The top 10 beef cattle bull studs in Australia in 2022

And standing on the podium are the mighty Millah Murrah and Milwillah Angus studs and the perennial powerhouse Palgrove Pastoral.

Determining the best performed beef bull stud of 2022 has been an ambitious undertaking. Some might say downright risky.

Rules have been set to ensure as thorough a result as possible.

First, the results were based on the sale averages for the studs, as reported by the Australian Community Media agriculture mastheads in 2022.

This provided a more accurate and consistent picture of how a stud performed. However, our top studs have not been shy when it comes to top-priced sales in 2022, with many breaking records.

Second, these are for on-farm individual stud sales. Multi-vendor sales were not included in the listing.

And studs had to offer a minimum of 40 sires, and achieve a clearance rate of 80 per cent or more. Female sales were excluded from the results, as they appeared too infrequently across the more than 200 bull sales analysed nationally.

The rules meant some significant results did not make the cut.

Notably, Mayura Wagyu in South Australia. Its sale of 13 bulls averaged $44,577, and included a record sale top of $122,500, the highest price paid for a full-blood Wagyu bull in Australia. A female at the sale also sold for $245,000.

Also significant was Gateway Farms Wagyu at Gloucester, NSW, which sold all 25 bulls offered for sale at an average of $28,328, while Sumo Wagyu at Grafton, NSW, sold 36 bulls for an average of $27,222.

And while kudos deservedly goes to those studs, it was the Angus breed that dominated our top 10, represented by seven of the studs. Droughtmaster and Santa Gertrudis brreds had one stud each, while Palgrove Pastoral incorporated three breeds - Charolais, Ultrablacks and Brangus.

New South Wales and Queensland dominate the top 10, with six studs in NSW, three in Queensland and one from Victoria.

Each of the top 10 studs achieved a 100 per cent clearance at their sales.

Sale average $43,633

Millah Murrah Angus has been crowned Australia's number one beef bull stud in 2022 by the length of Bathurst's famous Conrod Straight.

Which you would expect when you sell an Angus bull for $160,000. On the numbers, Ross & Dimity Thompson's Millah Murrah had a spectacular annual sale. The first 20 bulls sold at the sale averaged an incredible $60,300 to gross $1.206 million.

Overall, the sale averaged $43,633 to gross $5.585 million for 128 bulls sold.

The stud claimed an all-breeds world-wide record average for the result, which was a staggering 27 per cent rise on the previous year's average of $34,221 for 118 bulls.

According to Millah Murrah, its "mission is to produce leading genetics for the commercial beef industry in harmony with sympathetic land use practices".

Sale average $30,450

When you hit a record top price and a record average price, you know you are on the right track.

Such was the case with John and Ayliffe Caldwell's Milwillah Angus annual sale in September.

Topping the chart was Milwillah Jaal R138, sold to Western Australian stud Arkle Angus for $200,000

Not far behind was $170,000 for a bull sold to a partnership of the Sykes family of Mawarra Genetics, Longford, Victoria, and the Peake family of Peakes Angus studs, Barraba, NSW.

Those sales helped propel the sale average for 112 bulls sold to $30,450. That was a healthy climb on the $25,726 average in 2021.

"I feel humbled by this result and humbled by the quality of cattlemen and women who attended and competed for our sires," said John and Ayliffe's son, William, after the sale.

"We are trying to offer something unique here at Milwillah - a one stop shop for all Angus and Ultrablack requirements."

Sale average $28,083

Where would a list of the best beef studs in Australia be without Palgrove?

Yet Palgrove is not sitting at number 3 based merely on reputation. It is doing so on performance.

And perform it did in 2022. In fact, at its annual on-property sale it broke multiple breed records on the one day.

A Charolais bull hit a breed high of $115,000 and a record breed average of $28,170 for 94 bulls, while an Ultrablack sire hit a breed record of $70,000.

All up 168 bulls sold to an average of $28,083 across three breeds

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund operates Palgrove Pastoral, but it is most readily identified with its founders and custodians the Bondfield family.

Sale average $28,055

Texas Angus' year was bigger than, well, you know what.

