Mastering Markets
by CARA JEFFERY The Land
Mal Angel, “Koinglo”, Tarcutta, with his Angus and black baldy weaner heifers, which will be retained this year.
STAYING in tune with market trends is paying dividends for Tarcutta cattle producer, Mal Angel.
Mr Angel has made the switch from selling his Angus and black baldy steers to the feedlot to selling them as weaner calves through the saleyards.
It’s a far cry from the days when Mr Angel and his family carried 3000 Merino wethers. The crash in the wool market led to the introduction of Hereford cattle for 20 years.
Now they have settled on the perfect fit of Angus and black baldy cattle and first-cross ewes.
Mr Angel and his wife, Ailsa, and parents, Noel and Beverley, now carry 215 Irelandsblood breeders at their Tarcutta property, “Koinglo”. And while all their breeders are joined to bulls from Irelands Angus, Book Book, there is a definite influence of the Hereford breed still coming through, according to Mr Angel.
“Nine years ago we started breeding our way out of Herefords by introducing Rennylea Angus bulls – almost a decade on and we are still getting plenty of whitefaces through, but I like the black baldy cattle best,” Mr Angel said.
He said not only do the black baldy progeny fare well in the saleyards, the females are good mothers and milkers and have a docile temperament. Five years ago the Angels made the switch to Irelands genetics as the stud was close by and Mr Angel liked the focus on fertility traits. He said for the past two years they’d had 100 per cent of their cows and 90pc of heifers tested in calf.
Mr Angel said this had been helped by the heavy culling of older cows upwards of eight years old.
The Angels buy one to two bulls from Irelands each year, with a preference for bulls that are two years old and have a Rennylea influence. The Angels have a split calving with the majority joined from late June for an end of March calving, while one mob of 50 head are joined in November for a spring calving.
Mr Angel said they used to grow all their steers out with the aim to sell to Jindalee Feedlot at 16- to 17-months, weighing 450 kilograms. But this year, Mr Angel saw more value in offloading the calves between nine to 11 months through the Wagga Wagga Livestock Marketing Centre.
Earlier this month they sold a run of nine-month-old weaner calves, weighing 380kg, at the Wagga sale for a $893 average ($2.35/kg). Mr Angel said Tallangatta Abattoirs had been sourcing his calves from the Wagga yards.
“I just can’t see any point in keeping them all winter and then getting the same sort of money for them down the track, when I have 900 firstcross ewes I can use the feed for,” Mr Angel said.
He said this was also the first time they have had the weight, 360kg to 380kg, in their young calves, which he attributed to the good season.
Mr Angel is planning to keep all his heifers this year as he can see value in selling joined heifers.
Mr Angel said the cattle market is “sound but not ridiculous” at present.
“It is about time we saw these returns,” he said “I think both in the cattle and sheep job the blokes that kept breeders are finally being rewarded.”
Sale of Irelands Enviro for $20k
By CARLA WIESE-SMITH The Land
SOMETIMES, you see something and just know you have to have it.
That was the case for Trangie Angus breeder, Steve Chase, of Waitara Angus.
"I saw this bull walk off the truck and he just caught my eye," he said.
"Then I kept going back and checking him out - when you see a bull you like you've just gotta buy it."
And so, before anyone had even thought about entering the show ring, Mr Chase and his wife, Amity, had purchased Irelands Enviro E71 from Corey and Prue Ireland, Irelands Angus, Wagga Wagga - for $20,000.
By outcross sire O'Neills Royal Edge K337, Enviro was out of Irelands Vicky Z15, the dam of last year's top priced bull at the Irelands sale - with three sons averaging $9000 - and which goes back to Vicki H43.
"He's a deep sided, very athletic individual" Mr Chase said.
"A top calf - soft bodied and structurally very correct."
"He's also got a very complete set of figures - no holes - and balances phenotype with data."
At 11-months-old and 598 kilograms, Enviro was the reserve junior champion bull at Melbourne Royal last year.
