Commercial breeders Mark and Katrina Brown, are moving from strength to strength with their operations, and say their decision to build their beef business around the Brangus breed is working out well.
Mark, Katrina and their children Ava and John have called Lancen Creek at Dululu home for 12 months, though they’ve owned the property for 10 years.
“We use the 6000 acres at Lancen Creek, as our breeding block, where we also grow out our new heifers. We have several hundred combined breeders and heifers combined there,” Mark said.
“We also own Ooline, a 1700 acre block near Goovigen, where we grow out our steers and send our cull heifers,” he said.
“We have steers and cull heifers there now, but we’ll be sorting out another round of weaners this week, and sending them there as well.”
Cull heifers at Ooline are sold on at any age and weight, to the feedlots, paddock sales, or if heavy enough, to the meatworks, to make room in the paddock, or if the market is looking good.
Steers are sent to feedlots such Smithfield and Beef City, “or whichever is offering the best money at the time” at between 400kg to 450kg.
He said they commenced operations at Lancen Creek by putting Brangus and Angus bulls over high Brahman content Brangus females.
“We’ve been using Brangus as our base breed since we started our business as they’re always in the top end of the money at store sales and the meatworks.
“They also handle our country really well.”
He said when purchasing bulls they’re happy to take a hard look at what every stud is offering, but that they do purchase a lot of bulls from the Saunders family, Pheasant Creek Brangus, Wowan, and the Barlow family, Triple B Brangus, Dingo.
“Their bulls are bred well, have good temperaments and are structurally sound.
“We’re always trying to improve the overall quality of our herd by purchasing bulls with good data and EBV’s so that we produce cattle with better growth rates.”
Now running a purebred Brangus herd, the Brown’s are in the process of classifying a selection of cows, to start a stud operation.
“We figure it’s the next step in continuing to improve the quality of our cattle.
“We have the cows enrolled but we’ll need to get the calves documented as foundation sires with the Brangus Society, so it’ll probably take a few years before we’re selling stud bulls, but we’re taking our time to do it right the first time.”
To get a better indication of where they stand with their cattle the Brown’s have steers entered in the 2018 Brangus Carcase Competition for which an open day was held at Waterfall Feedlot, Goomeri, on June 13.
“We think the competition is a good initiative for those involved with the breed to take part in. It’s valuable to be able to get that direct feedback about the cattle we’re producing, as opposed to secondary sources.
“We entered steers for the first time in 2017, and we were very happy with how they performed, we were pleasantly surprised to win Champion Jap Ox Carcase and we also achieved the highest marbling score.”
.