Not only did it achieve a $28,055 average to make it the fourth-ranked stud on our list, it hit what is believed to be an industry-leading $5,863,500 gross for 209 bulls sold.

Stud principals Ben and Wendy Mayne said they were "shell shocked" by the result.

The 2022 average was all the more remarkable, when you consider it was up $7088, or 25 per cent, on Texas' then record 2021 sale average of $20,967, which was bolstered by an Australian Angus record top price of $225,000.

Sale average $26,512

You know things are firing when your sale top price rises by 475 per cent and average increases by 53 per cent in 12 months.

The Laurie family's Knowla Livestock achieved just that in July, when it sold 82 Angus bulls for a stud-best top of $190,000 and $26,512 average.

"I'm going to try and hold it together...this is humbling, it's overwhelming, I don't know what to say," James Laurie told the crowd after the sale, just the 14th on-property sale for the stud.

"It's unbelievable, we thought we had a good team of bulls in the inspections in the lead up, then word spread, and our expectations were high but nowhere near what we achieved."

By the way, if you have a spare one minute and 23 seconds, check out the video on the stud's website. The place is heaven on earth.

Sale average $25,212

The headline of The Land's report on the Clunie Range Angus 2022 sale described it as a "rip snorter".

You'd be hard pressed to find a better description for a sale where 170 bulls averaged $25,212 for a gross of $4,286,040.

Stud principal Brett Guest said the result was a vote of confidence shown by long-standing repeat buyers with a strong commercial focus.

The top price for the sale was $85,000 for Clunie Range Radford R91, who tipped the scales at 926 kilograms.

The sale toppper was more than double last year's high of $40,000. The 2022 average was up 30 per cent on the 2021 result.

Sale average $24,750

It didn't rain, it poured at Glenlands Droughtmaster's annual sale at Bouldercombe, near Rockhampton.

Late in the sale it set an Australian record price of $230,000 for a Droughtmaster.

However, it was only breaking a record set earlier in the sale, when Glenlands D Daddy Cool sold for $220,000 - the then equal national top for a Droughmaster bull.

Other bulls sold for $210,000 and $180,000, rounding off an incredible day for the stud, with the sale averaging $24,750 for 194 bulls, a record breed average, and grossed $4.866 million, a record for a private vendor Droughtmaster sale.

Sale average $24,394

The $65,000 top-priced bull Te Mania Reno R891 with James McCormack, Hamish, and Amanda McFarlane, Te Mania, Chris Clemson, Clemson Hiscox and Co, Walgett, Paul Dooley, Tamworth, and purchasers Jack Mackenzie and Joel Muddle, Macka's Beef, Gloucester, with agent Rodney McDonald, Bowe and Lidbury, Maitland.

It was the Victorian powerhouse Angus stud Te Mania's northern sale in Walgett, NSW, that shone in 2022.

The sale topped at $65,000 and averaged $24,394.

That was a significant increase on the previous year's sale average of $18,327.

Te Mania principal Hamish McFarlane said he was most impressed with the buyers' interest in chasing high performance genetics to improve, and at times, set up breeding herds.

Sale average $24,000

Hazeldean holds a unique place in Australia's livestock industry, as a stud of renown for both cattle and Merino sheep.

So it was no surprise to see Hazeldean Angus feature in the top 10 performers of 2022. It reserved its place with a sale average of $24,000 at its autumn on-property at Cooma.

That represented a mammoth rise of more than double the 2021 average of $11,510, and set a stud record average.

To achieve the average with a top price of $40,000 demonstrated the evenness of the Hazeldean offering and the willingness of buyers to keep bidding across the offering.

Sale average $22,922

With a top price of just $45,000, Dangarfield Santa Gertrudis' annual sale was a study in consistency to achieve an average price of $22,922 across 45 bulls sold.

What was all the more remarkable was the sale was nearly called off due to wet weather, with stud principals, the Adams Family, even helicoptering prospective buyers in for the sale.

Such a bold move paid off, with the stud's average up a whopping 88 per cent on 2021's average of $12,136.