Backgrounding beef sustainably

With a couple of 200 acre blocks available to the Harriss family, the maths has stacked up on the side of backgrounding beef rather than breeding beef and although they started off with breeding females, there's no looking back.

Kate, who farms with her husband Ben and their children Max and Henry, said since she started looking into backgrounding seriously the economics made it an easy decision to move in that direction.

"We've been farming here for about 12 years and have just recently got rid of our breeding females," Kate said.

"We had a small 50 head breeding herd and we were trading cattle on top of that, but now we've moved to all trading cattle because we found we could grow more beef doing the trading and being able to be more flexible with the times of year we have big numbers of animals on the property is fantastic.

"By focusing on trading, we don't have to feed animals over summer unless they're growing."

By removing a breeding herd from their business Kate and her family have been able to focus on driving profit through strategically stocking their property as seasons and markets fluctuate.

It also means the business doesn't need to carry the risks that a breeding enterprise would in a tough season.

"So we decided to move to all trading cattle because having such a small breeding herd wasn't as profitable as the trading and it tied up land to less numbers," Kate said.

"For example, in the past 12 months we've turned off 600 head.

"During that time we were also running those breeders, so now without them on the property, there is more room in the enterprise to feed trading cattle.

"We've also had a lease property come up which is another 400 acres which we can add to our business and that will double our capacity again."

It sounds like Kate is setting herself up for quite a bit of work in the near future.

"It will be busy but it works at the moment," she said.

"We've got it set up well, an important part of that set-up being the implementation of some strategies I picked up from a KLR marketing course I did a while ago which has been invaluable.

"I came away from that course with a couple of calculators which I still use which have made every decision clear.

"It's meant that I can easily see if it's better to sell the animal at 350kg or 400kg and also when I'm buying back in, it gives a really clear idea of what's going to work."

Kate gave an example of an instance in which those KLR calculators made a big difference in recent years.

"The year before last around winter we had about 170 head on hand and a heap of hay and silage for those animals," Kate said.

"We had enough feed to take those animals through to 350-400kg which had been our plan but I sat down and put into the calculator what it would be if we were to sell those animals and silage versus how much the animals were going to increase in value using that silage.

"That's not something I would have thought about before because we had the food and the animals, so why not convert that feed, right?

"Instead, I put those details into the calculator and the result was clear enough that it wasn't even a question: we sold the silage and cattle straight away.

"The interesting thing was that cattle prices were still good, but thanks to that bit of work on the calculator we just realised we weren't going to get the same value if we'd fed out that silage to the cattle we had on hand instead of just selling both.

"We also had the added benefit of leaving those paddocks to rest, which meant that when we had rain the pastures went berserk and we were able to restock heavily with good outcomes."

Speaking of good outcomes, this year weight gains in the operation have been strong.

"We work on 1kg weight gain per day but this year we've been getting between 1.4-1.8kg gains per day which is great, in part because of the mild winter," Kate said.

"Gains didn't slow over winter like they usually do.

"On grass it was looking at 1.8kg which has settled down now that obviously it's dried off and so we've sacrificed a paddock to feed them a bit more intensively on straw and silage.

"That said, we are still seeing average gains at just over 1kg per day.

"So we try to weigh everything at least every month so we have a pretty good idea of how all the cattle in our system are progressing."

Kate said if an animal wasn't demonstrating the appropriate gains, it was a red flag.

"We either treat a problem we think it might have or we send those animals straight off the property," Kate said.

It's those sorts of policies, together with the implementation of KLR marketing strategies, that indicate the inherent focus on productivity and efficiency in the backgrounding operation for the Harriss family which precipitated the move to trading cattle from breeders.

"We're regulars at the saleyards, chasing animals between that 200-300kg weight range that we can put 50-150kg on," Kate said.

"Basically anything that's got the right sort of frame to put weight onto, as long as it's a local type we'll take it.

"That means we find we usually have a majority of black and grey cattle but we haven't noticed any real differences between weight gain potential between breeds, as long as the right shape is there to start with - basically we want quality animals without condition.

"When we're buying, we're also trying to get full pens so that we can have animals here for at least a month together.

"The reason for that is having them mixing together is one of the big things that improves production as soon as they go into a feedlot which helps them adapt socially to the feedlot environment as well as boosts their immune systems by having exposure to a lot of animals before going into that intensive environment."

When an animal comes onto the property it gets a dry run through the crush just for a backline of drench and comes back in a week or two later for Multimin, an ID tag & initial weigh.

"I also take note of any traits that may influence gains, along with their previous pic," Kate said.

The cattle run in a rotational grazing system throughout the year, though the property is usually destocked over summer to leave the majority of the pastures to get away once the rain arrives.

"At the moment we have about 120 head which are just in one sacrifice paddock and next month we'll probably be down to very few cattle and then won't re-stock until after we've had rain and have really well-established grass across the whole property," Kate said.

"We've found that leaving it a bit longer actually means we can carry more cattle through rather than eating it down early."

Kate also said destocking for a bit longer also cut away that stress period in late summer/autumn when the feed on offer was low which breeding operations have to manage, but a trading business doesn't have to worry about if they manage their buying schedule well.

It took a while to work out the kinks of setting up an efficient backgrounding operation and it's something Kate plans to work on continuously.

"I really want to continue taking data from the animals that we run so that I can make sure that everything that goes through our property is productive," she said.

"That's constant work because we're frequently buying and selling cattle but it's really worthwhile I think.

"Loading a truck with calm, healthy cattle that I know will perform well for the next producer is incredibly rewarding."

Going forward, Kate and her family are looking at doing the same thing - just double the size.

"Backgrounding is working really well for us so far," Kate said.

"Just being able to stock appropriately when the grass is there is really important and it's made a big difference to how we run our beef business."