Days Whiteface stud offers 'heart of herd' in mature cow dispersal

One of Australia's most respected Poll Hereford studs, Days Whiteface stud at Bordertown, is offering a unique opportunity to buy females from the heart of the herd.

Next month on the eve of their bull sale, Lachy and Lou Day will hold a mature cow dispersal, featuring all of their stud females 2021 drop and older.

The 75 lots to go under the hammer on Sunday, February 23, will be PTIC to calve in May and June.

Mr Day says they have "never offered females on this scale" before but some excellent pregnancy testing rates in the past few years, along with the growth of their embryo transfer programs have boosted their young female numbers.

"The numbers are climbing higher than we needed, especially given the season," he said.

"We thought the best way to maintain our herd but still give people an opportunity was to sell our proven cows - some of them are not even four (years old)."

Mr Day is hopeful the sale will attract interest from stud breeders across Australia, both those looking for foundation females to start a stud and more established studs wanting to add new cow families.

"Hopefully they see it as a good opportunity to add a couple of good cows to their program as we do when we see a top herd dispersal," he said.

He says the females, which are up to 11 years of age, were joined as if they were being retained in the herd as the decision to hold the sale only being made in late winter.

Among these exciting sires are record-priced yearling, Tobruk Southern Cross S15 - which Days bought for $91,000 in 2022 - as well as Days Landlord T064 which Talbalba stud, Qld, bought a half-share in last year.

The first eight lots in the catalogue are expected to turn plenty of heads, being embryo transfer donor females which have had a big impact on the stud.

They have bred herd sires including King Pin, Horizon and Landlord, as well as high-priced sale bulls sold all over the country.

Four of the ET donors are half-sisters - all out of Days Fancy H31.

Mr Day says they are proud to offer high-performance females but have not lost sight of breeding cattle with good phenotypes as well, regularly sourcing genetics from across Australia and internationally.

"We have had a real carcase focus with our sale bulls averaging in the top 10pc for eye muscle area and intramuscular fat and that shows up in the cows as well," he said.

Elders Vic stud stock manager Ross Milne said the Day family had rarely offered stud females in their nearly 80-year history, aside from a few heifers.

This made the sale a "great opportunity" to select some of the breed's top maternal lines.

"Having all the cows over a certain age means these females are proven, many have had high-priced progeny over the years at their annual on-property sales," he said.

"The phenotype of the cows is very good and the data is extremely good, they are good packages and good joinings."

Nutrien division livestock and SA stud stock manager Gordon Wood described the sale as a "once in a lifetime" opportunity.

"The Day name is synonymous with beef cattle breeding, the herd itself traces back to the Allendale herd but Lachy has done an incredible job balancing those years of breeding with performance data in breeding some really appealing Hereford cattle," he said.

Despite the dispersal of their mature cows, Mr Day says they remain fully committed to breeding Poll Hereford cattle.

"We will tag 180 registered calves this year with first and second calvers and ET calves and next year will be back up over 200 which gives us plenty to work with," he said.

The sale at 4pm will also be interfaced with AuctionsPlus.