Breeding his own bulls for his commercial Angus herd has proven worthwhile for Nigel Paulet.
At Wirreanda, Drumborg, Mr Paulet carefully selects artificial insemination (AI) sires on EBVs including 600-day weight, marbling and mid-birthweight, as well as a good frame.
In recent years, he’s used semen from Bennett Total, Nichols Extra, Baldridge Navigator and more recently Dylemma Radar.
Mr Paulet has sold weaner steers at Hamilton for at least 12 years and said when comparing them to similarly presented cattle, he didn’t think they had been penalised for being by home-bred bulls.
He’ll offer 100 weaner steers at Landmark and Elders’ Angus sale.
Breeding bulls also allows Mr Paulet to run a higher bull to cow ratio, at about 1:30, which helps to have a tight calving period. He said they were also of a similar type which helped to make the weaner draft consistent.
James McClure, a University of Melbourne veterinarian student, helped Mr Paulet during weaning. The calves go into a small paddock, are given a 5-in-1 booster and a drench. They’ll have been weaned for four to six weeks by the sale and are grazing the best of his pastures.
Mr Paulet expects the weaner steers to reach similar weights to last year’s, which included 70 sold in December for export av 353.67kg lwt, and then at the weaner sale 15 at 433kg and 20 at 347.75kg.
He was watching recent store prices with interest and said they’d increased by 50-60c/kg compared to last year’s weaner sales.
