Bos indicus vigour has provided resilience on the Lower Clarence where Lance Timms and Desley Spencer, Woodford Island, created separate breeding herds with Brahman in common.
They share bulls but split Angus and Charolais based breeders over several owned and agisted properties covering 1200 acres that include drought proof flood plains and timbered hills for a combined herd totaling 400 head.
Ms Spencer, originally from Lismore and a former kindergarten teacher, took to Charolais even before she dated South Gundurimba breeder Graeme Love, ‘Chantilly’.
“I've always liked them because of their quiet temperament,” she said.
Her first females came from Alan and Helen Trustum, ‘Bentley Downs’ via Casino to which she put a Mullum Charolais bull, from Mullumbimby via Byron Bay.
Ms Spencer is the first to admit the breed fails to thrive on poorer, saturated country whereas the Brahman holds its own in the harder conditions.
So a decade ago she bought a Brahman bull from the Fahey family, ‘Nettle Creek’ via Copmanhurst and created hybrid vigour. The change was immediately evident.
“They don't seem to get sick,” she said of the cross.
Mr Timms came to the Clarence as a young teenager and was familiar with his grandparent’s dairy enterprise. Breeding cattle came naturally.
He started with Angus using a Coolarmagh bull bought as a calf at foot with a pure Angus cow from the stud that used to lie just across the southern river channel from his Woodford Island property. All first year heifers are still joined to a Coolarmagh bull.
Mr Timms’ first cross was Brahman over black, sharing the same Nettle Creek bull with Ms Spencer, building a better breeding base that goes ahead when the season slows down.
This year was a case in point with a dry summer that followed last year’s trend. Rain in September produced clover that died away to reveal a dearth of kikuyu. “There’s been no grass since but the cattle are healthy,” he said.
More than 150mm fell only last week and has saved the season.
In the last few years Mr Timms has injected pure Brangus from Juanita Trustum’s Leeville stud, ‘Weona’, via Casino.
The result was especially evident at a February store sale where Mr Timms topped the steers selling a pen of 14 month old milk tooth black cross for $1720.
In the last two years the couple focused on selling weaners and yearlings and have an arrangement whereby Desley gets the heifers and Lance the steers and neither complain about price.
Of course it wasn't always so and for the first decade of their partnership struggled with a succession of floods (three in 2011) and poor prices.
“People were getting as little as $27 a head and they were literally crying,” Ms Spencer recalled.
During those lowest priced months the couple held onto their cattle, keeping at one point 300 between them. “That's when we started agisting,” she said.
The risk paid off in the end but not without some self-doubt.
Yard weaning is a practice they both believe in strongly. Calves are held ten days to a month and fed on grain pellets. During this time they are educated in the ways of cattle dogs. They're let out of the yards and put back in.
“It's worth it,” said Mr Timms. “Once the cattle have been weaned properly they are educated. And more importantly they don't run behind you and knock you over.”
Breeding heifers are at this time selected on temperament, chosen from quiet mothers. Ms Spencer further educates them by singing numbers from her teaching days - songs like ‘six little ducks’.
“I sing to the cattle to keep them calm and quieten them,” she says.
The combination of quiet genetics and yard weaning has produced a herd that comes when called.
“When we were agisting on Cheryl Rogan’s property at Baryulgil in 2013 they’d hear our ute and would come in five minutes,” recalled Mr Timms. “You give them some molasses for their effort and they never forget it.”
Over the past 11 years this couple have changed their breeding site from Brahman to Angus to Brangus and now Santa Gertrudis.
This cattle couple’s next bull is a two year old pole Santa from Yugilbar on the Upper Clarence and they give credit to the stud’s livestock manager Brett Ellem for giving them good information.