meaningful results with sufficient accuracies would require testing against five times the 1000 head currently being researched.

Determination of genetic information using DNA markers was hailed as the centre-piece of the $121 million Beef CRC which commenced in 2005.

Scientists were then hopeful DNA markers would provide a third tool to complement pedigree and Breedplan estimated breeding values.

While EBVs were already used to record information on an animal's performance for traits such as marbling, net feed intake and fertility, the new-style genetic markers would incorporate this information with genome-wide genetic predictions and phenotype information collected by producers.

The scientists were hoping a "chip" containing up to 50,000 DNA markers could be matched or validated against an animal with known traits such as fertility and meat quality.

But Dr Goddard said the DNA chip was too small, and the Beef CRC was looking to a new chip with 850,000 markers.

He was also hoping to validate these markers against at least 5000 animals with tested traits.

The other obstacle for the Beef CRC was the additional cost of the larger chip.

Last December, Beef CRC chief executive Dr Heather Burrow said that on results to date, the CRC was confident it would commercialise DNA markers by 2012, accounting for at least 15 per cent of genetic variation for a range of traits such as marbling, tenderness, saleable meat yield, feed efficiency and female reproduction.

On the latest news that the CRC would be seeking to extend its testing, Dr Goddard agreed the commercial release of meaningful and accurate DNA marker technology to stud breeders was still some years away.

Sired by Te Mania Ambassador A134 and out of a Lawsons Henry VIII Y5 cow, Regent has EBVs of +106 (top 5%) for 600 day weight, +8 for Eye Muscle Area, +3.7 for Intramuscular Fat and +150 for the Longfed CAAB index.

Te Mania Angus Australia director Tom Gubbins, whose family bred Te Mania Ambassador, says these figures place Regent in the top one per cent of the breed for those traits.

Tom says Te Mania Angus identified the outstanding young bull and won a hard-fought duel against a syndicate of Queensland, NSW and Tasmanian breeders at the Tuwharetoa Angus stud dispersal at Tarcutta, NSW, on Tuesday, April 20, 2010.

According to Elders auctioneer Michael Glasser, the sale equalled the Australian sale record price paid for an Angus bull.

Regent is also in the top five pc of the breed for the heavy grassfed, shortfed domestic and terminal indices.

Tom says Regent is a "standout bull for his length of body, smooth shoulders, structural correctness and beautiful sleek coat and skin".

He says the bull's prepotency for marbling is concentrated on three sides of his pedigree and, importantly in today's seedstock market, Regent has tested free of known genetic disorders.

"This makes him stand alone as a potentially defining sire of the next generation of Australian Angus genetics," Tom says.

"But it is important people understand you do not select a sire for just one or two traits, you select a bull who sets an industry benchmark across the spectrum - from EBVs to structure," he says.

"The holy grail of the cattle business might be +4 in marbling, but if that was the only goal it could have been achieved long ago.

"Which is what is so appealing about Regent - he is the complete package, backing up his stunning figures with the attributes which we believe will make his progeny right at home in paddocks across the country.

"For example, his higher-than-desirable birthweight (+6.8) is adequately offset by his smooth shoulder and reach of neck, and -2.6 for gestation length.

"And everyone who has seen his dam agrees she is a standout herself, as a beautiful and highly-productive female.

"To top it off Regent's mature cow weight is less than his 600-day growth figure, which means he won't be producing cows which will increase a breeder's cost of production."

Tom says Regent will go straight to Total Genetics at Terang for semen collection for Te Mania New Zealand, then to Te Mania Angus' Mortlake headquarters.  He will go to Dunoon in NSW for the Autumn joining 2011.   He  will be used through both ET and AI as well as being extensively progeny tested through the Team Te Mania network of 37 herds across three states.

He says although Regent is still a young bull, his breeding and his early figures indicate he has unparalleled long-term potential and his new owners, the Te Mania Angus partnership and Holbrook-based Dunoon, expect him to quickly have a major impact in their genetic profiles.

