Ray Cooper

Little Aire Falls

Beech Forest, VIC

Targeting the Japanese B3 market and restaurant trade with quality steers might be the glamour gig of the beef cattle business.

But for every steer turned off, most producers have a matching heifer to move on as well.

And making the absolute most of your genetic investment means you also want top dollar for the girls.

Beech Forest beef  producer Ray Cooper is joining 250 cows a year at “Little Aire Falls” as members of the Team Te Mania program.

Turning off more than 100 steers annually – going through private sale to backgrounders and feedlotters in Victoria and NSW – leaves the other half of the calving equation to get off the property.

Ray says he had been buying Te Mania Angus bulls for several years before he decided to join the Team.

By then, he says, they had more-than-realised the genetics they were buying “were really good”.

“I had got to know members of the Gubbins and McFarlane families and could see they were great operators, and passionate about what they were doing,” Ray says.

“Joining Team Te Mania gave us access to cutting edge genetics ahead of the market and that works for us,” he says.

“One of the best things about Team Te Mania is that it is a professional operation full of like minded beef producers who are trying to be the best at what they do,” Ray says.

“It’s tough country around Beech Forest, we are the highest rainfall spot in the state – we don’t measure rain here by millimetres, but by metres,” he says.

“With an annual average rainfall of two metres we had a rain gauge but threw it away because we got sick of emptying it.

“But the winter makes us calve in August/September and we try to turn our weaners off at 7-8 months weighing around 300kg so we want genetics which ensure good carcase traits in steers and fertility in our females.

“With Team Te Mania we use a mix of AI on our heifers and bulls and as a biodynamic property we don’t synchronise cows in the AI program, we mate naturally over 21 days.”

  • Johnes Status – Beef Only
  • Calving Period – Aug-Sep
  • No of Breeders – 200
  • Member of Team Te Mania since 2006
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