Mepunga West producers Stephen and father Bill Holloway have been happy with a shift to selling their beef calves in the store sales.
For the second year they are selling their draft of Angus steers at the Warrnambool annual weaner sale in mid-January.
Stephen Holloway said the Fernbank Park beef herd had operated for many years, started by his father with Angus females.
Until the past couple of years the calves were turned off through the fat pens as vealers or carried through to heavier weights, depending on price and feed availability.
With cattle selling well at the store sales and weaner sales, they decided to switch to the store pens.
As well as a beef herd of around 250 cows, the Holloways run a dairy herd of more than 300 cows on a separate property.
The herd was a self-replacing herd and a percentage of the heifers retained and the balance sold.
Mr Holloway said the calves this season had the advantage of better conditions after a "fairly tough" year in 2018.
The beef herd was founded on Barwidgee bloodlines with Pathfinder bulls being used heavily in the past 12 years as well as some influence from Coolana and Weeran sires.
"We've done well with Pathfinder," he said.
"Our main target is temperament, we are looking for quiet cattle to make life easier with handling for us and buyers; we also look for milk," he said.
"We had great results with vealers through the yards selling at 400 kilograms plus on average depending on the season."
He said the cows were joined to calve from February through to April with the target of selling in January.
This year the Holloways will also offer a draft of heifers at the January sale.
He said the cattle were yard weaned in mid December before going back to a paddock away from the herd.
This year feed availability had been much better than 2018, he said.
"It's starting to hay off a bit but it's been an excellent year," he said.
The beef herd was run less intensively than the dairy herd and run in mobs according to age.
He said pasture improvement was also less intense than the pastures on the dairy farm.
Fertilisers were applied annually.