"We are excited to be able to add Regent to the mix and I believe we have made a major statement with the lengths we went to as a syndicate to obtain this very sirey fellow," Tom adds.

"It is our hope he may go on to hold a place in the breed as influential as that of Te Mania Kelp, which was such a success for us and which we eventually sold privately for $50,000 to Hazeldean Angus, or more recently Te Mania Unlimited, which went to a NZ syndicate for $60,000," he says.

Te Mania Angus has dominated the breed's EBVs for years - and is showing no signs of slowing down - with more than twice as many Angus Group Breedplan trait leaders as any other stud.

Adding to that success is Te Mania Angus' insistence all sale bulls are stringently - and independently - assessed for structure. With the results published alongside each bull in all sale catalogues.

Te Mania Angus can deliver calving ease and be commercially profitable with the fast-growing, high-marbling bulls wanted by the feedlot industry, processors, and, most crucially, consumers.

Te Mania Angus director Tom Gubbins says his family's business has been going to great lengths - "lengths above and beyond that expected by the rest of the industry" - to further improve that accuracy. 

He says Te Mania Angus does that in many ways, such as keeping animals together in large contemporary groups to achieve more effective progeny in each group which can then be compared in one environment. 

"The phenotype (what you see) is made up of the genotype (inherited factors) plus the environment (all other factors)," Tom says.

"If we put animals in large groups where the environment is the same, then we can compare genotypes," he says.

Te Mania Angus also progeny tests a significant cast of sires each year - both on-property and through the Team Te Mania commercial progeny test herds. 

Sires such as Te Mania Berkley B1, Te Mania Africa A217, Te Mania Yorkshire Y347, and many others, have sons in this year's autumn sale team as well as steer half brothers in the Team Te Mania herds, spread across SA, Victoria and NSW.

Tom says these progeny test herds contribute valuable information on sires, which further increases the accuracy of the of the sale bulls, through the sire line. 

He says while this is a time consuming and expensive program, Te Mania Angus remains committed to this principle - and its success is clearly reflected in Breedplan and in demand from major feedlots for Te Mania Angus blood steers. 

"As we all well know, EBVs can change as more information comes to light, because EBVs are estimates of the animal's genotype," Tom adds.

"The more information made available, the more accurate the estimates and the reason why an EBV may change," he says.

In this year's autumn on-property catalogue for Mortlake on March 19:

123 out of 160 bulls are from homebred sires.

• This progeny testing has resulted in Te Mania Berkley B1 being identified as the top sire on Australian Group Breedplan for the $Index for Long Fed/CAAB Market, the $Index for Heavy Grass Fed Steers and the $Index for Short Fed Domestic market.
• Te Mania Africa A217, who has 12 sons in the sale, follows closely behind in the Top Five ranking for these three markets.
• Te Mania Yorkshire Y437, 16 sons in the sale, progeny tested through 59 herds and is an acclaimed Trait Leader for Group Breedplan for 11 out of the 16 published traits.A trait leader is a sire in the top 5 pc of the breed for that trait, and with an accuracy of at least 80 pc for that trait.
• Te Mania Ambassador A134, progeny tested through 22 herds, is the highest sire on Australian Group Breedplan for IMF.

"In our breeding program these short generation interval, high accuracy animals also give us the opportunity to make faster genetic gain, therefore improve our herd and the herds of our clients at an ever-accelerating rate," Tom adds.

"It also means we can use more of our own-bred sires, which we practically know much more about," he says.

"With this extra accuracy we can make more specific breeding decisions than the rest of the industry, for example keeping a lid on birth weight.

"And because of the number of bulls in the sale, we have large numbers of very low birthweight bulls while pushing growth hard while keeping mature size at a viable limit. We can also do this while boosting marbling and other important carcase traits."

Parallel with its genetic progress is Te Mania Angus' focus on structure.

Tom says the stud is continually expanding its structural assessment program to optimise soundness and performance in its stock.

He says the program involves an independent assessor from BEEFXCEL analysing the structural composition of the herd on an individual basis.

