Speckles star in the field and on the floor

But he's not the only one getting to enjoy the spectacle. More and more people are spending time looking at Speckle Park hides - on their floors.

Mr Ellis and his wife Annie, who run Hanging Rock Speckle Park stud, Newham, Victoria, say not only is the breed fantastic for meat, their magnificent hides are becoming a popular feature in living rooms across the country.

Mr Ellis admits when he first saw Speckle Park cattle at Melbourne Royal Show, he was spellbound.

The long-time owner of Hanging Rock Wines had been looking into breeding a line of cattle to sell beef through their cellar door.

"We were growing anything that ate grass," Mr Ellis said. "But my daughter, Ruth Malaspina, who has degrees in marketing, suggested we specialise in a breed."

The family loved the Melbourne Show, and they walked into the cattle pavilion in 2010 when Wattle Grove and Six Star Speckle Park studs were showing cattle. And that was it.

"They just sold us on the breed," he said. "The supreme exhibit was a heifer who was just beautiful."

In no time, his cousin David Ross had tracked down a Six Star stud bull called Go Hard. Soon they bought five pure heifers from Six Star, and joined them through an AI program.

"We got five bull calves the first year, and then three the next," Mr Ellis said.

With this swag of bulls, he decided to take the plunge into showing. And the man for the job was Paul Hourn. After attending cattle handling camps, with the help of Mr Ellis' grandson Jack, they headed to Melbourne Royal in 2014. And with a team of six animals, they were named most successful exhibitor and earned junior female champion. Then in 2015 they won supreme exhibit with a bull calf.

Today the Ellis family runs Hanging Rock Beef, as well as the winery and a cattle transport business, run by Mr Hourn.

For Mr Ellis, there is plenty to love about the breed.

"They are just fantastic to work with. They are so docile," he said. "They have beautiful, tender meat. We concentrate on growing out two-year-old steers."

But there is another advantage to this - the steers have lovely large hides. The unique black and white pattern of the Speckle hides is gaining popularity, and so the Ellis family began to have them tanned.

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Mr Ellis said they have two animals processed at a time at Hardwicks Meatworks.

"They are well regarded in animal handling, and we have the option of keeping the hides," Mr Ellis said. "They obviously have lovely coats on them."

They collect the hides from the processors, lay them out and salt them, then take them to Greenhalgh Tannery. "They are lovely people to deal with."

It takes a lot of work to produce the hides, which are about two metres by 1.5m.

"We grow the animal, pay Hardwicks to get the hides, as well as the processing fee at Greenhalghs, so it all adds up," Mr Ellis said.

"The best hides have the black and white markings. No two are the same. Everybody just loves them. They are beautiful, very soft and supple."

The Ellis family sells the hides at their cellar door.

Ross Greenhalgh has been tanning hides and leather ever since he can remember.

And it seems it is in his blood - he's the fifth generation to run the historic Greenhalgh Tannery from the same property at Bunkers Hill, Victoria.

The tannery sells a range of leather, handbags, belts, sheepskin boots and - of course - hides.

But as well as tanning leather, tanning hides is a big part of the business, whether it is goat, deer, kangaroo or cattle skins.

And the tannery is a popular choice, especially because of its old-school approach.

"We use traditional vegetable tan methods, using genuine crushed wattle bark for tanning," he said.

The hides go through 10 stages during the process - rehydration, fleshing, washing, pickling, shaving, tanning, fat-liquoring, tacking out, drying and tumbling - and are handled 25 times for up to three months.

This is compared to other methods which use chemicals and can take as little as 72 hours.

Tanning hides was popular even when his father ran the tannery, but of the 600 hides Mr Greenhalgh has tanned in the past year, 50 of them were Speckle Park.

"There are a lot of Speckle Parks at the moment," he said. "It's the attraction of the colouring of them."

He has been doing hides for the Ellis family since 2014, but has plenty of other Speckle Park producers lining up to get their hides tanned.