The decision to focus heavily on purchasing Raff Angus bulls to place over their mixed breeding herd has proven to be a winning one for Clermont-based commercial beef cattle producers Eli and Michelle Vogel.
The Vogels live on 10,300ha of scrub country at Charlton Park with their four daughters Olivia, Ava, Eloise, and Lillian, lease the 60,000ha Old Hidden Valley, lying on semi-open forest country, in Collinsville, and agist on other properties in the Clermont district.
Charlton Park has been in Mrs Vogels family since 2001, and while the dynamic duo manage the station cattle for the family there, their own 3000 head breeding herd are run on Old Hidden Valley, the progeny of which are sent to the agistment properties depending on market and seasonal conditions.
"Our total herd including followers is at close to 6000 head not including the cattle we take care of for the family at Charlton Park. We had to purchase a heap of females when we moved our herd to Old Hidden Valley last year as it's much larger than our previous leased block, which was sold," Mr Vogel said.
"Due to our need to buy a lot of cows in short order we have a very wide range of breeds, mainly Bos Indicus, on the female side, but our use of Raff Angus bulls ensures that no matter what breed they're put over we're always happy with the resulting article," he said.
The family started purchasing Angus bulls from various studs four years ago but the first one they bought was from Raffs (Andrew and Anna).
"Over the last 18 months we've bought a wedge of bulls from the Raffs and we're going 100 per cent in their direction with our Angus bull purchases now."
"The Raff bulls are always lengthy bulls that travel well and can handle rough country. Coming from where the Raffs breed (King Island, Tasmania) to joining our cows, they perform very well."
Mr Vogel said the decision to incorporate Angus genetics into the herd was due to the highly regarded fertility and temperament of the breed.
"The key factor though is their rapid weight for age gains. We get paid on weight, so we usually don't hold anything back past a 400kgs to 420kgs milk or two tooth article."
He said they mainly sell to the JBS and Mort & Co feedlots, though their high grade Brahman content feeder steers are also sold into the live export market.
The Vogels bulls go into the paddock on January 1 up until weaning, which is usually June, depending on the seasonal conditions.
"Whenever we muster to wean the bulls come out, which is when we then do our preg testing and cull if required."
The relationship between the Raffs and the Vogels is solid enough that since purchasing from the Raff Angus paddock four years ago, the Vogels now leave it up to Mr Raff to handpick bulls for them and send them up.
"He's never sent a bull that we haven't been happy with. Andrew and Anna have been unreal with us, they're great to deal with and have really helped us out at times."
Further fostering confidence in the direction of their herd was the Vogels first place finish in the grassfed weight gain section of the ongoing Clermont Cattlemans Challenge.
"There are 14 groups of five steers in our section of the competition in which we entered five Angus-cross steers, all of which have just gone into the feedlot for the last days of evaluation. It's all a bit of fun and it was a nice surprise to get such a good result in what was a helluva tough year."
Mr Vogel said until they received close to 200mm of rain on Charlton Park, and between 50mm to 200mm, depending on the area, at Old Hidden Valley, in January, they hadn't had any decent falls on either property before March 2019.
"The bulls handled the dry really well, it demonstrated their toughness."
