Angus is a perfect fit for the Job family
“THE WHOLE PACKAGE” Emmagool Pastoral’s Job family is impressed with the hardiness, calm temperament, calving ease and fertility of its Angus herd.”WALKING A MUST” Stafford Job, Emmagool Pastoral, needs Angus cattle that can walk long distances and thrive in marsh country on their properties. Angus were hardy, they had a good temperament, calving ease and fertility, and the Angus society was ahead with estimated breeding values (EBVs) and marketing. The society has been really proactive in striving for improvement with genetics over the past 20 years.
“Cattle that can thrive in the marshes” This is what the Job family is looking for in their herd, and they’ve found that Angus cattle can not only handle the marsh, but also a long walk for water in the western country. Stafford and Kim Job, along with their sons Jonathon, Nicholas and Lachlan and their families, Emmagool Pastoral, run Angus cattle on nine properties covering 11,000 hectares in central and northern NSW.
Making the change the Job family hasn’t always focused on breeding cattle.They bought their 1052ha home property near Dubbo in 1988, and used to be Merino growers but when the wool reserve price scheme hit home in 1990, they decided to go out of sheep and breed cattle instead.
Their first port of call was Angus, and they haven’t budged since.”It was their popularity, and the fact there were a fair few studs around here,” Mrs Job said. “They were hardy, they had a good temperament, calving ease and fertility, and the Angus society was ahead with estimated breeding values (EBVs) and marketing.”
“The society has been really proactive in striving for improvement with genetics over the past 20 years. “The Job family looks for bulls with good structural soundness, as well as impressive EBVs for intramuscular fat and 600-day weight gain, the ability to walk distances and a calm temperament are just as important. “We have a lot of marsh country, so we need bulls that can walk in that country,” Mr Job said. “We also need the cattle to be quiet, because sometimes when the cattle go into the marshes, we may not see them for a while.
“Mr Job said when it comes to cows, he looks for a medium weight cow.”They’ve got to be able to walk in the marsh and across that big western country,” he said.
Emmagool Pastoral has a split joining for heifers in August and May for eight to 12 weeks, and are later pregnancy tested. Meanwhile, bulls run with the cow herds year-round. “We’ve done this for management, having cows over nine locations. It’s for ease of logistics,” Mrs Job said.
The Jobs carry out rounds of weaning and marking on each of the properties, weaning calves when they are six to nine months old. Calves are yard-weaned for seven to 10 days with access to hay and silage.
Mr Job said they were in the process of rebuilding their herd after the drought, so they are keeping most of their heifers as breeders at this stage, which are joined when they reach 350kg. The Job family grows oat and wheat crops, so weaners graze oat and forage wheat, as well as native grasses. The weaners are sold to feedlots, through AuctionsPlus or Dubbo saleyards, when they reach between 380 and 440kg.
Article by: Julia Wythes, The Land
