Third-generation producer Jamie Crawford takes his operation Glenvillan Pastoral, 25 kilometres west of Kingaroy in Queensland, very seriously and that is one of the main drawcards for him to the Scone Speckle Park sale.
Having already purchased four bulls the first year and two last year, Mr Crawford believes the strong contingent of ‘serious cattlemen’ selling at the sale makes it the ideal place to add quality to his stock.
On more than 4800 hectares spread over eight properties, Mr Crawford, with his semi-retired parents Allan and Val, and two sons Lachlan, 15, and Daniel, 14, run 1200 Charbray and Brangus breeders, have a feedlot with between 500 and 1000 head of cattle at any given time and grow oats on about 600ha for use in backgrounding.
He puts Speckle Park bulls over his breeders because they work best on his country.
“We have to have a half Brahman-type cow because of our country – for toughness,” Mr Crawford said.
“Brahman-Angus or Brahman-Charolais cows with Speckle Park bulls over them produce the ideal carcase for what we are looking for.
“The Speckle Park bulls produce offspring with good growth and are easy finishing.
“You need to be selective within the breed, but a lot of Speckle bulls have low birth weight.
“We use selected bulls over our heifers which makes our calving so much easier.
“The little calves hit the ground running, and continue growing from day one.
“We are breeding to export Jap-ox bullocks at 18 months old.
“Aiming for a weaning weight of 300 to 350 kilograms, we look to get a carcase weight of 330 to 350kg at 18 months old out of the feedlot.
“Currently we are hitting those targets pretty well.
“Long term we are hoping a premium market comes up for Speckles like it has for Angus and Wagyu.”
The selection on offer at the Scone Speckle Park sale is an important tool for Mr Crawford to help hit these targets.
“It is good to go to multi-vendor sales like Scone Speckle Park so there is a variety of choice of genetics,” Mr Crawford said.
“We are looking for bulls with plenty of length and thickness – high-appeal bulls.
“I like to follow vendors who are breeding specific types of bulls within the Speckle Park society.
“You get fair dinkum cattlemen and you get opportunist cattlemen.
“At the Scone sale you get a good percentage of serious cattlemen.
“We are pretty passionate about what we do.
“Our main objective, like all cattle breeders, is trying to get the right markets.”
