'Steggles' focus for Simmental breeder

"The Steggles chicken has always been more meat and less fat and that's exactly what we are trying to do with our cows," he said.

Sam and Helen Mumford, with the help of farmhands Steve Holland and Red McMulkin, run 450 cows and 4500 White Suffolk-Merino ewes on 2430 hectares across three properties near Parndana.

They also buy-in 500 cattle a year, which they finish in their on-farm feedlot, which can house up to 270 yearlings and 1000 lambs at a time.

Their 450 beef breeders are an Angus-Simmental composite, which are mated to Lancaster black Simmental bulls.

Mr Mumford said they used black Simmental bulls as they best suited his market specifications.

"Our Woolworths buyer prefers black cattle, and I prefer the extra muscle," he said.

"An injection of European blood means more meat and less fat."

The Mumfords have been buying three to four bulls a year from the Meningie-based stud for the past six years, after meeting principals Tim and Henry Cartledge during the SA Beef Field Days.

Mr Mumford said the stud had similar breeding goals that enabled him to "produce a 250 kilogram to 280kg carcaseweight calf at 12 months, ideally with 11 millimetres of fat".

Joining begins June 1 and runs for six weeks.

Mr Mumford said they prefer a tight calving so calves are similar in size when they "come out the other end" in March-April.

Pregnancy testing by ScanStock's Jock Waller in October highlight underperformers, with dry cows not given a second chance.

In 2014, Mr Mumford said they recorded only 12 dry cows out of 450, which he was very pleased with.

Cows and calves run on subclover and ryegrass pastures until January, before being weaned, weighed and sorted into weight groups in the feedlot.

Last year the heaviest calves were 450kg going into the feedlot, the lightest were about 350kg.

They are then weighed every 20 days until sold.

The finishing ration in the feedlot consists of 70 per cent barley and 15pc hay (grown on-farm) and 15pc of bought-in legumes.

They are also fed a Ridleys Feedlot 80 mineral mix which is combined with 20 litres of molasses and 200L of water.

Mr Mumford prides himself in minimising any chemical use on-farm.

"So we don't use growth hormones in the feedlot or anything like that," he said.

All stock were also given a mineral drench, Maximin, every three months, which they responded well to, Mr Mumford said.

"While this is God's country down here, we are very mineral deficient," he said.

Homebred calves were mainly sold at 12-14 months, while purchased cattle (usually spring-drops bought in winter) were fed out to 14-16 months, with all trucked off the property for slaughter by January - before the next weaning.