Maller family from Hamilton Park Wagyu take the next step with Phat Wag butcher shop

The sky is the limit for this Queensland business which excels both in the paddock and on the plate.

Third-generation farmer Selwyn Jocelyn Maller on his beef farm at Wallumbilla, northeast of Roma, in Queensland.

Running a large-scale, finely tuned beef herd across six properties in three districts hundreds of kilometres apart would be enough to test the nerves of any farmer.

But it’s a challenge third-generation Queensland farmers Selwyn and Jocelyn Maller seem to relish. In fact, they are more than ready to ramp things up another notch, with plans well in train to open a retail shop to showcase their farm wares – a bold move most others would baulk at in the middle of a global pandemic.

“I see a lot of people with conservative thinking and they just don’t go anywhere,” Selwyn said. “You’ve just got to have a go.”

The Mallers, from Wallumbilla, northeast of Roma, have been committed to the beef industry for three generations. Traditional Hereford producers in traditional Hereford country, they made the bold switch to the Japanese-originated Wagyu, best known for its superior marbling and eating quality, in the late 1990s after Selwyn took a shine to the breed and started researching it.

The roll of the dice has clearly paid off. In the past five years, to satisfy growing domestic and global consumer demand for the high-marbling beef, the Mallers’ Wagyu herd has more than doubled in size to 2500 cows.

At the same time the couple has continued to develop and foster crucial links across the supply chain and has been lauded with several major industry awards.

In an effort to give back to a breed that has given him so much, Selwyn now serves as the junior vice president of the Australian Wagyu Association as well as the chairman of its genetic improvement committee.

“It’s just such an exciting breed and industry to be a part of,” he said.

HIGH STEAKS

THE Hamilton Park Wagyu business model is simple yet effective. Only the best genetics are used within the herd while crucial carcass feedback data dictates breeding decisions.

The purchase of farmland has been strategic, to help droughtproof the business, while other measures, such as breeding cattle to be turned off at targeted weights earlier, have been introduced to counter fluctuating seasons.

The operation is no small fry, split between the 4250-hectare Hamilton Park and Glenora Downs properties at Wallumbilla, the 4050ha Carrington at Roma and the 28,300ha Lussvale at Mitchell, in western Queensland.

There’s also the Oaky Creek and Rellam Park properties in the higher-rainfall South Burnett district, about four hours’ drive from Wallumbilla.

The properties differ in soils, grasses and rainfall, and each plays a strategic role in the business. Lussvale, whose red soils grow buffel and mulga grasses, and Carrington, with its buffel, brigalow and belah pastures, are home to the business’ breeding operation, purebred and crossbred cows.

When the calves from these properties are weaned they are trucked to Hamilton Park and Glenora Downs for backgrounding and preparation for feedlot entry.

These farms comprise mixed fertile scrub soils that offer a variety of herbage and cropping options, and also host the Mallers’ donor and recipient cows for their own in-vitro fertiliser program. There’s also an opportunity feedlot.

These four farms are now serviced by the more recent additions to the Hamilton Park portfolio, Oaky Creek and Rellam Park, which grow summer and winter crops, and allow the business to turn off cattle consistently throughout the year.

In the South Burnett they now have just over 245ha of country under irrigation, on which they grow barley for grain and straw and forage sorghum for silage. “Everything goes back into the system,” Selwyn said.

The Mallers said the purchase had been “a huge step forward in drought proofing” the operation. It cost the family $1.7 million to feed their cattle during the dry year of 2019.

Third-generation farmers Selwyn and Jocelyn Maller on their beef farm at Wallumbilla, northeast of Roma, in Queensland.

MEAT THE MARKET

THE Mallers started in Wagyu breeding 23 years ago. To establish the herd, they purchased five heifers, at $16,000 a piece, from the Coates family’s Sumo Wagyu at Dulacca in Queensland and 10 from the De Bruin family’s Mayura herd near Millicent in South Australia, and used semen from the famed 20 “foundation sires” of the Australian Wagyu industry.

Prior to this the Mallers had run predominantly Herefords, targeting the Jap Ox market at four years of age, finished on oats and sold through the Wallumbilla prime cattle markets. “This area was a huge Hereford area,” said Selwyn, who in the late 1970s began crossbreeding Herefords with Simmentals to promote better weight gain while retaining a white face.

He said the move to crossbreeding allowed them to sell the cattle as three-year-olds, instead of four, at the same weights, direct to abattoirs. The Mallers also finished some cattle through their feedlot, where they would be fed for 100 days.

It was during this time that the Mallers developed a relationship with Charlie Mort, of large-scale feedlotter business Mort and Co.

