Finishing fits at Bylong

The Wallings operate Wallings Pastoral Company across an aggregation of five adjoining properties in the Bylong Valley, which cover a total of about 3440 hectares.

About 750 breeders are usually carried in the operation while haymaking from lucerne and cereal crops is carried out, supplying dairies in the Hunter Valley and the horse market in Sydney.

Mr Wallings said about two-thirds of the breeding herd comprised Angus and the odd Angus/Hereford, while about 25 to 30 per cent were Charolais crosses.

Angus bulls were used over the heifers and younger cows while in the later half of their lives the females were joined to Charolais bulls.

"We find that works well as the older cows have finished growing and can handle the slightly bigger calf and perform well maternally," Mr Wallings said.

He said they aimed to finish as many cattle as they could on the property.

"I like to be able to finish the job and see them go off as prime cattle," he said.

This was achieved by running fewer breeders than what may be possible.

"I run what I call a 'moderate' cow herd," he said.

"With the country we've got here, we could probably run up to 1000 breeders, but then we'd have to turn the cattle off as weaners because we wouldn't have the feed to finish them.

"We've also got some irrigation and that can help us to keep feed growing to keep the cattle going on."

However, while they tried to finish their cattle, Mr Wallings said they retained some flexibility in their marketing.

"If the season starts to get tight we've always got the option of selling 480-kilogram feeder steers, and we've certainly done that in the past," he said.

The Wallings finish their cattle for the supermarket and Meat Standards Australia (MSA) markets, while the operation's European Union (EU) accreditation also means they can send cattle into that market.

Mr Wallings said in the steers they aimed for a carcase weight of 300 to 350kg while heifers were a bit lighter at 260 to 300kg.

About 60 to 70pc of cattle achieve these weights while still having their milk teeth.

Cattle are sold over the hooks direct to the processor and Mr Wallings said it depended on the prices on offer at the time as to where the cattle would go.

"Sometimes they'll go to Wingham (abattoir), and they might go to Teys at Wagga Wagga," he said.

"We also send a load to Coles every six to eight weeks.

"They get processed at Scone, which is nice and handy for us."

Mr Wallings said in the past they had sent cattle to be processed in Queensland for the EU market, but with premiums for finished cattle now less in this market, they didn't cover the extra freight cost.

The enterprise is run as a self-replacing herd, and Mr Wallings said a group of replacement heifers were selected at weaning, which allowed the culled heifers to be run under different management more suitable to finishing.

"We usually take a fair chop out at weaning then we might have another chop at them at joining," he said.

Heifers in the operation calve down as two-year-olds.

Mr Wallings said the entire herd was pregnancy tested each year, with an average of a 93pc conception rate across the herd.

Joining takes place for a short six- week period, although in a tighter year it might be extended for a couple of weeks to ensure as many females as possible got in calf, he said.

Calving takes place from mid-July through to the end of August.

The calves are yard weaned with hay and silage for seven days when they are about eight months old and continue to be fed in smaller paddocks for a couple of weeks after weaning.

Mr Wallings said they looked to run a herd of moderate framed cattle.

"We don't go for big cattle as they're too hard to maintain during a dry time," he said.

Charolais bulls have been purchased from the Palgrove sale at Scone, while Angus bulls have come from Talooby and the now-dispersed Patawalla studs, also in the Bylong Valley.

Traits that were targeted in bull selection included moderate frame size, softness and do-ability.

USING Charolais bulls over older Angus and Angus-cross cows has proven a good option for Bylong Valley beef producers Andrew and Sandy Wallings.

Mr Wallings said about 12 years ago they started using Charolais bulls after trying other European breeds, and since then they "hadn't looked back".

"As we have kept some of the Charolais-cross females as breeders we wanted something that was also good maternally and not just a terminal sire," he said.

Mr Wallings said the Charolais/Angus cattle were more productive than their straight-bred counterparts.

"The hybrid vigour we get from crossbreeding with Charolais gives us higher weaning weights and more profit at the end of the day," he said.

"In the first truckload of steers that go each year there's always a large percentage of Charolais crosses because of that higher growth.

"And when we're marketing the cull heifers, we can sell them into a higher weight range because they haven't become too fat.

"The Charolais-cross heifers almost kill out as well as the steers - they're a pretty good article."

The Wallings aim to finish as many of their cattle as possible on the property, either on crop or pasture, and Mr Wallings said the softness now present in much of the Charolais breed was a big benefit for this.

"You've got to use the right type of bulls, but the Charolais do have the softness that we need to finish them."

The extra yield and carcase shape in the Charolais-cross cattle was also a bonus, Mr Wallings said.