It's that exciting time of the year again to announce the suppliers of the Angus heifers for the 2023/24 edition of the annual Farm Weekly win 10 Angus heifers competition.
Introducing the 'Gingin Glamours.'
The 10 beautiful well-bred young Angus females up for grabs will be supplied from the Beermullah paddocks (via Gingin) and highly-regarded Plain Grazing Company's commercial Angus herd of the Edwards family.
The competition is in its 17th year and is one of Farm Weekly's most popular promotions, attracting tens of thousands of entries over the journey.
This year's heifers valued at $11,000 inc GST will be specially selected from the Edwards family's early April to May 2023-drop of heifers and will be a welcomed asset to any beef breeding program for one lucky winner.
WA Angus Society's promotions officer Mark Hattingh said the society was proud the competition was in its 17th year and excited to have the Edwards family and their Angus cattle involved.
"After the Edwards family won the Gingin Heifer Competition earlier this year, the society held a meeting to approach the family to participate in the heifer competition," Mr Hattingh said.
"Angus cattle from the Gingin area have featured in the competition in the past and it's great to see them again - the Edwards family's cattle are an excellent representation of commercial Angus cattle and we are proud to have the family and their animals involved."
The fourth-generation of the Edwards family, Brett and Lisa and their son Chase, along with long-time farm employee Mick Duffy, have been breeding commercial Angus cattle since the early 1990s and focus on using top WA Angus sires in their breeding program, making them an ideal candidate to supply heifers for the latest competition.
Since transitioning to the Angus breed, the family hasn't looked back and has built a significant Angus female breeding herd supported by some of the best genetics through the continual purchase of top quality WA Angus bulls including more recently Koojan Hills and previously Ardcairnie, Blackrock and Diamond Tree.
Brett said at the time of looking at a new direction for their cattle enterprise, the trade market both domestic and international, was favouring black cattle.
"The decision was made to convert our commercial herd to one that met market expectations," Brett said.
"The Angus breed seemed an obvious choice and we were impressed with the large and expansive statistical data held by the Angus Society."
Chase agreed the marketability and genetic depth of Angus cattle was undisputed.
"What they've done with their genetics and what you can find out about them, nothing compares really," Chase said.
"Their figures are exceptional and their accuracy is getting pretty high."
The high standard of the Edwards family's Angus herd was recognised in April this year when they were announced as the winner of the Gingin Heifer Competition.
The strongly-contested commercial competition saw a total of 16 pens of the region's best commercial heifers assessed across nine Gingin farming properties.
The Edwards family's winning pen of four Angus commercial heifers aged 11 months scored 87 points out of a possible 100.
The heifers were judged by well respected reproductive breeding veterinarian Richard Hall on their suitability as future breeders and points were awarded for temperament, structural soundness, femininity, carcase quality and evenness of the pen.
While the family are regulars in the competition, it marked the first time they had won the coveted competition.
Today the Edwards family is running 500 Angus breeding females across five properties in the Beermullah locality, spanning more than 1200 hectares.
The return of Chase to the family farm in 2019 to pursue a career in farming brought some fresh ideas and motivation to utilise advancements in breeding technologies and practices.
The following year, the decision was made to fix time artificially inseminate their heifers to tighten up the traditional 12-week calving window and eventually syncronise their herd to calving in the first and second cycle combined with stringent selection pressure.
"We have always pregnancy tested and ever since I started farming I've always worked on the philosophy that if a female isn't in calf or doesn't rear its calf, it's gone," Brett said.
"You can see the difference in the increasing evenness of the calves at weaning, we used to have calves ranging from five to nine months.
"It took me 20 years but the whole farm is divided into paddocks so we are fully rotating, moving and checking the stock all the time."
Chase said last year the heifers calved within five and half weeks.
"This is an unreal result, we were up to 14 calves a day, hard and fast which is good for management by shortening up the calving window," he said.
"If we get them started right as first calvers in the first or second cycle, it goes down the line and the cows have a natural shorter calving window with more cows getting in calf in the first and second cycle each year when you put the bulls in."
Chase said they also foetal aged the heifers through Mick Clews last year.
"It's unbelievable, pretty accurate and closes the calving window up even further while he also identifies twins," he said.
The Edwards fixed time AI 150 heifers annually with this year's program undertaken on July 6 using Koojan Hills bulls, a Spickler Chisum 255 son purchased for the third top price of $19,000 at the 2022 sale and a Sitz Investment 660Z son purchased for the $20,000 top price at the 2021 sale.
The Edwards family prefer using fresh semen from their own WA purchased sires after finding it gives them a lift in AI conception rates.
The heifers are then backed up to a high percentage joining to the Edwards own AI-bred yearling bulls from their nucleus herd of 80 top mature cows.
The main mature cow herd is naturally joined to bulls from the second week of July for eight to nine weeks.
The Edwards retain 100 of the best heifers selected for structural soundness and disposition while a line of PTIC heifers is selected from the balance and sold to fellow producers.
Calves start hitting the ground from early April and traditionally bull calves remained entire were weaned earlier in November to avoid servicing any cycling females and sold to live export, with the first heavier draft going in December and lighter bulls fed through for the second shipment early in the new year.
But due to market conditions, in 2022 they decided to run half bulls and half steers to give themselves some market flexibility.
Steer and heifer calves are weaned in December with last year's steer calves averaging 2kg per day on a ration of Gilmac and wet lucerne and were sold in January to Kalgrains feedlot from 300-350kg.
The Edwards implement an extensive health treatment program for their cattle, with all cows receiving a 5in1 vaccine, Multimin and B12/Selenium at pregnancy testing in January-February and backlined drenched at marking in July while calves receive a 5in1 vaccine, Multimin, B12/Selenium and vitamins A, D and E while heifer calves at weaning receive another Multimin and B12/Selenium and backline drench.
The Edwards family was among the first shipments of colonial settlers to arrive in WA from England in 1838 and has a rich and long history of running cattle in the central and coastal Midlands after the family relocated from the Upper Swan and settled on the banks of the Moore River in 1840.
Brett said the family first purchased land in the Beermullah region in the early 1900s, being close to a school and to be used as a stepping stone property when driving cattle to market at Gingin via railway.
"They took up lease country at Seabird and Lancelin which was all bush," Brett said.
"In winter they moved cows to the coast then would bring them back to Moore River and the only transport to market was via rail at the Gingin railway station.
"They would drive cattle to Beermullah and let them settle here and then head to their Gingin block and load them onto the train for Subiaco."
Brett's late father Don was one of 14 children and after serving in the army during World War Two and a stint growing vegetables at Carnarvon where he met his late wife Mona, he returned to farming with his brother Mackie at Beermullah in 1949 on 300ha of which only 120ha was cleared of the original farm starting with a Hereford base breeding herd.
While Brett liked the fertility and doability of the breed and its crosses, particularly 'baldy' cattle, he said the Beermullah area was now increasingly recognised as hosting some of the best Angus genetics in the State.
"It has been a collaborative approach with many discussions over the years with neighbours of the same volition, including many road trips to State Angus breeder sales with quite a few laughs along the way," he said.
The entry form is available in the print edition of Farm Weekly. The winners will be drawn Monday, February 19, 2024.
