Braidwood farmers Jon and Catherine Braddock on downsizing Angus herd

Braidwood cattle farmers Jon and Catherine Braddock are leaders in their field. See the ins and outs of their operation and how they make money.

Farming is like a game of checkers, according to Jon Braddock.

“The minute you run out of options, you get forced into things you don’t want to do,” he said.

“Our motto is to always make sure we have options.”

Jon and wife Catherine apply this principle throughout the management of their three properties.

In fact having the three properties is a pivotal tool for providing them with options to help manage increasing climatic variation.

The pair spent 15 years running 4000 Corriedale ewes and 600 Angus cows on the NSW Monaro but sold up three years ago and now farm at Braidwood, on the NSW Southern Tablelands.

Cattle producers Jon and Catherine Braddock on their Braidwood property. Picture: Martin Ollman

They kept a small 60ha block of lucerne flats on the Cooma Creek as a drought proofing strategy and have another 800ha at Binalong, two hours northwest of Braidwood.

“Given we had no kids, we decided it was time to do it a bit easier so we went from 4000ha running predominantly sheep down to 700ha at Braidwood running cattle only,” Jon said.

Their timing couldn’t have been better, with cattle prices at record highs.

The Braddocks run 750 commercial Angus cows with Hazeldean bloodlines and also have their own nucleus stud herd AHD Jibolaro.

“The reason we have the small stud is so we can breed good young bulls for our heifers and if we have any surplus as two year olds we can then sell them with figures attached,” Catherine said.

“It is only small and primarily for our own benefit so we can manage it quite easily.”

They don’t AI but instead introduce a new stud bull at least every two years, preferring to see the bulls in the flesh.

There are 30-50 head in the nucleus stud herd and three to four bulls are sold to regular clients each year.

The stud herd was originally founded on Hazeldean cast-for-age stud cows.

Bulls from other studs have been used in the past but they are now pure Hazeldean.

“We currently buy bulls from Hazeldean at Cooma because they are not overfed and are used to being out in the paddock so are really good, functional cattle with good temperament and figures,” Jon said.

“Good temperament is in Hazeldean’s DNA.”

HEIFER HIERARCHY

The couple turn off between 300 and 350 steers a year from eight to nine months old weighing 280kg to 340kg liveweight. The draft was sold in March this year for an average of $1820 a head.

They traditionally sold calves at the Cooma weaner sales in March-April but since moving to Braidwood now sell at Yass and on AuctionsPlus.

The Braddocks made the switch from running predominantly sheep to now running pure Hazeldean cows. Picture: Martin Ollman

The exceptional cattle prices have encouraged Jon and Catherine to focus heavily on their heifers and they have started a new program where they join for nine weeks instead of six.

On average about 250 heifers are joined; last year they kept 76 for their own herd and the remainder were sold as pregnancy tested in calf (PTIC) on AuctionsPlus.

They sold PTIC heifers in February for $2650 a head.

“We keep what we require from the heifers that conceive early and we sell the later calvers as PTIC heifers because we figure it’s better to have late heifers in calf to sell than empty heifers to sell,” Jon said.

Traditionally, the Braddocks have a closed herd and have maintained their numbers throughout the drought years, but last year they did buy some older cows and PTIC heifers.

“We bought one big lot of cows from Corryong for $1650 a head after the drought and everyone said we were mad paying that sort of money,” Jon said.

“But they gave us an $1800 calf and we resold them PTIC for $2500.”

The Braddocks have fattened some calves in the past, but while the Binalong property is suited to fattening, they prefer to stick with breeding and selling weaners.

“If you can breed them, the first $1800 is the best $1800. That’s what we do and let the game fellas buy them at that money,” Jon said.

MOB MOBILISATION

The herd has a six-week joining period and calving is in spring from the start of August.

The Braddocks have 12 one-year-old bulls, 10 two-year-old bulls and 15 older herd bulls, with numbers slightly down on average.

They multi-sire join in mobs of up to 60 cows and have a ratio of 1:25 for the younger bulls with heifers.

One stud bull is used over the nucleus stud herd.

All the bulls are jump tested before joining by Shane Thompson from Holbrook Vet Clinic each year to ensure the bulls that go out are good workers.

“They get a physical examination including feet, body structure, testicles and serving capacity using two to three cycling cows,” Jon said.

“It’s a good way to find out if there are any that are corkscrewing, not jumping or not interested.”

The Braddocks have been getting the testing done for the past two years but wish they had been doing it for 25 years.

“It gives us peace of mind and it’s good to know you don’t have freeloading bulls walking around,” Jon said.

“Joining is one of the most important parts of our business and the last thing we want is a bad pregnancy testing.”

Growth rates are also a key priority and Jon and Catherine place strong emphasis on selecting cattle with low birthweight and high growth rates so the 200, 400 and 600-day weights are important.

Temperament is also prioritised.

Paddocks contain highly improved pastures of cocksfoot, phalaris and clover that receive regular applications of fertiliser based on soil tests.

About 80ha of oat and ryegrass crops are grown for winter supplementation each year as part of a pasture improvement regimen.

The Cooma property produces 1400-1500 big square bales of dryland lucerne each year and the Binalong property up to 1000 big round bales of pasture hay depending on the season.

During the drought they got through by selling lucerne for $600 a tonne and purchasing canola hay for $300 a tonne.

Catherine said they don’t compare themselves to anyone else in terms of profit and are not members of any benchmarking groups.

“We keep it simple but always try to access new information to weigh up our options and work out what is best for us and how we could make our business better,” she said.

“It’s all about what will suit our country and us and keeping our options open to those inevitable industry and climatic changes.”