Fairview Black Simmentals focuses on the quality of the cow behind the bull

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Behind every good bull is an even better cow, one that must jump through a lot of hoops - year in, year out - with as much data collected on her as possible.

And these impressive cows are the priority for Fairview Black Simmentals.

Fairview Black Simmentals, owned and operated by Tony Horvath and Roslyn Ware, is situated just north of Mungallala in south-west Queensland, 140 kilometres west of Roma.

This puts it on the western edge of the brigalow belt and in a 21-inch average rainfall area, where the predominant native pastures are blue grasses and kangaroo grass.

Fairview has been developed over the years with different types of buffel grasses, Gatton panic, bambatsi, and digitaria, which makes it well suited to rangeland grazing, producing hardy, healthy cattle requiring very little outside inputs.

Fairview has been breeding Black Simmental cattle for 15 years. The stud has been performance recording with Simmental Australia as a seedstock operation for nine years, and it is now fast approaching its sixth annual on-property bull sale.

Mr Horvath says they have always had one focus.

"Having been involved in the commercial beef industry all our lives, our breeding objectives will always be to produce an animal that will reward the commercial cattleman," he said.

"We aim to supply bulls that put more marketable kilos on their progeny, fertility and longevity into their daughters, and more dollars in the pockets of our commercial customers."

He said long-term success was achieved when they selected for a genetically balanced animal and constantly raised the bar.

"We are always asking ourselves how we can improve the next generation, lift their genetic performance, and make them more profitable."

Every year, all pregnant cows, replacement heifers, and sale bulls are structurally assessed by an independent assessor, Liam Cardile.

"To raise the reproductive performance of our heifers and cows, this year we have only retained females that conceived to fix time artificial insemination (AI), embryo transfer, and our second round of heat detection AI in the stud herd. Females that failed to conceive to AI and are pregnant to our mop-up bulls are moved into our commercial herd. This effectively puts our stud herd into a joining window of 24 days.

"The Black Simmental cow we are now producing has responded to these challenges and has a lot to offer. She is moderate-sized, easy calving, and a great mother. She is docile and fertile, has a good udder and puts growth for age and a lot of red meat into her calves."

Fairview runs its stud cows just the same, if not harder, than its commercial clients do, always selecting for performance in a grass-based system.

"This creates bulls that are matched to any environment. What underpins our stud herd is that it has been established on real-world performance as well as performance data. Using International Genetic Solutions, the world's first and largest global multi-breed beef cattle genetic evaluation, our data is recorded and collected in a non-biased way to compare real performance with real performance.

"We know so much more about our breeding animals now - with the combination of raw data, EPDs, and genomics, we can effectively look under the hood (hide) and accurately predict an animal's genetic performance and the performance of their progeny. We take this and help our customers make the best selection to fit the needs of their herd."

Fairview bulls are renowned for adaptation, fertility, and longevity.

"We attribute this to the rigorous selection placed on their mothers, by getting them mated right, and using the best predictable sires available."

Their young bulls having to perform on grass is another massive factor.

"Our sale bulls receive no grain throughout their lives and are run together under the same conditions until their 600-day weighing and scanning, to provide the best possible phenotypic comparisons.

"They are then split into their sale groups of 10 to a dozen bulls to avoid bullying and injuries.

"We only sell bulls as two-year-olds to let their skeletal structure and muscling develop naturally, with this year's sale draft only receiving hay out in the paddock for a short period as a sale preparation."

Fairview Black Simmentals will offer 50 ready-to-work bulls on Wednesday, August 20, on-property at Fairview, Mungallala.

THIS IS BRANDED CONTENT FOR FAIRVIEW BLACK SIMMENTALS