Beef well done

WARATAH Bay beef producers Brad and Irene Gale received the prestigious Great Southern Beef Supplier of the Year Award from JBS Australia recently.
The JBS award acknowledges elite suppliers to the Great Southern program, the leading livestock farm assurance program in Australia.
They were rewarded with a four wheel motorbike, which Mr Gale said was a complete surprise.
They supply 100 per cent grass fed, accredited beef to the JBS Great Southern program along with another 1200 producers from the east coast of Australia.
“We have to supply animals that target specific criteria. To win the award, we had to be consistent suppliers, complete paperwork and have a high percentage of animals hit the supply targets,” Mr Gale said.
“We felt pretty honoured.”
Mr Gale said the 800 hectare property was a family partnership run with his father Phillip.
The farm is home to 550 breeding cows split for autumn and spring calving, and they also trade around 350 head a year.
“The cattle produced for the program are sent at around 20 months old and around 600 to 650 kilograms liveweight, for a 320 to 350kg dressed weight,” Mr Gale said.
“With the steers, we try to keep them growing and putting on weight all their lives, with no stress periods.”
The mostly crossbreds herd is on a mixture of rotational grazing and set stocked, it just depends on the season.
“The base herd was originally herefords, however in recent years we have moved to composite bulls,” Mr Gale said.
“We have been using bulls from the Caithness family from Koonwarra and the Hicks family from Holbrook in New South Wales.”
Mr Gale said what they have now is basically a simmental red angus cross.
“We have introduced a bit more European into our animal, which gives us a good shape and fat cover. If you get too much European blood in them, they are harder to get fat,” he said.
The Gales sell the majority of the cattle directly to the JBS program, through a livestock agent.
Mr Gale said this year has been reasonably cold, but not too wet.
“The grass growth in the last month hasn’t been great because it has been too cold. We have had sufficient rainfall without a huge amount of runoff,” he said.
“We have plenty of water, so it won’t be a problem for us come summer.”
Mr Gale said the year started off poorly, off the back of a cool summer with little rainfall and a disappointing autumn break.
“What we need now is a good week of sun to kick it off again,” he said.

Family concern: Phil Gale and Brad Gale from Waratah Bay supply around 350 cattle a year to the JBS Australia Great Southern program and were recently named beef supplier of the year.

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Posted by Sarah Vella on Aug 25 2015. Filed under Rural News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry