Stock & Land

Champion Queensland Simmental breeders prepare for second sale

Top bull: Blue Dog Simmental's Jan Bradshaw, with GDL agent Mark Duthie and buyer Jack Dumma of Summa Simmentals with Blue Dog's top selling bull from last year's sale.
Top bull: Blue Dog Simmental's Jan Bradshaw, with GDL agent Mark Duthie and buyer Jack Dumma of Summa Simmentals with Blue Dog's top selling bull from last year's sale.

This is advertiser content for Blue Dog Simmentals.

Confidence, satisfaction and excitement are the emotions running high at the moment at the Red Range property at Wandoan, Queensland of Simmental breeders, Jan and Doug Bradshaw.

After the runaway success of their inaugural bull sale for their Blue Dog Simmental stud last year, the Bradshaws are looking forward to their second sale, coming up in September.

At the 2018 sale they achieved a total clearance of 38 bulls and are confident they can match or better those results with Blue Dog Simmentals' proven track record of continual improvement even when the chips are down.

"We believe that the quality of the 40 sires that we'll present are as good as last year, maybe not as well grown or as heavy - on purpose - but every bit up to last year's standard," said Mrs Bradshaw.

"We're again going to be presenting a draft of sires largely by Justified, the meat machine that has the best of temperaments along with length and depth and a serving capacity of eighty.

Meat machine: Blue Dog Simmentals stud sire Woonalee Justified.
Meat machine: Blue Dog Simmentals stud sire Woonalee Justified.

"The steer and female portion in our commercial herd that are by Justified's sons that we have bred have that magnificent temperament, and even in a very ordinary season show growth and weight gain far above the other sires we have used in the past."

The Bradshaws, whose family have been involved in breeding Simmentals since 1973, have a guiding principle when it comes to the breeding and sale of their cattle.

"Our aim really is that our sires will do for other people what they've done for us," said Mrs Bradshaw.

"We are looking forward to this year's sale knowing we are selling a product that has achieved a great step up for us and to passing that on to other like-minded breeders.

"While we can't control the weather we look forward to presenting great article that will help when the weather breaks."

"When it comes to living a lifetime on the land we feel the most satisfaction we get is from looking after the land and seeing these magnificent cattle bred by us."

Blue Dog Simmentals cow and calf.
Blue Dog Simmentals cow and calf.

The Bradshaws bought their first stud cows in 2005 with the intention of breeding their own bulls because they couldn't buy the types of sires they were looking for for their own commercial operation.

Mrs Bradshaw said their aim was, and still is, to breed top quality sires for both themselves as well as to sell.

"We take a mixture of the bulls for ourselves using a general run of types, and only plan to sell about 40 bulls a year, not to grow any more than that but just to maintain a really good standard," she said.

"They are bred to be dual purpose and produce dual purpose females, to be able to survive and perform in the driest, wettest and coldest conditions."

That focus has led to plenty of success in the show ring. Blue Dog Simmental last year won the Sydney Grand Champion Female and Grand Champion Simmental titles and went on to win Grand Champion female at Beef Australia in Rockhampton.

It's a satisfying success for the Bradshaws who've worked to produce cattle that suit all markets but with values that lean towards fertility, temperament and getting live calves on the ground.

"To achieve our goal, we cull heavy and are very particular about the type of sires we use and the type of female we keep," she said.

'Structural correctness is very high on our agenda and having achieved this over the years we are now at the stage of building intramuscular fat and eye muscle.

"This is going well for us; we are impressed in the stud and our commercial herd where we have a Blue Dog sire that has an IMF of 6.2, weight for age is well established."

Another quality the Bradshaws lean towards is production of milk that's high in butter fat.

"We find it's most important for the young offspring; having a commercial enterprise of 800 females is the catalyst of benchmarking for us," said Mrs Bradshaw.

"The greatest benefit for us has been our selection of our females, they are built to be resilient structurally correct and are passing this on to their younger generation. Therefore, passing this on in the young sires who are prepared to pass this on to you."

The Blue Dog Simmental annual on farm bull sale for 2019 will be held on September 14 at the Pinora Sales Complex, Jackson.

This is advertiser content for Blue Dog Simmentals.