SimAngus work well at Bridgetown

His father Brian lived at the farm with his parents from 1940, but when Brian put it up for sale in 2009, Rodney saw an opportunity and bought the farm, keeping it in the family.

Mr Wilson now runs the farm alongside his son and a couple of casual workers during calving.

The farm is made up of seven properties in the Bridgetown area, spread over 809 hectares and runs 400 Angus breeders crossed with SimAngus and Black Simmentals.

All the properties are roughly six to seven kilometres apart with the exception of one which is 15km from the home farm, meaning when checking his cattle Mr Wilson would travel 60km on a normal day and up to 250-300km during calving.

"I like to check the cows during calving three times a day," Mr Wilson said.

He has been sourcing his bulls from the Introvigne family's Bonnydale stud for 12 years and said the bulls were quiet, have exceptional weight gain and are easy to work with.

"They're very placid and they present very well," he said.

Mr Wilson has 13 Bonnydale bulls, four SimAngus and nine Black Simmental.

When he first started producing the SimAngus cattle, it was difficult to establish them in the market because the breed wasn't very well known, but they have recently gained traction because of their quick growth rates.

Last year, Mr Wilson sold some of his cattle to feedlotters off-farm to Margaret River buyers and another sale at Williams and since then he has had feedlotters chasing his cattle.

"They may not be a well-known breed but the SimAngus are a very good cross," said Elders Donnybrook Deane Allen.

This year Mr Wilson has started selling some of his calves to Woolworths.

The majority of Woolworth's milk calf orders are usually filled by F1s, but because of the quick growth rate of the SimAngus cross, the cattle were reaching the 400-450 kilograms liveweight criteria.

"To get those weights off a beef herd is an amazing result," Mr Allen said.

Mr Wilson said Woolworths had become an important part of his operation, but he also liked to send 40-100 head to V&V Walsh and would also sell some in the Elders local weaner sale in December.

For the past six years Mr Wilson's cattle have been in the top 100 for beef tenderness and quality.

"Walshs called me last year to tell me how happy they were with the quality of beef I was sending, especially the SimAngus because they were very even and had a good profile," he said.

As for prices, Mr Allen said the market was up by a "dollar at the butchers and 60 cents per kilogram in the sales".

"The prices are good at the moment," Mr Wilson said.

When it comes to joining, the bulls are put in with the cows for eight weeks, starting May 20, which is 10 days later than the usual joining date, so the calves are dropping in late February to reduce the heat stress.

"It is too hot for the calves in early February, so I shifted calving to a week later," he said.

This means weaning will start in early December.

All the cattle are 100 per cent grassfed, on a range of pasture varieties including Arrowleaf clover, ryegrass and Balencia.

The biggest block of land is 243ha and was originally blue gum plantation, but the Wilson family harvested the trees and removed the stumps to sow pasture and it now feeds 120 cattle.

"It took one and half years to clear but the paddock is now fully fenced and the grass is so tall that all you can see when they're laying down is their ears and heads sticking out of the grass," Mr Wilson said.

With an abundance of clover pasture, he found some of the cattle were ill and discovered that they had a B1 deficiency which was remedied by putting more hay in their diet.

"The vet said it's like eating lollies all the time, sometimes they need a bit of protein so now they get a roll of hay each week," Mr Wilson said.

To allow the grass and pastures to regrow the cattle are moved every two to three days.

"When the grass is up I will leave them for a week," he said.

With the constant rotation of his cattle on the paddocks, the drier and shorter 2019 season didn't have much of an impact.

"It wasn't a bad season, I'm always saving my grass anyway, so it was a bit harder but I just had to watch a few dams for water and I counted my rolls of hay and it worked out well because I still have hay," Mr Wilson said.

To organise his herd he has a paddock dedicated to pregnant cows and another paddock for cows that have had their calves.

As soon the calves drop, they get 24 hours so they can have a decent feed before the calves are tagged, they are then moved to another paddock with their mothers.

"It means I can look every day and see what I have," Mr Wilson said.

Feet and hips are important traits he looks for when culling the herd because the property can be wet.

Next year Mr Wilson plans to keep 70-80 heifers and aims to cull an entire mob and replace them.

"I am breeding most of my calves now with the SimAngus," he said.