When the Mallers made the switch to Wagyu, Charlie made them a promise that if Selwyn bred them, he would feed them and find them markets.

Initially the Mallers’ Wagyu were fed at the Freestone feedlot near Warwick, before construction of the Grassdale feedlot south of Dalby.In the beginning, the Mallers retained ownership of the cattle but the two parties moved towards a monthly contract, to ensure a more consistent turn-off and better cashflow.

TECH HEADS

THE Hamilton Park breeding program is centred on a winter and spring calving.

The Mallers rely mostly on natural matings but have made good use of embryo-transfer and in-vitro fertilisation in recent years.

Selwyn said he had found IVF, in particular, very successful.

“I like it because you’re not giving the drugs to the donor cows to make them super-ovulate,” he said. “We just bring the donor cows in, collect the eggs and then away they go back to Brisbane to the lab, the semen is introduced and it all happens.

“And the donors, they can be up to three months pregnant and you can still collect eggs from them – it is a whole new world.”

Selwyn said they used genetics from the top Wagyu bulls in Australia, including from the Mayura and Macquarie herds, and also produced their own bulls.

Selwyn bases all his selection on estimated breeding values, focusing on the key traits of milk, carcass weight and marbling.

“We are trying to get that balance where you’ve got above average all the way through,” Selwyn said.

“With the IVF we can really, really push those genetics strongly and very quickly. Now with genomics and the single-step Breedplan, the calf can be born, we get a tissue sample and we can get the DNA and genomics on that calf by the time it is three months old,” he said.

“Because the accuracies are now above 50 per cent for those young calves, it gives you the footing then to be able to make solid breeding decisions.”

Selwyn said: “like every herd, you’ve got your tops, you’ve got your middles and then you’ve got the ones you’d probably prefer you didn’t have – but it is a matter of identifying and getting rid of those and keeping the bell-curve moving”.

The Hamilton Park Wagyu operation is run across six properties in three districts of western Queensland.

NATURAL SELECTION

WITH the natural joinings, the Mallers usually adhere to a rule of running one bull with 40 females for two months. “Dry weather gets you out of sync, you just start to get them all into a bit of a pattern and then you get into another drought, and that pushes some cows out,” Selwyn said.

Every year for the past 35 the Mallers have pregnancy tested their cows. Any that are not in calf are sold.

“Our pregnancy rates have always been high – even out at Mitchell,” he said.

“Wagyu are so fertile they’ll just keep having calves. We find ourselves that if we aren’t culling on age every year, we will end up with cows that are pregnant when they are 14 or 15.

“That is OK while the seasons are going with you, but when you get into a dry time they are the first ones to fall into a heap.”

At pregnancy testing, older cows are drafted off and managed accordingly. When they calve they are sold and their offspring runs with a herd of 40 dairy cows.

The herd generally calves from August until December, with weaning taking place during April, May and into June. At weaning, the replacement heifers are drafted off and the remaining calves divided into 12 monthly turn-off groups of between 100 and 120 head.

“With the knowledge that if you keep them on a rising plane of nutrition you will get a better carcass” Selwyn said the calves were fed “basically from the time they come off their mums”.

The Mallers target a feedlot entry weight of 370-380kg at 14 to 20 months. As part of the backgrounding program, the calves either go on oats or receive a ration of silage and grain fed in bunks within the paddocks. They receive about 2 per cent of their body weight in feed each day.

The ration contains a high silage content, with a grain component of about 30 per cent. “If we need to push some” the grain percentage can rise to 50.

FEED FOR THOUGHT

THE cattle are fed at Mort and Co’s for 400-450 days, dressing out at 450kg carcass weight.

The Hamilton Park beef is marketed under Mort and Co’s Phoenix and Master Selection brands.

The Mallers have enjoyed success at the Wagyu Branded Beef Competition winning gold medals in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

In 2018, the Hamilton Park-The Phoenix entry was judged grand champion brand.

Selwyn said it had always been a dream of his to build his own brand and market his own beef. Last year he and Jocelyn purchased a butcher shop in Goomeri, close to their South Burnett farms and are building it into The Phat Wag – a top-shelf butchery retailing their beef – which they hope to open soon.

The Mallers at The Phat Wag butcher in Goomeri, Queensland.

Selwyn said Goomeri was ideally situated close to large population centres of Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast.

Under the plan, the Mallers will process and sell Wagyu heifers through the shop with the aim to give consumers an affordable Wagyu experience.

The couple has plans for a boning room and extra chillers to allow for over-the-counter and online and export sales.It’s just the latest chapter in a success story that has seen the Maller family business grow from 200 cows to 2500 cows over the past 20 years.

“It’s exciting times,” Selwyn said.