Luke Hayes says he will only take bulls on to his Padthaway property that he is happy to look at – what he calls “proud, good looking bulls”.
“We look at the figures first and then the eye. I won’t buy a bull I don’t like the look of, despite what the figures say,” Luke said.
It so happens that the 10 bulls on the 1214-hectare mixed farming operation Eura-Carla are all from Bull Oak Well Angus at Pinnaroo, where it seems studmaster Heath Nickolls knows just what this no-nonsense transport operator and farmer is after.
Eura-Carla is run by Luke and Kate Hayes and Luke’s parents Patrick and Rosemary.
It is mixed farming but mainly cattle, with another block leased to run Border Leicester-Merinos.
But the core of the family operations is trucking and the Hayes family is kept busy running nine grain, hay and grape transport trucks.
“Despite its size, the farm is a bit of a side thing,” Luke said.
“But that’s what I love the most. Back in the day we were trading and there was a bit of everything coming through.
“Dad sold up all the cows to buy another truck. We kept on trading cattle but then when we got into it properly we came back in with Angus.
“We went with the flow. Angus was where the money was and you learn to love where the money comes from.”
The herd of 250 breeding cows calve in February and March, because “that seems to work with what we do”, Luke said.
When weaning the most recent steers in the last week of November, they averaged 380 kilograms.
Some pasture renovation is done at Eura-Carla and the stock get a bit of grazing on that but Mr Hayes said a big attraction of the Angus cattle was that they were easy care and were generally good performers with not too much work involved.
Top end steers are sold for processing and the bottom end go to feedlots, with Mr Hayes reliant on his agent to find the best price for his stock.
Heifers had been kept on farm with the bottom end sold off and the rest mated to sell in-calf.
“We run with the seasons. For us it works better to do that … to play the game a bit.”