Bregot’s herd building at Manilla

The Johnstons run an Angus breeding operation, Bregot Grazing, on their 9000-hectare Manilla property “GlenBarra”, after moving to the area from a grain property between Moree and Goondiwindi four years ago.

Production has dropped following three years of drought, but the couple is looking to build numbers to 2500 breeders.

“We’ve had a tough start,” Mr Johnston said.

“In the first two years we were here, one of our neighbours said it had been the driest 30 months in history.”

It was the couple’s first venture into Angus breeding, but Mr Johnston had experience with cattle before moving to grain.

“I grew up in the hills of Central Queensland chasing Brahmans, but we also had Brangus cattle,” he said.

Angus was the breed in demand when the Johnstons moved to the New England, and that hasn’t changed.

“Angus is the breed that buyers want around here, and that shows at every sale we go to,” Mr Johnston said.

“There’s always demand for good quality Angus weaners, and buyers are happy to pay the premium, so we’re just going off what the market wants.

“Angus cattle are consistently topping the market at Tamworth in most categories, but especially weaners.”

The enterprise is focused on weaner production, with the Johnstons selling the bulk of their cattle through the autumn weaner sales.

“At this stage it’s a calf factory, because the country is better suited to breeding,” Mr Johnston said.

“I always sell through the Tamworth saleyards, because if you don’t deal locally, you don’t have local agents or local yards.”

Bulls are purchased from Guyra stud Bald Blair Angus and Goonoo Red Angus stud at Tamworth.

Black bulls are used over most of the herd, with just the heifers joined to red bulls.

“I think the red bulls are a bit more old fashioned, and they’ve got the ease of calving, so I put them with the heifers,” Mr Johnston said.

Bulls are chosen based on physical characteristics as they need to be able to handle all country.

“I like good proportioned bulls, with good conformation, a nice long body, a good rump and shoulders, and good scrotal size,” Mr Johnston said.

“I don’t like them too heavy – they need to be ready to go out and work – and I don’t like buying low birthweight bulls, because I’m putting most of the bulls over cows, not heifers.”

All breeders – cows and heifers – are joined for 12 weeks, starting in the last week of September for a winter calving.

“We generally take the bulls out in January, but for the past few years, with the seasons being so dry, we’ve had to run the bulls through to April,” Mr Johnston said.

“Now that the season has improved, and we’ve made improvements to the property, we’ll go back to being strict with joining so that we’ve got them all calving at the same time.

“We’re limited with our joining, because any earlier here and you're battling through winter, and if you calve any later, you're running into winter the next year for weaning.”

Heifers are kept as replacement breeders and weaner steers are sold straight off their mothers at six to eight months.

Last year the couple sold 500 weaners, a huge drop from where they started.

“In our first year here, we turned off 1700 weaners and it's been hard ever since – we had no choice but to destock through the drought,” Mr Johnston said.

“There are some major weaner sales at Tamworth that we like to target, so we spread them over a few sales.

“With the property as it is now, it’s too difficult to hold them and put a mass lot in the one sale.

“But as we improve the place we'll look to yard-wean the calves and maybe grow out some steers.”

The property is still understocked, but this year’s steady rainfall has Mr Johnston looking for more opportunities.

“We’ve done a lot of work at one end of the property, but we’ve got plenty more to do,” he said.

“Some of the mountain country has been having a rest, so now we’ve got 1000 hectares of basalt country with a heap of arrowleaf clover seeding, so next year we’ll put some cattle up there.”

“GlenBarra” has mainly native grasses, but there’s white clover in the granite country as well as the arrowleaf clover.

“It’s been that dry that I haven't white clover here before,” he said.

The couple is building numbers each year.

“We slowly increasing our numbers – we’ve kept all of the heifer calves from last year and this year,” Mr Johnston said.

“As we reach our goal of 2500 breeders we probably won’t keep as many, but instead of selling heifers, we’ll cull old cows so that we’ve got always got new lines of females coming through.”