Beef Spectacular Feedback Trial 2024: Focus on meat quality for Shepstone Park

Their focus on quality and using their feedback data year in, year out, has again allowed Craig and Lynne Turnbull's five Angus steers to excel in the 2024 trial.

The Angus team was awarded reserve champion Teys Certified Premium Black Angus champion pen and finished fifth overall with a score of 780.5 out of 1000.

Mr Turnbull said he was pleased with the carcase results, having finished fourth with a score of 425.5 out of 550.

"We're trying to learn all the time, and we were happy with growth this year," he said.

"They had plenty of weight gain and had good dressing percentages. Four out of five were above the average daily gain which was good and similar on the dressing."

The carcases finished with a dressing percentage ranging from 53.0pc to 55.7pc.

"For marbling we were down a bit this year but in saying that our MSA was good," he said.

"When you put all that together we did really well on the carcase side and we were pretty happy with that."

Four of the five carcases had a marble score of two making the Riverine Premium Beef brand, while the remaining steer was branded under Teys Certified Premium Black Angus and had a marble score one.

The highest individual MSA index of the team was 65.95.

Mr Turnbull said they first entered the trial in 2018 to know where their cattle stood with others, however they also put cattle into feedlots which also give them feedback.

"It's not like we haven't had feedback before but we wanted to know a little bit more about how to get better and how far away from the top we were," he said.

"You learn a lot and we're getting slightly closer to the top so we'll keep going in it."

Running about 400 breeders of all Angus cows the Turnbulls have a 50 per cent split of Angus bulls and Wagyu bulls.

"Wagyu are good for breeding to the heifers because they calve easy and the Wagyu market has been good," he said.

"We need a certain amount of Angus to replace the herd and we use all the Angus heifers to breed as many as we can from."

Out of the steers in this year's trial two were AI with genetics from Bongongo Be Quick Q227, and the other three were by Te Mania bulls.

"The cows were bred by bulls from Dunoon and Rennylea," he said.

Mr Turnbull said the steers weren't selected for the trial for their genetics or because they were the best cattle, but for the weight range, picking steers they thought would keep going.

"We wanted cattle that would grow and get us to the carcase specs," he said.

"We got all our cattle to the right carcase specs this year which was great."

The Turnbull's have a strong focus on meat quality, with as many of the young cattle as possible, apart from the Angus heifers, destined for the feedlot. The Angus steers go to Teys, while the Wagyu are sold to Stanbroke, Queensland.

Shepstone Park manager Claydon Butt said predominately they were chasing marble for the Angus steers.

"Then the good quality heifers we're getting with marbling, that is when we throw them underthe Wagyu and try and get better results with the marbling in the Wagyu," he said.

"We're improving nearly every year."

Mr Butt said they single sire join to exactly know the parentage.

"At the end of the breeding season we box them up and do a rotational graze until weaning and calving again," he said.

Mr Butt said they grade all their cattle on previous calves performance in the feedlot.

"We have to know where every calf came from so then we can use the feedback data to cull the weaker bulls or retain them longer," Mr Turnbull said.

"We do that with the cows as well - we'll cull cows if we're not getting a good result in the feedlot.

"Our oldest cows are often our best cows because they've really passed the test year after year."

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