Australia-wide bidding helps Woonallee Simmental sale defy tough season
An outstanding red and white Simmental bull kicked Woonallee stud's 18th annual elite production bull sale at Furner off with a bang and proved the sale high of $30,000.
The lot 1 bull, Woonallee Kiwi U316, drew plenty of stud interest but it was long-time commercial clients Peter and Odette Morley, Boomey Park, Molong, NSW, who put in the winning bid for the 22-month-old.
The 988 kilogram polled bull which was described in the catalogue as a "complete package with so much to offer" had been used over a few heifers in the previous autumn.
Adding to the appeal the bull had a tremendous set of figures, including EPDs ranking in the top two per cent for calving ease, top 5pc on birth weight and top 4pc for both the breed's indexes.
"We love the way he stood and we liked the poll and his very dark colour and he had credentials for low birth weight calves," Mr Morley said.
Mr Morley's manager Angus Shannon said Kiwi U316 was their pick bull in the pens.
"He is everything Woonallee and our commercial herd reflects the Woonallee type, " he said.
Proving there is still strong demand for traditional coloured bulls, especially in NSW and Qld, stud principals Tom and Lizzy Baker sold 20 of these 21 offered for a $15,000 average.
Lot 4, Woonallee Kerrah U178, a son of Kerrah G732 who has bred so well for Woonalleee, made the $28,000 second highest price to Hewitt Agribusiness, through Elders Mudgee.
The following lot, the first of the WA sire Bandeeka Raffles sons to be auctioned, also fetched $28,000.
The 22-month-old, Woonallee Raffles U284, was one of the highest-performance bulls in the sale, including ranking in the top 4pc for maternal weaning weight, yearling weight and milk.
It was one of 12 lots knocked down through AuctionsPlus and sold Hacon & Sons Pty Ltd at Julia Creek, Qld, who plan to mate their new sire with some Brahman cows to breed Simbrah bulls.
Despite spirited bidding from across Australia and 70 registered bidders ringside, for the first time in many years Woonallee was unable to achieve a full clearance.
In a reflection on the season, 93 of 100 Simmental and SimAngus bulls averaged $11,043- still a very high benchmark for the 2025 SA bull sale season.
Boomey Park was strong right through the catalogue securing 12 bulls for their commercial herd for a $15,583 average.
This included seven SimAngus which they will use over heifers which they bid up to $17,000.
"We are keeping the herd as a traditional red Simmental herd but cashing in on the black market by going SimAngus to heifers, " Mr Morley said.
"We were using the Hereford bull over the heifers but the market punishes you."
"We think it is a shame but we need to move with the times," Mr Shannon added.
Boomey Park's heifers are all sold as weaners at the Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange Carcoar blue ribbon sale and the steers are taken through to 550kg to 630kg to supply Coles.
In the past few years, Woonallee's Black Simmental program has come ahead in leaps and bounds and this was seen in the strong competition with 40 of 42 bulls topping at $26,000 twice and averaging $10,412.
The first of the $26,000 bulls was lot 26, Woonallee Rendezvous U320, which was bought by York Pastoral Co, Karragarra Simmentals, Emerald, Qld.
Rendezvous's figures were in the top 10pc for weaning and maternal weaning weight.
Lot 38, Woonallee Missile U639, which made the same money, was among the younger spring 2023 drops.
The 804kg bull sold to Craig Wooding, Magpie Park stud, Coonawarra, who has been breeding Black Simmentals for more than a decade.
"I liked his depth and quality right through, he carried his weight very well and the fat cover is what we need to keep in the Balck Simmental industry," Mr Wooding said.
The SimAngus bull pedigrees included genetics from several leading Angus studs, including Millah Murrah, and showed the investment the stud is making in growing this area of the business.
Of the 37 SimAngus bulls offered, 33 sold to $17,000 three times and averaged $9424.
The $17,000 equal highest-priced SimAngus was lot 73, Woonallee Rembrandt U417, which was knocked down to Santaco Rural P/L, Tamworth, NSW.
Kanangra Props, Furner, whose weaners were among the top pens in Naracoorte in January, also paid $17,000 for lot 87, Woonallee Rembrandt U541.
It was one of three bulls on Kanangra's buying card for a $13,333 average.
Long-time supporters McCarthy Livestock, Lucindale and KJ&HA McGrath, Beachport, enjoyed the great value buying, each picking up three bulls at $6000 each.
Stud principal Tom Baker said the result easily exceeded their expectations.
He said it was nice to see repeat local buyers who were "doing it tough have a win" with plenty of bulls making $6000 to $7000.
"We weren't expecting to average that much and we were probably expecting to pass in 20 bulls, I can't remember passing in a bull for a really long time but that is the reality of the season we have," he said.
"We are eternally grateful to our clientele for supporting us, especially those in the South East and western Vic.
"We fully understand their pain because we lived it too, we have had to buy a lot of hay ourselves and make some hard decisions with our own herd."
Mr Baker said there had been some optimism going into the sale because of the wide geographical spread of their clients, including many having a much better season
"We have done a lot of work around Australia to do what we do," he said.
"We know we are not an Angus breed that has got 4000 people looking for bulls, there might be 100 people that buy Simmentals and we are just lucky that they are happy to keep coming back and supporting us."
Mr Baker said the easy-doing and efficient genetic traits they had been focusing on had shone out in the sale bulls who endured the worst season at their Furner property in decades.
"We all had to concentrate so much on feeding the cow herd so there was no special treatment for the bulls through winter - they have come out of it well," he said.
Elders auctioneer Ben Finch - who shared the rostrum with Lincoln McKinlay - said the highlight of the sale was repeat buyers willing to "dig in" for their top picks.
Twenty three bulls sold in the sale made $15,000 or more.
"When you breed that robust a product that performs and is industry-leading it adapts to so many different areas of the industry- you can't have any more confidence in a program than continuous repeat buyers," he said.
Elders Naracoorte conducted the sale.
