Genetics With A Difference

Future Directions

Since establishment in 1965 we have had a clear breeding direction.

That is to maintain all the wonderful natural qualities of an Angus animal including calving ease, their exceptional maternal and carcase qualities, along with their ability to forage and survive in a wide range of environments. However, our genetics must also excel in weight for age, carcase weight and yield.

Feed conversion is very important. We aim to produce cattle that can eat less feed per day relative to their individual weight and rate of weight gain. These key selection preferences continue to make our herd genetically unique.

“With the entire industry’s goal towards Carbon Neutrality by 2030 and moderating methane, efficiency of our production system becomes increasingly important. An efficient animal that takes less days on feed and produces a heavy carcase weight must obviously produce less methane.”

Towards 2026

800 Herd Book Registered Angus females will calve down in 2026.

We anticipate that near 75% of our current herd would descend from those first foundation genetic lines from 1965 – sixty years ago. We predominately calve down annually within the February/March months. Approximately 25% of our herd is sold for Seedstock production with the remainder pasture raised and finished. An annual bull sale occurs in Queensland mid-August with females sold privately for breeding throughout the year.

With the return of Raff Angus to the mainland and our recent intensive genetic investment we anticipate our herd to reach a new performance level whilst maintaining our unique phenotype and pedigree design. We are excited by the opportunity such investments will make as we expect that it will attract a new audience and clientele base whilst supporting our existing and long-term clients.

Image Gallery ~ Measuring Genetic Performance

**Stud Sire: Raff Rockstar R564.**
**Frame Score – 7.5 Weight – 1388kgs.**
**Sons sell August 15th**

Our Performance Targets

To have calves born easily and unassisted is obvious, however we expect our calves to be around 6% of their mother’s mature weight at birth. We weigh everything at birth and know that almost always a runt at birth is a runt for life and that this can have a diminishing generational effect on skeletal shape.

With 60 years of breeding we have placed non-relenting selection emphasis on ‘the power of the pedigree’. Maternal strength underpins the success of a herd’s breeding potency and its consistency of progeny. Good cows breed good bulls.

We like looking at our cattle and in our selection preferences, aim to maintain the basic functions and breed characteristic qualities of what made Angus cattle great. Our cattle must have length of neck with head carriage. Cows must be feminine and attractive. Bulls must be muscular and mobile. Foot and leg structure are not compromised. We aim to breed cattle that live long and stay sound.

Scales don’t lie. The heavier they are earlier means more market options and more dollars. We weigh everything from birth to 200/400/600 day. We weigh for mature cow weights both pre-calving and at weaning time. We measure frame size. We measure scrotal size. We continuously analyse raw data and use this following Phenotype and Pedigree analysis as a major selection criteria.

We run big contemporary groups. This means meaningful raw data. When at full production we will be running around 350 heifers as one group from weaning through to pre-calving as two-year-olds. Every year we ultrasound scan our heifers and bulls to understand what their ‘under the skin’ performance is.

Almost all our yearling stock that are not sold as seedstock or for breeding stay on the farm and are pasture-raised and fattened. This allows us to access invaluable in herd data from actual carcases hanging on the hook. During the past four years we have sold 670 prime yearling milk tooth grass finished steers and heifers. Compared Nationally within the Meat & Livestock myMSA dashboard they have netted $365 per head more value to gross an extra $244,960 over the past four years.

Five years after scientists mapped the bovine genome, we became early adaptors of this technology and tested our entire breeding herd in 2010. With near ten thousand samples now collected and analysed it has become practice to take TSU samples from every animal at birth.

With the advent of genomics we now manage a complete herd of Angus Seedstock that are fully Parent Verified.

It is well documented historically of our beliefs and opinions on paper
performance. However, the fact is that EBV’s are an industry-expected form of animal analysis. Raff Angus measures everything measurable and submits all phenotype data into the ‘system’. With the usage of
‘mainstream’ genetics recently we hope that the ‘system’ can now fairly analyse an outcross genetic herd with improved accuracy.