Seaforth Angus

HISTORY & BACKGROUND

Angus breeders Herb and Lucy Mackenzie from the New England region of New South Wales are run a mixed farming operation on the 4th generation family farm at Seaforth, at Llangothlin just out of Guyra.

450 head self-replacing herds are run across 1012 hectares, including a growing number of stud (HBR) Angus breeders, along with trade cattle and trade and second-cross lamb production.

We have chosen the Angus breed for their marketability and versatility. Their temperament and do-ability ease of management and more preferable animal health benefits over other breeds and ability to cope with the sometimes challenging climate at Seaforth have seen us committed to the breed. Seaforth have had a long association with breeding Angus cattle spanning over 23 years.

Our herd has been built on primarily Wattletop, Eaglehawk, Speriby Nth & Bald Blair genetics, with more recent infusions of Kansas and Te Mania bloodlines.

At Seaforth Angus we are continuing to source out genetics that represent where we want to be going. We want each female to be as productive and profitable as possible. We are able to continue raising the bar in terms of making more per cow joined through the use of EBV’s to assist us in making the best genetic decisions along with visual appraisal and selection, manual recording and historic records with good sound nutrition are what we are about.

In the past 3 years we have heavily invested in superior female genetics, utilising ET as well as AI. One of our most elite females Te Mania Jedda Y32, (who is the dam of the very prestigious Te Mania Africa A217). We secured this female at the Te Mania Southern Sale in February 2013 for $12, 750. We believe that she will do wonderful things for our herd. We will extensively flush the female and use these genetics through our herd here at Seaforth. In Spring of 2013 Y32 has a superb Tuwharetoa Regent D145 Heifer who is free from all know genetic defects, who we are VERY exited about We have already had a lot of interest in the female and the offspring that we will have available in the coming years

We know too well the importance of not only accurate performance recording but the ability to measure and compare animals against each other to make sustainable, accurate and profitable breeding decisions.

Over the past few years some exiting young sires that we have secured from both Te Mania, Wattletop & Kansas Angus are of Te Mania Daiquiri D19, Diplomat D10, Berkley B1 and Sitz New Design 458N blood to name a few. More recently, particularly since the announcement of DD in August of 2013 – our sire selection focus had to shift – which has seen us using only DD free bulls in our breeding programs. We are very exited about the offspring to drop this coming June / July 2014 to have some Lawsons Tank B1155 and Tuwharetoa Regent D145 infusions into the herd.

Our aim for the future is to continue to source out genetics that can continue to push the barrow in terms of meat quality and growth traits in the shortest time frame sustainability, without sacrificing on structure, frame, temperament or fertility.

All stock that are registered with Angus Australia have EBV’s apart from Base animals. We run all commercial, APR and HBR stock together in order to maximise contemporary group sizes, as one measure to obtain the most accurate results from performance data submitted into the Breedplan Analysis. We are also keen to be receiving more carcase feedback data at slaughter of Heifer and steers to put this back into the Breedplan analysis to obtain more accurate carcase information on our stock and improve accuracies.

Here at Seaforth Angus we are strict when it comes to the structure of our cattle.

“You can have the best nutrition and genetics in the world, but if you lose focus and do not act on the implications related to poor structure, and fail to visually appraise your cattle, you have nothing”

We will never lose our commercial focus in regard to breeding however, we want to take the next step in being able to breed more superior stock that are continuing to meet and go above market expectations for both HBR and APR registered Angus cattle.

We as operators have such a short time to be able to make or break a herd – poor, unfavourable or good or great decisions can affect you and your breeders for many, many years. Being able to make sensible, financially viable and suitably targeted breeding decisions is paramount. Whilst, being able to utilise and maximise the technology that is now available to assist farmers in being able to make better breeding decisions has never been better. It is essential that we as producers plan to utilise this technology to benefit us as much as we can to continue to take our herd forward into the future.

Artificial insemination & ET are heavily practiced at Seaforth to maximise a greater genetic impact on the herd in a shorter time frame. In 2013 we had our first drop of ET Ayrvale Bartel E7 calves on the ground – which will be available for sale in June of 2015. We continue to utilise the elite females purchased for the benefit of the herd.

We are continuing to source and purchase exceptional HBR females and sires from very reputable Victorian and New South Wales Angus breeders as a solid foundation base to build on for our herd. We want to do this right from the start, without compromising on quality.

In 2014 we will have a line us of bulls available for sale on the Monday 16th June, from 8am. All enquiries welcome and inspection also welcome by appointment only