Horned heifer tops Silverdale Brahman female sale

A total of 61 females, 25 joined and 36 unjoined, were offered by 14 vendors.

At the fall of the hammer, 13 of 61 females sold for a combined sale average of $3980 and a top price of $6500.

Two grey heifers sold to average $4000, while 11 red averaged $3977.

Top price honours went to Peter Tuxworth of Halgenaes Brahmans, Oxley who sold Halgenaes 850 to Bruce Battis, Manny Springs, Sarina Range, for $6500.

The 16-month-old unjoined, horned red Brahman, was by Somerton Longbow and out of Halgenaes Dienka.

Mr Battis said that he had bought two heifers from Halgenaes Brahmans at the Rocky All Star Brahman Female Sale, the previous week and had his eyes on the two Mr Tuxworth was offering at the Silverdale sale.

"I am chasing dam lines with good genetics," he said.

"I've got similar bred cattle to the ones I purchased...feminine looking and quiet.

Mr Battis runs close to 50 head of cattle on his property in Sarina Range and 70 Angus cross on his Collinsville property.

"We are just starting out and trying to get some good genetics so that we can get people interested when we want to sell them in the future," he said.

Mr Tuxworth said he had topped the Silverdale sale for the last two years with his red horned heifers, and was happy with another good result.

"I feel happy, it was a very tough sale, so you had to be pleased with that," he said.

"These days I have cattle on agistment at Ma Ma Creek with Steve and Melissa Morris, who have helped prepare these cattle, that's a credit to them, you can see how well they were presented.

"We try to improve our genetics by using IVF and we were lucky to get access to some of NCC Brahmans' best reds a few years ago, and that's helped us a lot.

"The mother of this top priced heifer, is out of a daughter of one of the cows that we got from NCC.

"She is a [Wilarandy S] Revolver heifer out of NCC1510, which is one of the cows that really helped us along.

"We got Red Opal and NCC1510 and they were the two main ones from NCC Brahmans that we were lucky enough to get."

Mr Tuxworth said the contribution of the NCC genetics had produced key traits he felt would be appealing to the buyer.

"They have good udders, the mother of the top priced heifer has a perfect udder, I think that's because she is by Revolver, it helps as well as reproduction, fertility, good temperament," he said.

"You could see they were nice and steady here today."

The top price grey female was offered by Grant and Jo Blumer from Mountana Brahman stud, Kyogle, NSW.

Mountana Baroness1873 sold to James Salerno from Rosegum Salerno Pastoral, Beaudesert, for $4500.

Mr Salerno said it was his first time buying from the stud and he ended up purchasing two females from Mr Blumer.

Mr Salerno runs about 50 stud Brahman females under Rosegum Salerno Pastoral with his business partner Professor Richard Drew.

"We were looking for good quality quiet animals with good genetics," he said.

"It is a good sale that we like to support that sale every year.

"The best thing about her was that you could pat her in the yards. We went along and ended up buying, it wasn't really planned."

Mountana stud owner Grant Blumer said it was a tough day and they only ended up selling 50pc of their females.

"We were expecting it to be a bit better for sure. I think it's because of the cattle market in general, the commercial jobs just aren't firing," he said.

"There are a lot of Brahman heifers for sale at the moment. There are a lot getting bred and people offloading them, it's a bit of an oversupply."

AuctionPlus market operator Josie Cox said although it was a tough market, there was a lot of interest from online bidders.

"There was a mix of bidders from across Queensland and New South Wales," she said.

"We had four buyers online, five lots out of the 13 were sold to online bidders or 38 per cent. Eight lots were bid on and there were a total number of 34 bids online overall."

Last year's sale saw 93 per cent of females sell, topping at $14,000 and averaging $5514.

Elders Toowoomba agent Jenni O'sullivan said there were different factors that contributed to the sale outcome.

"I think the drier times have had an impact, obviously things were pretty tight through November for most people, then the rain was hit and miss but most people seemed to get a turn under the cloud, " she said.

"I think at the moment everyone is looking for it again and it has petered out.

"Brahmans have been selling well generally, if you go back and look at the Feb All Breeds Sale at Rockhampton, Brahmans sold quite well there.

"It all comes down to people's confidence in where things are at. Obviously the commercial market has taken that bit of a check again, which has got to do with kill space in front of people and the short weeks for kill coming up."