Prime Angus sells top cow for more than $45,000 in first dispersal

Prime Beeac Q57, sold in part one of the stud's complete female herd dispersal, went to Murray Sowter, Ashgrove Angus, Moss Vale, NSW, for $45,500.

Mr Sowter, a leading NSW dairy operator, is moving into beef production.

He said the cow was the fourth female he and partner Annette Barham had bought for the Ashgrove stud.

"We bought the first female this time last year and a couple of other heifers out of the Melbourne Royal Show - we have been very, very big in the dairy industry and pedigree Holstein business," Mr Sowter said.

"We are getting out for probably the same reason as most people leaving dairy - and there are hundreds of them - age and not enough [financial] return.

"We started winding down our dairy two and a half years ago, before the better milk prices."

He said the property had three big pedigree Holstein sales within the last two years, with another two to go.

Mr Sowter said he and Ms Barham had been on the lookout for a cow with a "extremely high" phenotype, combined with strong indices.

"In many, many of her traits she is among the top of her breed," he said.

"She is an outstanding individual, physically, but also by what we would consider to be a very popular sire," he said.

"When you sit down and look at her, she ticks many, many boxes for us."

The cow would be used in an extensive flush program, he said.

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Prime Beeac Q57 was in the top one per cent of all breeding selections.

She has been AI'd to Bar R Jet Black, backed by Texas Moe R700.

Sired by Baldridge Beast Mode B074, out of Prime Beeac M15, the four-year old cow had a birth-weight of three kilograms, a 200-day growth of 75kg, 400-day weight of 128kg and 600-day weight of 160kg.

Beeac had an eye muscle area of 9.1 square centimetres, rib fat depth of -1.9, rump fat depth of -3.8 and retail beef yield of 1.

She had an intramuscular fat measurement of 2.

Prime co-principal Colin Flanagan, who runs the stud with Pat Ebert, said it was a very strong sale.

"The top-priced cow and her daughter [Prime Beeac T75] were very solid, her daughter is only eight months old and made $22,000," he said.

"Overall, the better cows made good money - it was a very, very good result."

He said the first stage autumn dispersal would be followed by a second sale at the end of May.

Although it was a very hard decision he and Ms Ebert had decided to disperse the herd, due to the workload.

"People don't realise how much work goes into running a stud, all the stuff behind the scenes," he said.

"It's getting the animals ready and the bookkeeping, then the big one now is getting them all to where they have to go - people just think it happens, but it doesn't.

"We decided to disperse the stud, then we will think about running a commercial herd."

He said buyers came from, Western Australia, Tasmania, to South Australia, NSW and into the local area.

"The cattle are going everywhere," he said.

"Quite a lot are going into small studs, that are just starting, but the big players were pretty much from NSW,"

He said some buyers were just seeking pregnant females.

"Two or three people said they bought the cows and heifers for the pregnancy." he said.

"But they still have the good cow - they will do well, because these animals were the best of the autumn herd.

"We did go through them pretty hard and picked the best."

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