Small studs with big ideas team up for Agfest beef cattle expo

TWO small beef studs from northwest Tasmania have teamed up again this year to join the beef cattle expo at Agfest.

It’s show time: Dr Tamieka Pearce, Haylee Bennett of Damelee Simmentals and Lachlan Woodcock of Lachanora Performance Herefords.

TWO small  beef  studs   from northwest Tasmania have teamed up again this year to join the beef cattle expo at Agfest.

Lachanora Performance Herefords at Kimberley and Damelee Simmental Stud at Gawler will exhibit several animals.

Among Lachanora’s exhibits is Lachanora Lonestar, which was judged junior champion Poll Hereford bull at last month’s Wynyard Show and at the Royal Hobart Show in October last year.

Lonestar was bred from a New Zealand sire and will be up for sale using the Helmsman system.

As well as New Zealand genetics, Lachanora has also been turning to Canadian and US sires but with a view to breed to Australian market demands.

“We are after that easy muscling ability — good traits that sell in the saleyards,” stud principal Lachlan Woodcock said.

He said many herds in Tasmania were trending to black, but many farmers seeking hybrid vigour were after quality Hereford bulls to put across their Angus cows.

Lachanora does not have the quantity of breeding cows of larger studs, so Mr Woodcock said they instead focused on matching each female with a specific complementary sire.

He said the aim was to produce moderately framed, structurally correct cattle with good length, thickness and carcass weight.

Damelee Simmental Stud was set up by Damien Hingston and Haylee Bennett in 2007 with four heifers and cows.

They also obtained some other females from stud dispersal sales on the mainland, building up their stock with selected local bulls and imported semen.

“We have a herd of 60 females now and sell about six to eight bulls per year,” Ms Bennett said.

“We also grow a lot of crops on the farm — potatoes, poppies and pyrethrum — so we are limited in how much we can run on the pasture.”

Damelee Stud offers solid colour red and black and white-faced Simmental cattle.