Coleraine beef producer John Wyld finds a move to finishing cattle makes dollars and sense
A switch from selling weaners to growing them out has paid dividends for the Wyld family from Coleraine in Victoria’s Western District.
THE beef industry has sometimes been a wild ride for one Western District producer but he wouldn’t have it any other way.
John Wyld is probably best known for his involvement in the beef world at the highest levels, with roles at the Cattle Council of Australia, Australian Meat and Livestock Corporation, Meat and Livestock Australia and the nation’s livestock identification scheme.
Yet at his home base near Coleraine, the management of his own herd of cattle has been incredibly nimble as he strives to maximise returns for the stock he produces.
John joins about 1800 cows on Koolomurt, half of which are pure Herefords and the balance Angus and black baldy cows.
Hereford cattle have been the cornerstone of his operation for decades, and the black baldy operation came as he chose to use Angus bulls over his heifers.
It adds another string to the bow of his operation, which has moved from producing weaners to now only selling finished stock.
JOHN WYLD
COLERAINE, VIC
JOINS about 1800 cows, half of which are pure Herefords and the balance Angus and black baldy
HAS moved from producing weaners to now only selling finished stock
PURCHASED a farm at the opposite end of the state in South Gippsland
STEERS are sent there in late November and fattened for 12 months to 600kg
“We used to sell weaners as part of a circuit sale around the district, but a couple of vendors pulled out and the sale lost momentum,” John said.
“We were relying too much on the weaner market and selling all our steers on the one day in the saleyards, which can leave you exposed.”
It was this vulnerability that led John to buy a farm where he could finish his steers. It would lessen the price risk and the vertical integration of his operation would move him from a vendor of store cattle to someone could sell direct to processors.
He bought the 400ha Box Plains at Tarwin Lower about 15 years ago, which now acts as the finishing base for all the Hereford and black baldy steers he produces, along with extras that are bought it to fully utilise the grass on the South Gippsland farm.
STAR TREK
THE autumn-drop steers are weaned and then sent to Tarwin Lower in late November/early December, weighing 250-340kg, and are trucked down at a cost of about $30/head.
Each Friday, for three weeks in a row, two B-double trucks make the 560km-long journey. The lift is done in three stages for ease of management at both ends. It would be too many steers to wean at one time for one thing, and allows each group of steers to be processed and settled in before the next load arrives.
The steers are run as one group, with 1000 run in a rotational grazing system through paddocks of about 40ha. It allows best use of paddock feed, especially the spring flush.
“We learned a lot from the dairy sector about how to grow and utilise pastures better,” John said.
They remain at their new home for about 12 months before being sold as bullocks at a target weight of about 600kg, or a carcass weight of more than 300kg with more than 5mm fat cover.
The steers are sold to JBS Australia, under the grass-fed Farm Assurance program, and are often booked in months ahead for their kill date.
“We do a lot of measurement of our steers. They are weighed each time they come through the yards to be drenched, so we know the individual performance of animals,” John said.
“We obviously use KoolCollect (a data collection computer system) which gives us individual animal data, without which we would be lost.
“It allows us to know growth rates and confidently predict when we can send loads of steers to JBS and know they will hit the grid, at our target weight of 300kg-plus.
Any animals that are not meeting their predicted weight gain are drafted off and run as a smaller mob, to allow them to be treated with extra drenching before being reintegrated with the main mob when their performance improves.
GRASS ACT
THE steers are targeting the burgeoning grass-fed market, and as an observer of world beef trends, John wanted to to take advantage of the rapid increase in demand for this type of beef.
“Grass-fed beef is certainly very fashionable at the moment,” John said. “It is very popular in the United States, and the JBS-based programs have solid demand there.
“There is also a big trickle-down effect and even in Australia. People are wanting to know more about the provenance of their meat.
“But you always need to keep your eye on the future. Grass feeding is a challenge because there is really only one window on a property each year to be able to finish steers on grass.
“The challenge for processors means they are having to source cattle from a large geographical area, say from the Hunter Valley through to Tasmania, to ensure they have consistent supply.”
Making sure the genetics is right is one way of John ensuring he has steers that will meet the current specifications
His strategy is slightly different to most commercial producers. He is happy to spend up to $20,000 to secure a top bull, and will then use this sire to producer his own herd bulls. The latest Hereford bulls he bought were Injemira Executive and Injemira Techno which were selected for their extreme eye muscle area and intramuscular fat estimated breeding values.
A select group of cows is joined to the new sires plus an AI program to use the new genetics quickly. John aims to select 20 bulls to be used over the herd, from the 60 that he breeds.
TRAIT AND NARROW
JOHN is particular on the traits he watches, and at the moment is concentrating on intramuscular fat and eye muscle area despite acknowledging that the basic way he is paid for cattle at the moment is weight.
“The MSA (Meat Standards Australia) index is the key to carcass quality, and will become more so, perhaps being the basis for payment,” he said.
“We aim to continuously lift our overall MSA index, hence our concentration on IMF at present.
”Eventually, objective measurement systems will either reward those who have high levels of IMF or EMA, or those which don’t will be discounted.”
The payment system is already rewarding high-indexing carcasses, with high marble scores and John believes that this is the way of the future.
John also doesn’t try to look at too many traits, with the best way of making rapid genetic improvement being to target a smaller number.
He unashamedly loves Herefords, and uses Injemira bulls as the source of new Hereford genetics for his bull-breeding operation.
“If you want to concentrate on a couple of traits, you must have trust in the stud you buy from,” John said.
“I like to look at the stud’s average, which will tell you more about the overall genetics you are buying and the stud has to have a good, solid average across all traits.
“That then allows you to pick the certain traits you want to improve, knowing the other traits you need to be aware of like milk or birthweight have been already been taken factored in.”
STAR CROSS
JOHN is not tempted to move away from his current mix of breeding cows, which is 50:50 Hereford-black baldy.
“Herefords have a lot to offer the beef industry, yet there is no doubt that they need more marbling which is why we are concentrating on IMF in our breeding,” he said.
“It is always a challenge to have adequate marbling when cattle are turned off before 24 months of age.
“But Angus and Angus-cross are very good cattle. They weigh well, yield well and marble.”
It’s why he has decided to retain the black baldy progeny from his first-calving heifers to create a herd of black baldy cows, which are then joined back to Angus bulls.
He leases the Angus bulls to put over his Hereford heifers, which allows him to keep fresh, low birthweight bulls in use over his youngest breeders.
“The first calves of heifers tend to not do as well, but we have found the hybrid vigour means those heifer calves do as well as those out of older cows, in fact, some of our best bullocks are from first-calf heifers” John said.
“When they go into the JBS program as 600kg steers, it doesn’t matter what colour they are … it is all about the carcass, whether they are Herefords or black baldies so we are happy to keep both lots of cows in the system.”
John also wants his system to be flexible. While grass-fed beef is in fashion in the moment, he said it was important to have a range of options.
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