The program used at Te Mania comprises of an annual assessment of all sale bulls, an annual assessment of all breeding females and donor cows and any animals deemed inadequate are immediately culled.

Article provided by Western District Farmer

Te Mania Berkley B1, the highest bull on Australian Group Breeplan for the Long Fed/CAAB Market, Heavy Grass Fed Steer and Short Fed Domestic $ Indexes

In Western Victoria there are always seasonal challenges, never mind markets, but the Jackson herd has found a mix of pure genetics and a parallel breeding strategy is paying off where it counts - on the bottom line

For Karen and Jon Jackson, participation in a dedicated genetics cum progeny testing program was an epiphany.

With 1460 hectares of buckshot rises to fine sandy loam over clay and heavy black flats, their property Toolong, at Woolsthorpe, 30 kilometres north of Warrnambool, was all about perennial ryegrass and clover and one calving.

Their path to better production would be genetics, in tandem with a breeding program which better reflected the Western District seasons.

Steers are nearly always purchased by Rangers Valley Feedlot for the target markets.

Richard Eldershaw, Livestock Manager for Rangers Valley, described Jon Jackson as an "extraordinary operator" with whom Rangers Valley has been dealing for the past 19 or 20 years.

He said that when Rangers Valley first started buying Toolong cattle they already had a Te Mania Angus base but their genetic acceleration through Team Te Mania has made them better cattle - and got them there faster.

"They are wonderful cattle, with high growth rates and above average marbling, despite the fact that that the cattle are turned off younger than most suppliers' cattle." Richard said.

"Jon has an amazing ability to turn off large lines of even cattle, even in a tight season.  "Yes, the only thing I would change is where the farm is based - I would prefer it to be a lot closer to our feedlot," he said.

Twelve years ago Toolong was a totally autumn calving enterprise, and if its "good" cows did not cycle in the AI program, they were carried over to the spring. 

Now calving down as many as 1000 cows, Toolong join two thirds of the herd in autumn and the balance in spring.  That gives them twice the use of their bulls, requires less supplementary feed for the spring herd and has lifted cycling and improved conception rates with more top tucker.  And it has all but overcome bull breakdowns in the spring, with its conditions drier than the notorious Western District June and July.

The autumn calving herd also offsets the fact a lot of the property can be wet in spring, making it almost impossible to successfully calve down 1000 cows.

For Jon Jackson the only disadvantage of the double calving is doubling the time spent in the paddock checking calving cows.

"For us the difference was getting in as a foundation, and progeny test, herd in the Team Te Mania program," Jon said.

"Today we only use Te Mania Angus genetics as part of our Team membership and we lease 18 bulls over a three-year cycle, backed up with Te Mania Angus semen in the AI programs".

"Through the lease program we are supplied with cutting-edge bulls at a reasonable, and fixed, cost and if one breaks down it is replaced quickly."

Jon said his herd is bred to supply the longfed and CAAB market with sires selected with good IMF figures, not excessive 600-day growth EBVs and moderate mature weights.

It costs more, he said, to feed a big cow than a smaller one but his heifers can still handle birthweight EBVs of 4/4.5 if they are well grown and not too fat.

"That dramatically increases our potential sire availability, and we also place quite an emphasis on the longfed index in sire selection," Jon said.

"The average CAAB $Index for the bulls on hand is +$119, where the breed average is +$83.

"Our bulls are all semen tested prior to joining and every female in the Toolong herd is vaccinated against pestivirus," he said.

At Toolong the autumn calving is both AI and natural, while spring is all natural.

The AI program provides the means to increase the rate of genetic improvement of the herd at an affordable cost, with 220 heifers synchronised using CIDRs and prostaglandin.

They are cycled twice in an endeavour to pick up the heifers which did not cycle or conceive the first time around            .

Jon said on average he achieves 65-70 pc conception per cycle.       

"After the program the heifers are split into three mobs for the back-up bulls," Jon said.

"A further 150/200 cows are cycled using two doses of prostaglandin and the bulls are put into groups of 50/60 AI cows," he said.