When he hit Sydney, he weighed in at 882kg, with a 125 centimetre square rib eye and scanning fats of 16 and 12 millimetres on the rump and ribs.
"We were going to take him home and use him within the herd," said Mr Ireland.
"We had every intention of keeping him, we've used him already and will continue to do so via artificial insemination."
Waitara and Irelands will market semen in Enviro together, and said there were limited packages in the bull available.
Melton Family Story
By NICOLA BELL The Land
AFTER visitors commented for years about the taste of their home-grown meat, the Melton family took the chance and launched their own processing business.
Husband and wife duo, Anthony and Margie Melton, along with their four children, Joe, 14, Ben, 13, Grace, 9, and Tess, 6, established the business, Melton Family Farm Direct Meats, in October last year.
So still a relatively new venture,the Melton's sell their quality beef - and soon lamb if the demand requires it - directly to other family's doors.
Running their family farm, "Pine Vale", in the highly productive Mangoplah district, 40 kilometres south of Wagga Wagga, the Melton's produce Angus cattle, second cross prime lambs and some cropping.
Wanting to find a way to improve their bottom line, without expanding the amount of land they had, and without compromising the ethical treatment of their livestock, the Melton's decided selling their meat direct was the way to go.
The push to finally take the chance also came after Mr Melton attended a beef production seminar early last year, where they encouraged the use of Hormone Growth Promotents to add as many kilograms of weight per day to a beast.
"I realised many consumers didn't know the way in which the meat they gave to their family was produced and processed," he said.
Mr Melton said processing their own meat and selling directly to consumers meant they were able to by-pass the middle-man, as well as offer a healthier, more ethically produced product.
Currently running about 100 Angus breeding cows, Mr Melton said they were trying to build up numbers to ensure they had adequate numbers for processing.
Before the processing business was started, the Meltons used to keep a percentage of the heifer calves for breeding, and sell all of the steers.
However, they were retaining about 80 per cent of the heifers this year, as well as purchasing some females, to expand the herd.
Now, all of the steers would be used in the meat processing business, providing they met specifications.
For the past four years the Meltons had been using Ireland Angus bulls, which they said suited the processing business because Ireland Angus progeny were known for their excellent carcase traits.
"The bulls produce a calf with good carcase traits, that yields well and has high marbling."
When selecting a bull Mr Melton said they looked for one with high growth rates, a low birthweight and good eye-muscle area.
The bulls were kept in with the cows throughout the year, so there was a spread of calves to continue feeding the meat business.
"Most still calve in autumn, but it helps to keep up the supply."
With the meat boasting the grass-fed label, all of the cattle at "Pine Vale" were run on natural or improved pasture, consisting mostly of phalaris and clovers.
While they were processing one beast a week - they hoped to get this up to two by the end of the year - the steers were killed at about 14-months-old, or between 400 kilograms and 430kg live.
On average the carcase yielded about 55pc, and generally arrived at the butchers weighing between 220kg and 240kg, however once boned and trimmed there was only about 140kg of saleable meat left.
One of the most important aspects of processing the meat was the hang-time of the carcase.
With all of the processes to get the meat to the consumer carried out within a local radius, Mr Melton said once the steer was slaughtered at GM Scott abattoirs in Cootamundra, the carcase was delivered to the South Wagga Butchery, where it was hung for about eight days.
It was then boned and hung for another four days, until it was butchered into its cuts, by South Wagga Butchery owner, Liam Hanigan, and then packaged.
While it was a team effort and the Meltons were very grateful to the experience of the butchers, to ensure everything was "up to scratch" Mr Melton inspected the carcase, and helped bone it.
"The butchers are very tough with how they butcher the carcase, but I like to be there to make sure it's right and to learn."
With the range of meat products including sausages, mince, rissoles, silverside, roasts, eye and scotch fillet, rump, t-bone, porterhouse, blade steak, kebabs and beef stir fry strips, the Meltons said they weren't trying to compete with the large chain supermarkets, rather offer a more pure, quality, back-to-basics product from genuinely young cattle not treated with hormones.