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.

Welcome

We survived 5 weeks of lockdown and homeschooling. We have even enjoyed a week's holiday at Sawtell with fishing, mountain biking and the beach. Abbott and Arthur are back at school in Armidale and are really enjoying the freedom of riding their new motor bikes on the weekends. While we were able to get them on horses and learn to ride when they were young, it was not their thing and so the motor bikes have arrived and now take pride of place in the garage with the mountain bikes! Kirsty has kept a horse for herself and continues to ride on her own.

Seasonal Challenges:

Rainfall: Our average rainfall is between 750-1000mm.

So far this year Guyra has received a lot of rain, it looks like it will be an above average year, and a great spring as a result; a La Nina year perhaps. It is very wet out in the paddocks, every dam is full and flowing over. A 5mm fall of rain feels like 50mm of rain. The catchment is full and our water table is full. It is a very good position to be in. The clover is already coming up and we have bloat licks out in all paddocks.

Bald Blair Angus 2021 Bull Sale Survey

Thank you so much to the wonderful people that filled in our survey. We really appreciate the feedback and look forward to acting on all the wonderful suggestions. As soon as our new trucking caps arrive we will post one out to the winner. 

What's on our plate:

Joining: The AI sires have been selected and joining lists are finalised. The stud heifers, first round of AI has been done, the cows on Wednesday. Thank you Peter, Fayette, Emma, Georgie and Erica at Bovine Breeders. CoverSires have been selected out of our own herd. The home grown sires have been selected for our commercial herd. We have some good international, national and homebred sires selected after much research and analysis. We are looking forward to sharing these new sire lines with you when the calves arrive next year. All cattle joined have received their pre joining treatments, including pestiguard, Ultravac 7in1, Flukazole C. Their calves the S stud drop have received their first 5in1 vaccination. The cows and calves are assessed each time they enter the yards to ensure they still fit into our breeding program.

2022 Bull Sale Team: The R stud bulls are on high performance pastures and being rotated weekly. They have recently received Brute, Vibriovax, Pestiguard, 7in1 when we weighed them for their 400 day weights. These weights have been submitted to the Angus Society for inclusion in their EBVs. They are growing out well and have access to homegrown silage and bloat licks. 

Spring calving: Our stud and commercial heifers have finished calving and have gone really well with very little intervention. Our stud cows and commercial cows are also done and it is wonderful to see the sire lines on the ground including GAR Inertia, GAR Pheonix, Lawsons Momentous VLYM518, Chiltern Park Moe, and Rennylea L519. So far we have 17 daughters and 11 sons of one of the highest priced Australian sires Millah Murrah Paratrooper P15 and are very happy with how they look. Sons of our home grown sires such as NBBM38, NBBN112, NBBP52, NBBP97 (Bald Blair Phynotype P97), NBBP243 & NBBP69 are also looking good.

Weaning: We have weaned our autumn drop commercial and stud calves. The commercial calves were weaned on our Kolora property and the stud calves at Bald Blair. The weaners are held in the yards for a week with fresh water, silage and generade. They are worked through the yards morning and night with low stress stock handling. We introduce them to dogs, buggies, bikes and horses. On their 5th day in the yards they are processed with treatments and moved to a small holding paddock and monitored closely.

Welfare benchmarking for pasture-based beef cattle: We are part of this joint CSIRO/DPI/MLA project and have found it very interesting, especially the survey on our attitudes, opinions and decision making when working with cattle. We have completed the farm profile, yard entries and stock handling survey on the MOOBAA online data entry platform. We have also submitted some weight and temperament data on our cattle for assessment. We will continue to work with the CSIRO team and are interested in reviewing our results. We particularly enjoyed the stock handling video Best Practice Cattle Handling - here is the link https://youtu.be/w66BbIzEtt0

We have documented systems for handling cattle and one of our main reminders is to tie our dogs up once the cattle are in the yards. The other focus area is to only have 3 bulls in a race, 3 bulls in round yard and 6 in holding yard. We can only work as fast as the person at the crush.

Road works: Due to the wet weather our roads are under constant pressure at the moment and we have engaged a local contractor to do some work to make them more usable. There is a lot more road work to be done, but it will have to wait.

House renovations: Repairs and maintenance on our farm houses are a constant drain on resources. However we have a great team of local trades people we can call on to ensure they are safe and comfortable for our farm stay, team and family.

Fencing: We continue to renew our boundary fence at the front of Bald Blair with the assistance of Taylor McDonald and his team. We will also be splitting up more paddocks, finishing the riparian zones, renewing a few old fences in some paddocks and making permanent a temporary fence we had up near the yards for the bull sale. There is nothing better than a new fence and we really appreciate the work Taylor and his team do.

Lambing: Lambing has finished and it is great to see sets of twins amongst our crossbred ewes. Lamb tags have been ordered and lamb marking will start shortly, preferably with a couple of 15 year olds helping with the lifting.

Rainbow Trout: We introduced 300 rainbow trout fingerlings into the dam near the woolshed and Bald Blair Lagoon in November last year. Much to our surprise and amazement these fingerlings have survived and we are catching 30cm rainbow trout for dinner. We have ordered more fingerlings to be released in November this year. Happy fishing.

Activities over the next month:

• AI, ET & putting Coversires out
• Tree planting
• Fencing
• Lamb marking
• Calf marking
• Weed spraying

Podcasts

Angus Australia - Behind the Beef http://www.angusaustralia.com.au/behind-the-beef-episode-12-the-angus-influence-from-performance-to-profit/

Episode 12 of Behind the Beef brings listeners the Angus Australia seminar held at Beef Week, which is MC’ed by President and Board Chair Sam White and features a question-and-answer session hosted by Angus Australia Northern Development Officer Jen Peart, with producers Sam Crowther, Ben McGlynn and Robert Mackenzie.

This session in the seminar focuses on producer profitability, the opportunities for Angus use in the north and south and features the experience of producers implementing Angus genetics in their operations.

Bald Blair Angus: The Data Breeder

https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-data-breeder-by-bald-blair-angus/id1574009246

Sam White, studmaster at Bald Blair Angus uses a suite of data to help inform his decision-making process, from both a stud and commercial breeding perspective. On the Data Breeder, we talk about how to use data to make better genetic selection decisions that will put more money back into your bank account.

Kelly’s Cottage: Kelly’s Cottage is closed due to COVID and we have taken the opportunity to renew some furniture. We will be opening again soon. In the meantime please enjoy reading this fantastic blog post by Amanda Woods https://adventuresallaround.com/guyra-guide-new-england-nsw/

Bald Blair Angus Merchandise: We have renewed our merchandise stock and have hand towels restocked. Enamel mugs will be arriving soon and we have ordered new trucking caps. We will let you know when they are available to order on our website store