Pyalong weaner breeder Leone Ryan finds joy in breeding calves

She's turned off some of the heaviest weaners she's ever produced this year, selling a pen of 20 steers, Adameluca and Weemalah-blood, 400kg, for $1990 or 497c/kg at the Euroa December sale.

"I've never had weaners at 400 kilograms before, last year I had them at 379kg, and I didn't feed them hay," she said.

Ms Ryan said Kerami was originally the family farm and she bought, with help from her father Tom.

Currently she runs about 300 breeders on 400 hectares, offering her first draft of 62 steers at Euroa in early December.

She said she believed the name Kerami had some relationship to water - "one of the most magnificent things about this country is that it has springs, or little soaks," she said.

Ms Ryan said she remembered her father advising her to "walk on the lumps, and follow me, otherwise you might go down into one of the soaks".

"We had these springs and we put dams below them, and that is really our water source here.

"We would be lost without it."

The persistent rain, this year, had made it hard to get onto the paddocks, so she said she found she had to muster on foot or call the cattle.

"I cope better with drought, I am so practiced with that, because it is dry country, north of the Great Dividing Range," she said.

"I think I understand better how to cope with drought, than lots and lots of rain.

"We were in drought from 2015-19 and so you keep thinking ' where do I need to be next year?

"My whole aim is to always just to have breeders, so you can kick off again."

Females were joined from Anzac Day, for a February-March calving, for turn-off in the first week in December.

More recently Kerami had used Weemalah, Romsey, and Adameluca, Kyneton, bloodlines.

"I keep replacements, and we are always looking to keep your best to bring forward the herd," she said.

Ms Ryan said she originally ran sheep, but found cattle easier to work with.

"I remember one day I was chasing flyblown sheep, and I kept forgetting to pull the wool when I had treated one sheep, and I caught it three times," she said.

Initially, she ran Herefords, before realising the premium Angus attracted.

'If there wasn't the premium for Black cattle, I would have a whole farm of Black Baldys" she said.

"They milk brilliantly, they definitely grow faster and put more weight on."

Ms Ryan said she always sought out the best bulls, including genetics from GT Maximum.

"There is no point breeding rubbish - whether you are big or small, you may as well breed quality," she said.

"I don't do line breeding, because I am not into it and I am not a stud," she said.

"But over the last few years I have had to totally new bloodlines."

She said she tried to produce calves that grew - "an animal can't grow if it's dumpy, it has to have frame and structure.

"I love the yard weaning, you can walk amongst them in the yard, you can see them and know what's wrong or right," she said.

"I was really happy with what I sent to Euroa, because there was nothing that looked at me with any tizz or fizz."

She said she had sold at Euroa since the 1990's, turning off the cattle then to avoid pressure on Kerami's sandy soils, over summer.

"The less feet I can have walking over it in the summer, the better," she said.

"There's no doubt the sowing down, and putting phalaris and clovers on it, has done wonders - that would partly be why those cattle went so heavy."

She was aiming to renovate one of her paddocks each year.

Ms Ryan said her love of growing weaners started even before she turned them off.

"I cows and I love baby calves, and every time one is born I think 'you are just as beautiful as all the others I've seen'," she said.

"It's that love of it, that keeps me going."