FOR Mandy and Kell Tennent, Lowline cattle were an obvious choice for a couple with limited space at Emu Park.
At the time the couple were living on about 10ha outside Rockhampton when they chose to buy four Lowline cattle.
Now the couple and their two daughters live at Eungella on 87 acres, and Ms Tennent said they could not be happier.
“At the moment we’ve got 100 head including calves. We have desperately been trying to build it up, but we keep selling them,” she laughed.
“We have to try to balance keeping the word out there and the Lowlines going, as well as building up our herd.”
We have to try to balance keeping the word out there and the Lowlines going, as well as building up our herd.
Ms Tennent said their aim was to eventually run about 150 breeders, but she said some work had to be done to improve pastures first.
She said they had also split paddocks for cell grazing and are now using a rotational grazing system.
“We’ve put tanks in all the different paddocks but that hasn’t worked so well so we’re in the process of moving all the tanks to the highest point and just putting a heap of troughs everywhere with a water system as well,” she said.
The typical rainfall for the property is about three meters annually, but Ms Tennent said the last really wet year was about 2010.
She said the decision to stick with Lowlines was an easy one.
“They’re really beefy little animals, they have a wonderful nature and they’re naturally polled so you don’t have horns to worry about.”
Ms Tennent said one advantage was that the quality of meat was “awesome”, and the couple now sell their own meat commercially as well.
After travelling to Melbourne to acquire some interstate genetics, she said Cloudbreak is well on the way to producing a great herd.
“We look specifically at beefy animals,” she said. “You have to have good wide bodies, long and deep so you’re maximising your meat.”
While the aim is to eventually control mate, Ms Tennent said at the moment the infrastructure was not there.
“We do pair all year around at the moment... this year we’ve invested a fair bit in infrastructure. With more cell fencing, and two bull paddocks, we’ll be able to pick and choose when we join them.”