The consistent quality of the Sara Park Angus bulls during the on-property bull sale last Friday attracted strong support from repeat and new clients.
Held near Glen Innes, the Duddy family achieved a full clearance of 28 bulls, a top price of $11,000 and average of $7166.
Interestingly it was a late sale inclusion who hit the top price and was part of the stud's first AI offering of Baldridge Beast Mode B074 sons described as exciting and great herd improvers.
Sara Park Profit P29 sold to repeat buyers CQ Pastoral, Baryugil, who run a commercial breeding operation and walked away with the largest individual order of five bulls on the day.
The two-year-old was out of Sara Park Doris J137 and weighed 932 kilograms with a 43 centimetres scrotal. He had P8 and rib fat depths of 15 and nine millimetres, a 129 square centimetre eye muscle area and 7.1 per cent intramuscular fat.
He was also in the top two, three and six per cent for 200-day, 400-day and 600-day weight estimated breeding values.
CQ Pastoral run an F1 herd of Brahman cross cows and converted all of their Angus bull genetics to Sara Park blood.
The switch occurred in the last five years and was a result of the support from Mr Duddy and the performance of the bulls in their coastal climate.
"We have seen a big improvement in our young calves," CQ Pastoral manager Malcolm Lloyd said.
Come October they will join about 900 females including a portion of three-year-old maiden females that weren't mated last year due to drought. They normally trade cattle as well but only have their breeders.
Having battled drought, bushfires and water shortages, Mr Lloyd hopes the decision has their breeder herd back in tact by next winter.
"We have more feed than we ever had but we sold a lot of cows down and by keeping the heifers it pretty much halved our stocking rate on a lot of country," he said.
"There are paddocks we haven't had cattle on since January. "
As a result low birth weight was a key selection criteria with the top price bull also offering new bloodlines.
"We buy bulls to get females, we do not buy bulls for steers," he said.
"It seems to be a bit of a problem, people buying bulls because they think they are going to get good steers. The way I was brought up that's a bit wrong when you have got a breeder herd. Fertility and little calves are important."
Sara Park principal Herb Duddy said they had used the bull as a yearling and had intended to keep him before changing their mind.
"We thought he was a good bull and he probably didn't make half as much as what he should have," he said.
Sara Park aims to produce bulls that perform well in commercial herds, with repeat buyers stating the progeny deliver well in the commercial market, topping local weaner sales.
With the bulls only having about two months of feed in them through the drought, Mr Duddy was impressed with the overall quality of the offering.
"I thought they were the best line of bulls we have ever had," he said.
"Coming through the drought they had plenty of weight in them. The top end of them were probably some of the heaviest bulls we have offered with quite a lot over 900 kilograms."
Nutrien Ag Solutions agent Brad Newsome said CQ Pastoral were repeat clients of Sara Park and on the day mentioned they had some 32-odd bulls all from the stud.
The sale was conducted by Nutrien Glen Innes and C.L. Squires and Co along with Elite Livestock Auctions.
Read the full report in this week's The Land.