In pursuit of perfection in Belmont Reds

Ms Seifert is passionate about the breed and has had a close relationship with Belmont Reds since the day she was born.

“I’m the daughter of Dr George Seifert who was the principal research scientist in charge of the Belmont Red breeding programs at CSIRO Belmont Research station (where I was born) in the 1960s,” she said.

Seifert Belmont Reds was established on the breeding stock of her father’s herd, which contributed “outstanding genetics” and at 81 years old he continues to be a wonderful mentor.

The operation is run across an aggregation of five properties in Queensland, and includes more than 1100 breeders plus followers.

Three properties totalling 3500 hectares of ticky marginal breeder country at Crows Nest in the South Burnett, is where most breeders are run.

The two other properties, totalling 2500 hectares, at Jandowae in the Eastern Downs region, are used for backgrounding and finishing. She said they’re also currently in the midst of further expansion at Jandowae.

Their operation has the scale to breed large volumes of high quality Belmont Red bulls, with decks of bulls sold annually to northern pastoral companies.

“We’re JBAS 7 accredited and currently sell into QLD, NT and NSW and we’re investigating options in WA.”

Ms Seifert said while they produce stud cattle, which are pedigreed, registered, and Breedplan-recorded, the herd is run under strictly commercial conditions.

“They aren’t pampered, we never treat for cattle tick or buffalo fly.”

She said these principles of “survival of the fittest” guarantee a high level of tropical adaptation is maintained and passed onto each generation so it stays genetically fixed in the herd.

Decades of specific breeding based on genetic merit, ensures bulls their clients purchase, produce consistent lines of calves because the traits are fixed, heritable and therefore repeatable.

“Our phenotype matches our genotype. Put simply, we breed genetically high performing cattle with great conformation and these genes will be passed on.”

Ms Seifert said the overarching objective in their program is to breed the perfect animal, genetically and phenotypically.

“Every generation we aim to improve our average, as well as the breed average (Ms Seifert is also the president of Belmont Australia).”

Ms Seifert said this is why their bulls are often leaders in the top traits. 

“Our holy grail is to have every profitable, heritable trait above the 50th percentile on the EBV graph, and to have those figures mirrored in a functional animal with excellent conformation.”

Ms Seifert said a good example is yearling bull, Seifert SEI170267. He went into the paddock in December, with 47 females, as a single sire at the age of 14 months, with a scrotal circumference of 38cm, 74 per cent motility and 70pc morphology.

His EBVs for scrotal size, days to calving, EMA, and intramuscular fat are in the top 10pc with 15 out of 16 traits above the 50th percentile for the Belmont Red breed.

 “All of his profitable and heritable traits, bar one, are on the ‘right side’ of the EBV graph and phenotypically his type matches his EBVs.

“He’s an above average growth, well-muscled, high yielding, well covered, very fertile, polled, quiet sire, with a high libido and a short sheath, who’ll breed early puberty highly fertile progeny, which will rebreed quickly post calving.

“This illustrates that when you buy Seifert Belmont Red bulls, they deliver what the figures say.

“We aim to have the reality match the theory.

“Feedback we receive from our clients is that they’re getting very consistent progeny, delivering the traits they asked for.

“We’re very hands-on, data is collected crush side or in the paddock by us, and entered in the computer by us. Data is submitted to Breedplan on every animal in our herd;  we don’t just pick the ‘good ones’. 

“Every animal’s performance is compared to each other in our herd, as well as the whole population.  We stake our reputation on high integrity, trustworthy data.”

Ms Seifert said over the past few years they’ve introduced DNA testing for the poll and horn genes, and for sire verification.

“About a quarter of the bulls we breed are homozygous polled, and savvy cattlemen who want to knock the horns out of their herd are paying a premium for our homozygous (PP) bulls.”

“IVF has also been used to maximise the best genetic combinations and to accelerate genetic progress.”

She said they always seek to benchmark themselves against industry performance and actively participate in research projects.

“Our cattle were in CRC3, CASHCOW, and currently we are in the Northern Beef Genomics Project.”

After the stud’s success in the Beef 2015 carcase competition ‘Pen of three trade steers’ where they placed third, Ms Seifert said they’ve entered steers again in the Beef 2018 ANZ Carcase Competition and are excited to see how they perform.

“On our site C253, we’ll have sires and females on display, with some examples of the 30 bulls we’ll be selling at the Belmont Australia Sale on July 17 at Jandowae.”