Behind the scenes of running a profitable Speckle Park stud with the Nelson family

The daily cost of grain feeding stock quickly puts the spotlight on animals that do well, and carcass performance is what led the Nelson family to Speckle Park cattle.

The daily cost of grain feeding stock quickly puts the spotlight on animals that do well, and carcass performance is what led Jack Nelson to Speckle Park cattle and into an expanding commercial beef operation in the Goulburn Valley.

At just 24-years-old, his success alongside stock agent father and mentor Sam Nelson with their stud Jackungah Speckle Park at Pine Grove near Shepparton has been impressive.

Last year at their inaugural BluePrint Opportunity Sale they claimed a world record price of $57,000 for a cow and calf, and in the past two years they have averaged $18,841 for females sold at auction and $10,716 for bulls.

They are achievements some studs could spend a lifetime chasing, and in a sense Jack has invested a fair chunk of his young life in the Speckle Park breed and carving out a viable full-time business.

It was while he was in secondary school at St Mary’s Nathalia that he and other agriculture inspired schoolmates began feeding steers for carcass competitions with the help of Sam.

“We were feeding them at our place and we tried a few different breeds and we were really impressed with how the Speckle Park calves converted feed and finished quickly,’’ Jack recalled.

“And then we won champion carcass at Melbourne Royal with a Speckle Park and that’s when we decided to invest in the breed.”

From the first foundation cows purchased in 2012, the Jackungah stud now has 50 pure-bred registered females and in recent years has formed a partnership with Barooga farmers Haydon and Sonsi Stephens to put 100 embryos a year into their commercial Angus cows.

While it may seem like the stud has enjoyed instant success, in reality it has been more about consistent steps forward over the past decade and Sam credits the dedication Jack has shown to clients as being key to the growing support base for Jackungah genetics.

“He really supports clients and will do anything he can to help them,” Sam said.

There is also a refreshing honesty to Jack, as he doesn’t just blindly promote the Speckle Park breed but is willing to talk about the cattle in terms of how they fit into the industry and where they can add value.

“If you are chasing big export steers or bullocks then there is probably other breeds out there that would suit better,” Jack said.

Rather he said it was the moderate frame and early carcass maturity pattern of the Speckle Parks, coupled with their easy calving and quiet temperament traits, that makes them ideal for those in the industry targeting the vealer, weaner and supermarket/heavy domestic beef categories.

“Under the right conditions Speckle Park calves can make 400kg to 480kg liveweight at nine to 10-months as being a more moderately framed animal they finish quicker and you can get weight at a young age.”

There is also the appealing coat coloration and pattern of the breed, which is consistently stamped on calves sired by Speckle Park bulls.

Jack said the base of their bull buying clientele had been dairy farmers using bulls over Friesian cows to produce F1 Speckle Park calves.

“We’ve sold the most bulls into dairy herds, their easy calving appeals to them and the temperament of the Speckle Park bulls is also pretty good,” he said.

Jack Nelson from Pine Grove has established the Jackungah Speckle Park stud with guidance from his father and mentor Sam Nelson.

And the resulting prettily marked F1 calves have been eagerly sought, week-old bobbies commanding anything from $300 to $700 each in recent seasons, according to Jack.

The visual appeal of Speckle Parks has also fed into rapid growth for the breed and it now claims to be the fastest growing cattle breed in Australia. It is why record money has been changing hands for stud females as people chase foundation cows and heifers for new stud enterprises.

While Jackungah has benefited from the exceptional demand for quality young females, Jack acknowledges it could be a double edged sword.

“The massive demand for females over bulls is a bit concerning and going forward there is going to be a lot more studs out there producing bulls,” he said.

“It does need to level itself out a bit and as a breed we need to see bulls make more money than females. We’ve got to push the commercial and carcass traits of the breed a lot more and establish a bigger bull market.”

The carcass performance of the Speckle Parks is where Jack’s passion and confidence in the long-term future of the breed lies.

Jack oversees the family’s feedlot operation, which carries between 200 to 600 young cattle on feed depending on the time of year and grain feeding economics and trading opportunities. They target the supermarket trade finishing steers and heifers from 440kg to 550kg liveweight.

And it is where Jack said he sees the performance of Speckle Park cattle stand out.

“The Speckle Park calves will take from 50 to 80 days to finish, whereas the other breeds are mostly 100 to 120 days,” he said.

At a ration cost currently sitting at just over $5 per day fed, it is a big saving on feed.

“It is important for us as we buy all our feed in,” he said, a calf talking 30 days less on grain to meet specification represents a saving of around $150 on input costs.

It is why the Nelsons prefer to feed Speckle Park-sired calves when possible, and support bull clients by offering to buy suitable steers and heifers to go onto grain.

They do monitor carcass yields, and Jack said the Speckle Parks consistently were in the higher ranges of 57 per cent up to 62 per cent on the best shaped and muscled calves. And at these yields they still have good fat cover of 8-12mm.

Jack has also been involved in feedlot trials of a branded beef program for the breed.

Disrupted by Covid issues, the plan is to develop brands for purebred Speckle Park beef, a category for product from bred from Speckle Park bulls over British cows, and Speckle Park Dairy-cross beef. The aim is to promote domestic and export sales.

Jack said it would all add to the marketability and demand for Speckle Park sired cattle.

In their own stud Jack said they were focused on breeding structurally sound animals, the females displaying feminity and milk and the bulls good length, muscle pattern and weight for age.

His long term age is to build a bigger clientele in northern NSW and Queensland.

“That is where the big cow numbers and for producers who want to turn off weaners or heavy domestic cattle at a young age the Speckle Park is ideal,” he said.