Tarcoola's red-hot start

With his wife Louise and their four children - Fraser, 22, Laura, 20, Meg, 18, and Lawson, 16 - Mr Dunne runs 1100 predominantly Red Brahman breeders on Tarcoola, on the McKenzie River, 70 kilometres north of Dingo.

The Dunnes also own Old Gordon to the east of Tarcoola and Aeroview, 80km west of Rockhampton on the Fitzroy River.

Across the three properties the Dunnes own abut 10,000ha. They aim to keep their bulls in all year round and select 150 of the best of their pregnant heifers to keep as replacement females.

The cull heifers are spayed and finished on Old Gordon while the steers are trucked to Aeroview where they are finished for the Jap Ox market, usually by 30 months of age. Mr Dunne said his Red Brahman cows had proved their worth through many decades of varied seasonal conditions.

"I've had Brahmans my whole life and just find they like the country up here," he said."They maintain their weight and condition very well. When it gets dry they are still in good order."

Mr Dunne said good temperament was paramount in his herd and he culled heavily for the trait. "We have four kids and do most of the work ourselves so I can't afford to have anything that even looks at them," he said. "We are very hard on temperament and it shows. Our herd are very good to work with. They walk out well and are a pleasure to work in the yards."

The Dunnes source their Brahman bulls through the Brahman Week sales and have purchased a range of genetics over the years. Mr Dunne said he aimed to select bulls with good conformation, as well as size and thick bone. "We like a lot of thickness through the flank," he said.

"Some bulls can be a bit narrower so we try to get a lot of depth and always go for ones with good temperament. I particularly like the cherry red-coloured bulls."

Mr Dunne said he had also been impressed by the fertility in his herd over many decades.

"We leave the bulls in all year round mainly for ease of management," he said.

"We mostly run the operation by ourselves, so it's just easier to do it that way.

"We do a couple of musters a year with a main muster before Christmas to catch the early calves and another one after Christmas. The first weaning is usually about April, depending on the season.

"I've been really pleased with the fertility of the herd. When I wean the heifers away, I just take the pick of the heifers that are in calf, so it's really like natural selection for fertility. We cull anything that doesn't get in calf early, so they select themselves that way."

The Dunnes also use Hereford bulls over their Red Brahman cows and say the cross has helped to boost their growth rate.

"We source those bulls from a local breeder near Banana and they have done very well, even in the dry," he said. "We have also used Brangus bulls in the past but are really delighted with the Hereford Brahman-cross progeny. The crossbred heifers have done particularly well and have a much improved growth rate."

The Dunnes are in the middle of obtaining their organic certification for all three of their properties. Their 2014 calf drop will be their first organic-eligible progeny.

Their Red Brahman genetics would play a central role in producing a consistent supply for this promising market.

"We don't use any chemicals on the cattle now and grow all our own hay so it was really not much more effort for us to step up to organics and chase those better returns," he said. "It was just a matter of getting the right certification. We are pretty excited about it. In a couple of years we will be fully fledged organic."

The Dunnes are delighted to have had a decent start to the spring with 75mm falling at their Dingo properties in the past month. "We have mostly buffel grass country and half of it is red soil and the other half is black soil," Mr Dunne said.

"It doesn't take much to kick the red sandy country so it has really responded well. It has really kicked the grass off so we couldn't be happier."