Manchee Agriculture at Narrabri aims for the top beef shelf

PRODUCING cattle with paddock to plate attributes is key for John and Liz Manchee.

Top producers: John and Liz Manchee from Manchee Agriculture at Narrabri in NSW with some of their Shorthorn bulls.

PRODUCING cattle with paddock to plate attributes is the key for John and Liz Manchee.

The owners and managers of Manchee Agriculture at Narrabri, on the northwest slopes of NSW, focus on profitability and performance data to achieve cattle with a better carcass.

Manchee Agriculture comprises of the Yamburgan Shorthorn stud, Wilgaroon Santa Gertrudis stud and the composite breed, Durham Tropicals, developed by John and Liz.

Yamburgan Shorthorns was established in 1947 by John’s grandfather, John Stewart Manchee, at Dirranbandi in southeast Queensland, however it was moved in 1969 to the Narrabri property where John and Liz now base their oper­ation.

Wilgaroon was established in 1994 and then dispersed in 2009, although a small herd base is used to provide genetics for the Durham Tropical breed. Developed by John and Liz over the past 20 years bec­ause they saw a need for them, the Durham Tropicals are a stabilised breed consisting of about 50 per cent each of Shorthorn and Santa Gertrudis genetics.

“We wanted to develop a composite breed to help increase the fertility and improve the meat quality of Bos Indicus type cattle, which are more suited to the Northern Territory and north and west of here,” John said.

“If you can lift fertility of a cattle herd by 3-5 per cent, it gives a massive injection of profit.”

DIVERSIFY AND CONQUER

NOW running about 1400 breeding cows, across both breeds, the couple believes the diversity means their cattle can adapt to any part of the Australian climate and produce a maximum return.

The Manchees also run a 600-head feedlot, so they could support their clients throughout the year.

Despite being stud producers, John and Liz run the cattle under commercial conditions with all breeds over the same program.

Each animal is weighed at birth, as the two main performance focuses at Manchee Ag are weight for age and fertility.

“They are the two biggest profit drivers, followed by carcass quality,” John said.

“Live calves on the ground that grow quickly are what will make a profit.”

John said they had been performance recording since Breedplan’s inception in 1974.

“The more information we can get on a carcass, plus get numbers across a broad scale it becomespretty powerful.”

And the selection criteria doesn’t change across the different breeds of cattle.

Fertility was one of their high priorities as it was a key factor to ensure consistent and predictable sale bulls. Pregnancy testing was carried out each year, and if a female was not in calf she was out.

WEIGHT AND SEE

JOHN said as producers were still being paid by weight, weight for age was an important trait for producing a profitable animal.

“Meat quality and the end product are of vital importance to the beef industry and we as genetic suppliers need to supply bulls to breeders that produce beef of high eating quality to be able to gain market share,” he said.

John said the Shorthorn Society of Australia established the Durham research and dev­elopment project in 2000, which helped to determine the best carcass genetics in the breed. “This was the first research and development project like this for the time and 90 per cent of our genetics go back through that program as they were extremely accurate.”

With their driving force to improve meat quality for a better product, John and Liz are taking advantage of the new JBS Australia-branded beef brand, Thousand Guineas, which uses Shorthorn-derived cattle.

Developed in conjunction with the Shorthorn Beef Society, the cattle required are steers weighing 380-500kg, of pure Shorthorn breeding or a minimum of 75 per cent Shorthorn genetics crossed with British breeds. They are then put on feed for 120 days.

GRASS ACT

THE Shorthorn steers at Manchee reach 380kg at about 14 months on grass.

“Marbling content of the Shorthorn meat is high and the texture is softer as a result,” Liz said.

John said the brand provided Shorthorn breeders with a point of difference in the market and gave the breed a competitive edge. While the couple have won 54 carcass and feedlot awards in the past six years, one of their best achievements was winning the Beef Australia national champion carcass award in Rockhampton last year.

“These kinds of competitions mean you can benchmark and compare your cattle across breeds,” John said.

Manchee Agriculture sells about 150 bulls a year. Last year, they sold 85 bulls at their sale to a top of $28,000 for an average of $8882.

They also conduct a spring calving, with about one quarter autumn calving, to make better use of bulls throughout the year and provide a deeper genetic base at sale.

GROW FOR IT

FEMALES are selected for the breeding program as yearlings, which gives them a chance to grow.

Artificial breeding is carried out extensively, with three or four of the best cows selected each year and flushed five or six times before being put back in to the program to calve at the normal time.

John said multiplying good genetics as quickly as possible was important for improving the end product.

“Techniques with artificial breeding are getting better but as an industry we need to quicken the process up … from conception to the dinner plate it is a long process,” he said.

John believes DNA testing will become an important tool for them to identify earlier which genetics they should use to go forward. Continuing to develop cattle performance and genetics is an important aspect of Manchee Agriculture, with Liz awarded a 2016 Nuffield scholarship.