Snapshot:

Bald Blair Angus is located East of Guyra on the Northern Tablelands of NSW.

We have an elevation of between 1280 and 1420m above sea level.

Area: approx 2000 ha over 4 properties.

Enterprises: Angus Stud, commercial Angus herd, crossbred and merino sheep.

How is your season going?

So far this year we have received 345mm at Bald Blair and 15mm for April. A massive amount of rain, and with a lower stocking rate our country is recovering well. There was a little bit of flood damage here, but all fixed. Autumn is well and truly here in the New England with a series of frosts starting to have an impact. Still the body of feed available for winter is massive.

What's on our plate:

2021 Bull Sale team -.The bulls have received their booster shots for Vibrio, Pesti and 7in1. We have just successfully completed our JBAS 8 compliance test analysis across our whole herd, always a massive relief. We have our 600D wts and scans a few weeks away. Our presale bull semen morphology and motility testing starts in a few weeks also, with our local vet Dr Leisa Brown . Dick Whale is also booked in to do the structural assessments straight after Beef Week. Only the bulls that pass our comprehensive testing will be catalogued. These bulls are split up into smaller groups and we are still rotational grazing them with freshly grown sorghum silage (grown on Bald Blair) made available as well. The bulls are growing well with some exciting new sirelines showing up.

2022 Bull Sale team - These calves have now been weaned off the cows and are a great crop of bulls. We yard weaned them for a week. Completing 200 day weights and temperament scores as soon as they came off the cow. We have worked them with dogs, buggies, bike, horse and ute and worked them through the yards daily and taken them for walks on the new pasture. They really responded well to our weaning process and are now grazing well on a new improved pastures. We plan to give them their tick vac in May.

The stud heifers have also been yard weaned for a week and we are very happy with their weights. All are progressing well.

Stud heifers have had their 600 Day weights, traits (EMA, IMF ) & structural assessment done on the 29th March - Thank you Roger Evans. This data has been submitted and is now included in their data.

Weaning - We started weaning the commercial calves from our Aberfoyle block on Tuesday 6th April and this time trucked them to the Kolora yards for the weaning process.

Pastures - sorghum update - At last the tractors were in and bailing on Thursday 1st April and this coincided with the first day of school holidays, so Abbott was quickly allocated a tractor and put to work, bringing in round bales of silage for bailing.

Heifer Sale - Thank you to the bidders and underbidders of the AuctionsPlus sale of 22 x stud and commercial heifers on Friday 26th March. The heifers sold for $2060 per head and have been trucked to Timor in the Hunter Valley of NSW. We wish the new owners well with these heifers.

Beef Australia - We have just returned from Rockhampton and had a fantastic week at Beef catching up with people, learning new things and enjoying some warm weather at Yeppoon!  Congratulations to all involved.

Client news

Tom and Aimee McPhail from near Dysart in QLD received an outstanding result at the Emerald Saleyards on Thursday 22nd April. They sold 5, 8month old Brangus (Bald Blair blood) heifers straight off their mother for $1720.  

Bred Well Fed Well

We attended a MLA Bred Well Fed Well workshop at Eastern Plains on the 15th April. Congratulations to Andrew and Sally for doing this, it was excellent and we all learned a lot - especially Abbott and Arthur! We are keen to host one ourselves as we see it as a great opportunity for producers to understand their breeding program and be as profitable as possible. Please let us know if you are interested in attending a workshop and we will have a chat to the MLA.

Are you registered with AuctionsPlus? Have you seen their new website?

Please take the time to register now, so you can become familiar with the platform. Our sale will be live streamed on AuctionsPlus again this year. Last year we had many people register and bid online, so we understand this is becoming a more viable option for people to buy the best bulls for their breeding program. Here is the link to our bull sale https://auctionsplus.com.au/auctions/cattle/bald-blair-angus-2021-bull-sale/45302

Link to register on AuctionsPlus 

https://help.auctionsplus.com.au/knowledge/how-do-i-register-to-bid

Link to demonstrations 

https://help.auctionsplus.com.au/knowledge/how-do-i-bid-on-auctionsplus

We will again have photos and videos of individual bulls and can provide additional information on any lots you may be interested in.

What Podcasts are you listening to at the moment?

The Productive Producer Podcast with Simon Quilty: Livestock prices are at record highs. Are they going to last? On today’s episode, Max Newsome is joined by market analyst Simon Quilty. Simon chats about some of the factors at play within the global red meat industry. He also provides his forecast on the domestic sheep and beef prices.

https://bit.ly/3s0mIcs

The MLA Feedback Podcast - Episode 7 - Preparing your soils for a winning season: Boosting carrying capacity through soil testing | Interviewees: MLA Southern Beef & Sheep Adoption Project Manager, Andrew Morelli, and Sam White from Bald Blair Pastoral Co. 

https://bit.ly/2RgDPdb

Thinking about a minibreak in the High Country?

Kelly’s Cottage Farm Stay 

Story in The Muster the NSW Farmers enewsletter about Kelly’s Cottage 

https://thefarmermagazine.com.au/stockmans-cottage-turned-farm-stay/

https://www.baldblairangus.com.au/farm-stay-with-airbnb

If you would like to enjoy our farm stay too - check out our availability here 

https://www.baldblairangus.com.au/farm-stay-with-airbnb

HAY RACKS FOR SALE

We are selling surplus hay racks.

Price $700.

Collection only.

Please call for details.