"Synchronised cows which did not present in the AI program are mated in a small group and then split up with other naturally joined cow groups. Naturally mated cows are joined in groups of around 45 cows

"In the past we have used higher cow-to-bull ratios and have had mixed results so we have found it better to be conservative and use an extra bull or two with smaller groups.

"We still join the cows for nine weeks and the calves can be aged at preg-testing to identify the early calvers."

The autumn herd cows preg-test at 92-93 pc in calf and the spring cows are usually one or two pc better, probably due to better feed availability and weather

Individual joinings are recorded and calves are tagged at birth and entered into the herd recording program.

Selected weights and scan data for IMF, EMA and fat measurements are sent to Breedplan and the resulting herd EBVs have proved an invaluable tool to aid in selection of replacement females and help in choosing sires for mating.

"The gains are to be seen in the carcase data feedback," Jon adds. "To aid in the collection of the data we use NLIS tags in conjunction with a panel reader on the crush and a laptop running Koolcollect software.

"It is not hard to weigh and drench 150-plus steers an hour, then just download the data to the herd recording program and e-mail it to Breedplan," he said.

"A few dollars have to be spent to buy these things but I no longer have to spend hours at night making mistakes typing in the data and we receive more accurate information."

This year Toolong has also direct drilled 60 hectares of Winfred rape and tonic as a summer crop, which will be strip grazed to maintain steer growth of approximately .8 kilogram per day.

The summer crop is followed by annual ryegrass and balansa clover for strip grazing steers and hay and silage over two years before being re-sown to permanent pasture

Hay is fed to the autumn calving herd in autumn and winter with rolled or pit silage for spring-calving cows and calves over summer then to spring weaners and autumn calved heifers in autumn.

Jon said traditionally Toolong sold steers in the 400-450 kilogram range, but he said with involvement in the Team Te Mania progeny test program and refined management programs they are now getting more kilograms per hectare to maximise returns.

"Now the first run of autumn steers is taken off the summer crop in April and when the summer crop is finished the balance are strip grazed on annual ryegrass and sold in July/August when supplies are low and there is often a premium available.

"Spring steers make use of their second flush of spring feed and are sold around

January and February while our surplus heifers go in the Warrnambool April special store or privately on farm."

Article provided by Western District Farmer

TE MANIA Angus will be the first stud to offer Estimated Breeding Value figures for structure in its bull sale catalogue.

The Mortlake-based stud, which has assessed and recorded the structure of 7000 individual animals, believes this is in keeping with its long-term approach to provide clients with more information.

Te Mania co-principal Tom Gubbins said it was all about "giving clients a better snapshot of an animal's genotype".

"Structure EBVs are for those clients who want to concentrate on the structure in their herd; the genotype information is always better than the phenotype information," Mr Gubbins said.

The latest EBVs have been developed by Angus Australia with the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit.

Te Mania has embraced structural scores in its catalogues for the past 10 years, but this year's catalogue will also include the animal's structural EBV and the likelihood of it passing on the trait.

"We wouldn't normally put phenotype data next to genotype data, but it will be interesting to see how the two vary," Mr Gubbins said. "We're not looking for the bull with bad feet, but might have calves with good feet. We'll be looking for the bull with good feet and determining the likelihood of it passing on that trait."

Mr Gubbins said industry costs had driven the implementation of the new EBVs.

"We want our bulls to last as long as possible in our clients' herds and to ensure cast-for-age cows are going on to breeding and not off for meat ... which can return up to $100 more."

Te Mania will this year run its auction with the use of a video screen. The bulls will remain penned outside to eliminate the inherent risks associated with operating an auction ring, Mr Gubbins said.

The March 19 sale of 170 bulls includes 123 by homebred sires, including Berkley B1, which has the highest dollar indices for the long-fed CAAB, heavy-grass and short-fed domestic market indicators of any Australian sire.

Gemma Gadd
February 10, 2010

Article provided by Weekly Times

INNOVATIVE ideas combined with sound principles mean Te Mania has long been a leader in the Angus world.

However, one of the stud's directors, Tom Gubbins, believes the beef industry is on the cusp of huge change.

"I see the DNA era - for (my brother-in-law) Hamish (McFarlane) and I at Te Mania - as similar to the development of Breedplan that (my father Andrew) went through," he said.

And DNA technology is changing. Fast.

"Last year we could take 10,000 'snips' (single nucleotide polymorphisms or SNPs). At the moment we can take 50,000 from an animal. Soon it will be 500,000 and there will be a day when the whole animal would be able to be (mapped)," Tom said.

In the future, genetic information derived from the cattle's DNA will lead to cattle breeding programs where genomic information is used in conjunction with phenotypic information - the physical performance characteristics of the animal, such as its weight and growth rate - to help producers breed better beef.

"If DNA technology becomes really good, and describes 50 per cent ... of the animal, it would be amazing, but I don't see it happening in my lifetime," Tom said.

"It is costly, and we need to decide when we start to go into it.

"I do not see a significant genetic improvement advantage in being involved with DNA at the moment - but there will be an advantage in the future.

"Phenotypical information is so good and so accurate at the moment that DNA won't improve what we have now - but further down the track - I (think it will)."

Before DNA technology is accurate enough to be practically useful for studs such as Te Mania, Tom said there were many obstacles to clear.

Not least of all facing the industry is regulation, and how big companies that manufacture DNA technology fit into the picture.

"It is crucial for the future of DNA's use in a animal breeding that markers be independently calibrated in populations of animals outside of the discovery herd," Tom believes.

Beef CRC research shows that "discovering and validating" DNA markers associated with important production traits, such as feed efficiency and female reproduction, is more complex than initially thought.

Since the cow genome was sequenced in 2006, geonomic testing - and its cost - has changed vastly.

"In 2008 a 'snip' panel that can test 50,000 DNA markers simultaneously, became available," Beef CRC chief executive Heather Burrow said.

"It cost us around $US250 to use that panel.

"We can now access that panel for $US100 and we are expecting it to reduce even further in price as the size of the 'snip' panels increases to 500,000 (DNA) markers or even more."

While Te Mania are always pushing ahead to better their Angus genetics, they have also relocated, or centralised, their operation.

The Te Mania principals - Tom and Lucy Gubbins, Tom's sister Amanda and her husband Hamish McFarlane, as well as their parents Andrew and Mary Gubbins - spent last year relocating their bull unit from near Colac to Mortlake.

The family sold the Colac property - established by Mary and Andrew 50 years ago - at the end of 2008 and completed the move to Mortlake in August last year. The females had been running at the Mortlake property since 2002.

"At the moment we are having a period of consolidation. However, we think we have found the farm that suits our enterprise," Tom said.

"The bull-buyers never saw the cows when we were at Pardoo, so this way, we have streamlined the operation."

However, Tom is not looking at what has been done. He has his eyes fixed firmly on the future.

"The cattle population is being pushed north, and cattle and dairying country is becoming scarcer in the Western District (with a lot of land in recent years going into cropping)," he said.

Like other breed-leaders, Te Mania has a presence the north, with its spring bull sale at Walgett, in northern NSW, growing each year. And this year will be no different.

Tom anticipates 160 bulls will be offered - 40 more than last year, when 122 bulls sold to a top of $14,000, and up from 90 bulls in 2008.

"We like to see bulls being reared in NSW for our northern clients. I think it is important," Tom said.

They have just completed the second round of artificial-insemination programs for 1000 cows and 470 heifers - and Tom talks about working on carbon levels within the soil and maintaining those by minimal tilling.

"We farm biologically. There is very little soluble fertiliser used here," Tom said.

"We are looking into marking compost here as well, as compost innoculates the soil."

Te Mania's autumn bull sale will be held at Mortlake on March 19 at midday.

It will preceded by Te Mania's commercial female sale on AuctionsPlus on March 18 at 5pm.

Matilda Abey
January 13, 2010

Article provided by Weekly Times