Barfold Beef: Shea family finding success in Angus beef
With land so expensive, these Angus breeders opted to focus on herd improvement.
A CLEVER mix of investing resources in cattle and not more country has proved a winning formula for the Shea family.
Matt Shea and his family run Barfold Beef, a finely-tuned Angus weaner production business that is continually evolving.
The Sheas join between 550 and 570 Angus females each year run on a mix of 1420ha of their own and leased country and agistment around their home base at Barfold, near Kyneton.
Matt’s grandfather, Tom Draper, first came to the region in 1975 and then his parents, Marg and the late Ray Shea, were drawn to the area and built a house on some land in 1982.
They bought the main part of the farm in 1993.
With country rising in value in the area, Matt has deliberately turned to lease country and agistment when it comes to increasing the herd size rather than buy more land.
That decision has freed up capital to invest in what he sees is the biggest asset for the business – the quality of the cattle.
MATT SHEA
BARFOLD
RUNS his family’s Barfold Beef business on 1420ha
FOCUS is on Angus weaner production
JOIN 550-570 Angus females each year
STRATEGY of leasing rather than buying land
Matt is continually pushing the herd, led by a focus on the best genetics the business can afford and use. “We want to continue to improve our herd and be ahead of the game,” Matt said. “I didn’t want to get stuck and you need to be able to be innovative.”
It’s that desire to be ahead of the pack that has seen the Barford Beef herd go down the path of artificial insemination of 100 heifers and 100 cows, with the goal of rapidly increasing the quality of their cattle.
Over the past few years, the Sheas have AI’d more than 500 cows and heifers.
QUALITY MATTERS
THE Sheas run a herd of Te Mania Angus-blood cows and sought help from Hamish McFarlane from the Mortlake-based stud to design a program that would boost quality of an already highly productive herd.
“We wanted to use semen from bulls that had genetics for growth, docility, calving ease, low-to-moderate birthweight, short gestation length, high EMA (eye muscle area) and IMF (intramuscular fat),” Matt said.
“But we also didn’t want to go too big with our cows so wanted moderate cow weight.”
Matt said while their farms were situated in 600mm rainfall country “it’s rare to see that nowadays”.
“It’s sheep and cattle country so we need to be able to have cows that suit that — so not too big,” he said.
“We need efficient cows to make the most of the feed when it is there.”
POWDER POWER IN COLOSTRUM COUP
SO MANY TARGETS IN WAR ON WASTE
The most cost-efficient way to AI the Sheas’ heifers and some cows is a blanket program, where the females are given hormones to cycle together, and are then inseminated at the same time, rather than being individually heat detected.
This program is less labour intensive, and has produced impressive results for the herd.
“We usually get 65-67 per cent of our heifers in calf this way and up to 70 per cent of our cows in calf,” Matt said.
“We put back-up bulls in afterwards and then will pregnancy test our females so we can determine which were in calf to the AI and which were in calf to the bulls.”
The cost of the AI program works out at about $80 a live calf, which takes into consideration the fact that not all cows and heifers which have AI get in calf, so the total cost is spread across the calves they get.
Matt said the cost was comparable to using a bull given current prices for sires, yet allowed them access to genetics they would not normally be able to afford in their business.
TIGHT GENES
WHILE the goal is to improve the genetic base of the herd, Matt said there were also management advantages to a blanket AI program.
“Most of the AI-joined heifers calve down before their due date thanks to choosing bulls with genetics for short gestation length,” he said.
“It allows them to put on more condition and be cycling by the time they are joined the next year, resulting in a better conception rate for our second-calving females.”
But it also helps with management of the herd if there is a pinch in the season.
Knowing if cows are calving early or late gives marketing options if numbers need to be sold. Matt can choose to sell the later-calving cows or heifers as pregnancy-tested-in-calf females if the season is turning tough, or can calve them down knowing they can be marketed at a later stage with similar-aged calves.
The herd calves in late winter, ensuring calves are on the ground to make the most of a spring flush of feed.
They are weaned up to a month before they are sold.
In this way, the business also has to be nimble.
Ideally, the goal is to sell weaner calves at an average weight of 320kg at nine to 10 months in May, with the lead of the draft much heavier than this.
“We see a sweet spot in the market for those calves which are 300-320kg which are ideal for a backgrounder to buy,” Matt said. “We are able to get to that weight by May usually, when we will sell the calves either at Kyneton, at Wodonga or on AuctionsPlus.”
SEASONAL SLAP
THIS year, however, all calves went earlier, in autumn, as the season took a turn for the worse.
“We could see that we were better to wean the calves early this year, so two weeks after they were weaned, they were sold in mid-March,” Matt said.
“If the season is good, we will cut a lot of hay and silage which can carry us through, but this didn’t happen last spring so we had to sell our calves early.”
Thankfully, a reputation for producing high-class weaners means the market is ready to take them any time they are offered.
The Sheas have consciously built relationships with the buyers of their cattle, even going out to see them to check on performance and take photos.
It’s an integral part of their business. “Everything is about relationships and repeat buyers for your cattle are very important,” Matt said.
“Clearly it’s always good to get new buyers, but those repeat buyers tend to provide you with feedback about your cattle.”
It raises the question about why the operation hasn’t finished and marketed its own stock, given the quality of beef they produce, their proximity to an abattoir and the emerging foodie region of central Victoria.
Matt said they had dabbled in selling their own beef, through a hamburger shop in Bendigo and a local butcher shop in Kyneton with some success.
It involved custom kills at the Hardwicks abattoir and the delivery of a beast a week, where primal cuts were sold at the butchers under the Barford Beef brand while the secondary cuts were used to make hamburgers.
PREMIUM CUT
MATT said they aligned with company-run programs including Greenham’s Never Ever, which allowed the marketing of high-quality, ethically produced meat. Being Never Ever-accredited meant those finishers who supplied that program with kill cattle could source their weaners from the Sheas’ operation.
“It was a good experience and we learned a lot about our beef from processing it ourselves, and if the right opportunity arose, there is no reason why we wouldn’t have a go at it,” Matt said.
“Hopefully the store market will get to a point that we won’t need to be involved in the next stage and can focus on producing high quality cattle.
“We take pride in what we do and we want to see the animal we have worked so hard to produce marketed appropriately. But at this stage, we are busy enough with production.”
The ideal price point for weaners is $1000, which Matt said was good for both buyer and vendor.
“We received up to $1330 for 320kg weaners (416c/kg) one year which was brilliant but we understand this is not going to happen every year,” he said.
“At $800 for weaners, it is not profitable but at $1000 we can reinvest in our business and continually improve our herd.”
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