AFTER three generations and 86 years under the same family management, the Sevenbardot Poll Hereford stud is winding down its operation to help with succession planning and to allow principals Jim and Sue Gunn some free time.
Mr Gunn's grandfather Hilton Doyle started the Merawah Hereford stud in 1926 and changed it to a polled operation in 1936.
"There has not been a pure horned bull used since." Mr Gunn said.
In 1960 Mr Doyle's eldest daughter Margaret Gunn started the Sevenbardot stud and in 1966 introduced her half of the Merawah herd to it.
Margaret ran the stud until she died in 1984, when it passed onto her eldest son Jim, who along with his wife Sue, has run it until today.
The sale of their mature cow herd - all with calves at foot - will take place at Mortlake Saleyards, Victoria, on Friday, November 28, at 10am.
The cattle will be available for inspection from midday on Thursday, November 27, with about 400 lots on offer including six stud sires and four two-year-old sires.
Mature cows range from three years old to rising nine years.
Mr Gunn has had his cattle on agistment in Victoria since the beginning March, and all cows are rejoined and will be pregnancy tested before sale day.
This is a golden opportunity for smaller stud breeders to get access to one of the leading cow herds in the country, Mr Gunn said.
"It also gives the commercial breeders the opportunity to buy their next bulls and get a pregnant cow with them," he said.
"With the cow market where it is today you can sell the bottom off your present herd and replace them with a very good cow and a new bull for future use.
"With an upset price of $2000 it is well within their reach."
The Gunn family have marked about 400 calves this year with only one horned calf in the drop.
The stud sells 100 to 150 bulls a year to clients from King Island, South Australia, to Alice Springs across through Birdsville, Tibbooburra, Bollon and Taroom in central Queensland and back through NSW.
Mr Gunn said the progeny of these bulls were sought after by all the major feedlots for their performance under intensive conditions.
"One of Australia's biggest meat processors and lotfeeders contracted all the steers off our client Mount Riddock station, Alice Springs, for two years at a healthy premium," he said.
Sevenbardot has always sought to breed large framed structurally acceptable cattle that will grow and prosper under all environments and turn a profit for the clients that use them.
"Every heifer produced is given the opportunity to breed and they have to wean a marketable calf every year and finish an acceptable carcase at the end of their working life," Mr Gunn said.
"We strive to breed good females as from good females come good bulls."
Their bloodlines can be found in nearly every polled stud in Australia.
