AN ASTUTE banker and business man, Keith MacCubbin knew that to run cattle profitably, he needed to keep his options open.
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Not content to sell a handful of his Cliftonview Limousin bulls to local breeders each year and see culled stock meet the vagaries of the market place, he secured his place a few steps further along the production chain.
“I started thinking everyone else is making money out of this, so why can’t I take it a step further myself,” Mr MacCubbin said.
Now, culled stud stock and top quality Limousin and Limousin-cross cattle, secured through the market place, are grass and grain-fed for a set period of time at Mr MacCubbin’s 210 hectares of owned and leased land at Bairnsdale.
From here, they are processed at Sale, before being packaged, cut up and sold at his Paynesville butcher shop, Riviera Meats.
He now avoids transport and commission fees, yard dues and can remove his livestock from stressful yards.
And at his butcher shop, Mr MacCubbin can proudly declare a consistent and top quality product – and he has the sales to match.
At home on his Cliftonview property, Mr MacCubbin runs a herd of 60 French Pure stud cows.
Their “classic butt shape” and meat yield overrides the disadvantage of horns and Mr MacCubbin is able to turn them out in his shop yielding 63 per cent of their liveweight.
“British breed cattle, in my experience, end up at 53-55pc.”
The smaller bones of the Limousin are the difference, he said.
“You get more meat off the carcase as well; at the end of the day you can end up with $100 more meat on every animal.”
Stud heifers and bulls up to 12 months of age are sold through the shop.
Rather than select stud animals and steer the rest, Mr MacCubbin gives bull calves a chance to prove their worth.
Yearly about 30 head of culled stud animals will be sold through the butcher shop.
To meet the demand for about 200 head of cattle, Mr MacCubbin sources Limousin and Limousin-cross cattle from local markets.
They are generally bought in at about 200 cents a kilogram for a 300kg article and cattle are grass-fed for a month to get them up to 350kg.
From here, butcher-destined stock are turned out in a small feeder paddock Mr MacCubbin has designed to feed stock grain and straw for a 70-day period (at a cost of about $2.30 a day) or up to about 450kg.
This latter weight is a guideline and it is the finish of the animal which is most important, Mr MacCubbin said.
Correctly finished, cattle should kill out at about 250kg carcase weight and be sold for about $3.60/kg, he said.
On a 250kg carcase, this equates to a return of about $900.
“At the end of the day I value-add about $150 a head.”
Maintaining the stud, backgrounding and butcher businesses is hard work and Mr MacCubbin said over time, the stud operation may be scaled back.
“You’ve got to ask the question, is backgrounding cattle and value-adding via the shop, a better option down the track?”
But maintaining options remains important to Mr MacCubbin.
“At the end of the day I’ve got a stud breeding herd and can sell progeny either as bulls or stud breeders.
“If they don’t make the grade, I can feed them on and whack them through the shop.”
