BOB and Sandra Boote, Boote Hill Red Angus, decided a decade ago to leave the dairy industry behind, and now run Red Angus beef cattle on their 110 hectare property in Drouin South.
Mr Boote’s parents had run a dairy operation since they bought the property 58 years ago, which Mr and Ms Boote continued when they took over in the late 1970s.
This was until about 10 years ago, when the couple decided they would have to do serious maintenance on their dairy plant if they were to continue using it.
“If we continued running dairy, we would have had to rebuild the plant, and that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars,” Mr Boote said.
“At that point, we were ready to move on.”
Mr and Ms Boote had been running a small herd of Red Angus cattle on the side, and decided they would pursue beef cattle once they had dispersed all of their dairy cattle.
The herd began with a purchase of four cows from Jillangolo stud, Bunyip, and then another four cows and a stud bull from Anama stud, Clare, SA.
Mr Boote said at that time, the Red Angus breed was more prominent in South Australia than in Victoria.
“It was a new breed at the time, so there weren’t too many of them in Victoria,” he said.
“There were some in New South Wales, but in that part of South Australia there was a fair concentration of them.”
By the time they were done with dairy in 2008, Mr and Ms Boote had a total of 40 females.
They decided to buy another 20 females from Jillangolo, another 20 and one stud bull from Rockridge, Myponga, SA, and then decided to breed their own from there, now running about 125 breeders.
Mr Boote said they buy bulls every few years, but prefer buying from local, well-renowned breeders.
“I like natural, home-grown bulls,” he said.
“We prefer buying from Australia because Australian bulls are more suited to our climate.”
He said he relies on visual assessments more than figures.
“I don’t look at figures so much, I’ve handled bulls all my life, so I judge them on structure and how they’re standing,” he said.
“You can have really fancy figures on a bull, but when you actually look at it, it’s sometimes not up to scratch.”
He said bulls are mainly culled for temperament.
“We try to keep the best bulls we’ve got, we don’t keep for numbers, we keep for quality,” he said.
Boote Hill have held a joint bull sale with Sue and Geoff Boland, Claremont Angus, Clunes, for three of the last four years, which is an arrangement Mr Boote said has worked out well for both studs.
“We both aren’t really big breeders, so selling together means we’re able to get numbers up,” he said.
“We both contribute about five bulls and 20 females each.”
They also export and sell some females and bulls at saleyards.
Mr and Ms Boote join twice a year, to calve in autumn and spring.
“That’s the way we’d always done it when we were running dairy, so we just kept doing it like that with the Red Angus,” Mr Boote said.
“It does tie you up for an extra couple of months, but it means you get to spread out the ages of bulls you’re going to sell.”
They have taken part in Stock & Land Beef Week every year since 2006, except for in 2015 when they decided to take a look at the other studs who had opened their gates.
“We don’t necessarily get sales on the day, but it increases awareness of our stud and might help with sales over the next 12 months,” he said.
“It’s important to look and see what’s around, and we like to try and talk to every person that comes and visits our stud.”
