No bull, it's time to make him work

This is Dick Whale's belief, and this bull longevity, as well as the amount of feed it takes to maintain a cow herd, are two things he wants to see improve in Australian cattle herds.

Mr Whale travels half the country dealing with cattle through his Independent Breeding and Marketing Service, working with both stud and commercial producers, most of them Angus breeders.

But it's his work with commercial producers that has linked him with Neogen Igenity Beef, and his involvement with it has highlighted areas where he feels some breeds could improve.

He said one of the benefits of the Neogen system was it allowed animals with no pedigree, and even crossbred animals, to be measured for up to 17 traits. One of these traits is stayability.

"This is the ability for a sire to sire females that stay in the herd longer. Carcase tenderness is another one, as is residual feed intake (RFI), which is how much the animal eats," he said.

"It is validated against a multi-breed database of 23 million with International Genetic Solutions (IGS). The Angus breed on that database has been very good for a lot of traits, but the two it has been poorest for are RFI, as in they eat too much, and stayability. The females are not lasting as long in the herd."

He said the longevity of bulls in many breeds was an issue, and because it hadn't been selected for, it had worsened over the past 20 years.

"It's not just in Angus - it's all British breeds. The data from the mid-1980s was that bulls were lasting about three breeding seasons. I think probably the longevity of a bull now is two breeding seasons. The data in the 1980s, and I think it is still right, is about 80 per cent of the bulls broke down and were culled for hind leg and penile issues."

He said cattle being overfed and poor structure were to blame for breakdowns.

Mr Whale has developed a table based on the price people are paying for a bull and how long the bull is lasting. And he has discovered some interesting things.

"Basically - longevity is very important, particularly if you are paying $20,000 for a bull," he said.

"It is something that people don't consider. The average price for an Angus bull a couple of years ago was $14,000. I used the prices of $20,000, $15,000, $10,000 and $5000 in the table, not that you could buy a bull for $5000. I assumed on today's value you could get $1500 for a cull bull. You might not get them all to sale, because you might lose one to a broken leg. Assuming they get 40 calves a year, which is probably generous, you divide the number of calves you have by the number of joinings."

Using Mr Whale's calculations in the case of a $20,000 bull, assuming he makes $1500 as a cull, and produces 80 calves in his two breeding seasons, each calf would need to make $231 a head to break even with the price of the bull.

"If you pay more for a bull, you've got to get longevity out of him. I'm not saying bulls are too expensive. I'm just saying if he's more expensive, you need to be getting four or five seasons out of him. If he's going to only average two or three seasons, you are better off paying less money, or selecting bulls from seedstock herds that focus on structural soundness and sensible sale preparation of their sale bulls.

"When you are getting $2200 for calves, it doesn't have as much of an impact, but when you are getting $750 to $1000 for calves, and the bull only lasts one season, that's $460 a head (to just pay off the bull). It's frightening."

It is the same story with breeders. "Thirty years ago eight- to 10-year-old cows used to sell like hot cakes," he said. "Look at the expected progeny differences (EPDs) in America for Red Angus and Simmental breeds, which have been measuring stayability for the past 25 years. If you select a bull that is in the top 25pc for stayability versus a bull that's in the bottom 25pc for stayability, those top 25pc bulls will produce daughters that will produce you two more calves in their lifetime."

Another big consideration for cattle producers is how much feed cattle need to get them to the target weights, and maintain the performance of the cow herd.

"If we are going into a drought, you need to think about how much more feed we are having to feed those cattle than we had to 20 or 30 years ago," he said.

"There's more performance, but there's only as much performance as your environment can take. We visited places in the US (in high altitudes and low rainfall areas), and they will not buy anything above breed average for growth or milk, because these traits put more demand on the cow to maintain herself and rebreed.

"Over here, west of the Newell and Oxley highways, probably breed average is enough growth in a breeding herd."

He said there were also some indications that consumers were concerned about the effect of the beef cow on the environment.

"The best way to counteract that is by having cattle that are more efficient convertors of feed, and therefore low methane emitters," he said. "I think the biggest impact on beef consumption - it's reduced from 24 kilograms to 20kg per person per year in the past few years in Australia - has been the price compared to pork and chicken. But there are consumers who are environmentally focused."

When times are tough, Mr Whale is advising producers to prioritise what is important in their herd - even if that means taking a hit.

"Take your medicine with the steers, but join as many heifers as you can," he said.

"Sell all surplus to requirement cows, but keep more heifers, and join them. If we come out in autumn with decent rain, those heifers are now 300kg at $3/kg and are worth $900 will be worth $1500 to $1800 or even more pregnant next May. You're better off putting feed down the throats of animals that are going to make you money."

He said it was crucial that feed was good quality. "It's not how much you pay for it - it's the quality of the hay. Most hay is good, but prioritise what you are going to feed and how you are going to feed."