A STRONG belief in the place of purebred Limsousins in the modern commercial and seedstock sectors drives the business philosophy of Garry and Karen Hedger.
The couple operate the Garren Park Limousin stud on 200 hectares located at Culcairn, NSW.
They have pared back breeder numbers from 100 to a "more manageable" 80 breeders plus progeny.
While the majority of their commercial buyers are running crossbred operations, it is their clients who are breeding purebred commercial Limousins that receive a lot of attention.
"We are trying to promote more purebred commercial herds out there," Mr Hedger said.
He said Limousins were low maintenance, easy doing and could handle a range of seasonal conditions.
Mrs Hedger said the purebred Limousins were easy calving, good mothers and had high tolerance and resistance to many ailments of beef cattle.
"They produce a superior product of fine textured, top-quality, healthy-eating meat," she said.
"They produce 20 per cent more of the high yield cuts at no extra cost which means they leave a lower carbon footprint.
"They are a finer-boned breed and they yield well and that's why the butchers chase them."
She said in the future they were keen for trial work to be done to test the tolerance of Limousins to Grass Tetany, bloat and, potentially, whether the breed had a different gut system that emitted less methane.
Mr Hedger said any feedback from commercial breeders was a big help in providing information on what the market was requiring and that flowed through to how they were breeding their bulls.
Mrs Hedger said some of the traits they were breeding for were shorter gestation length, easy calving, good growth and good eye muscle area and "some intramuscular fat".
"Limousins don't need to have high IMF because they have fine-textured meat so they don't need fat all the way through the carcase to keep meat tender," she said.
"We like to keep producing the type of bulls our clients require and that means keeping your finger on the pulse and trying to be a few years ahead of where they think they're going.
"That's why it's important to keep the personal touch and know your clients."
Mr Hedger said they were always searching for new genetics to bring to the herd.
"There's a lot of interesting genetics here in Australia - we don't need to go overseas," he said.
Prior to starting into Limousins, both had history with Herefords and Poll Herefords.
They came by Limousins "by chance" in 1981 when meeting some producers who were among the first to breed Limousins in Australia, leading to them starting their own breeding operation in 1985.
Mrs Hedger said prior to that the pair had worked with just about every breed through a business they earlier ran preparing cattle for shows and sales.
"We quickly took to appreciating the advantages that came with the Limsousin breed," she said.
The females in the foundation herd came from all over Australia.
The stud was also the first to import live animals from Canada and the US.
The main cow families at Garren Park are the Razzamattaz family and a number of lines of the Krystal family.
"They seem to be the two family lines that a lot of studs are chasing, because they consistently perform," Mr Hedger said.
One of the stud's main sires has been Meriden Polled Heavy Duty, bred in NSW.
"He has done a magnificent job for us, including semen sales around the country," he said.
"We also imported two sires from Canada in around 2018 from Richmond Farms, in Richmond Zodiac and a half brother, Richmond Defender.
"Those three bulls have done a fantastic job for us and one of their sons, Garren Park Norfolk."
Mr Hedger said all the females were grassfed - "they have got to do the job in the paddock and rear their own calves".
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He said the bulls received grain for a month prior to sales and field days - "just to give them some bloom".
"We like our cattle to go and perform straight away, so we don't like to put too much into them," Mrs Hedger said.
"The majority of our bulls are sold on farm throughout the year, keeping back around 10 bulls for sales held off farm.
"Selling bulls throughout the year works quite well for us."
Purchasers are mainly in an area from southern NSW to northern Victoria, but they have sold bulls to all states bar the Northern Territory and South Australia.
"We have exported to New Zealand, New Caledonia, Indonesia and just recently to Vanuatu," Mr Hedger said.
The Hedgers will display working age-bulls for sale and a selection of females at Stock & Land Beef Week.
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