Barwidgee Angus

Barwidgee is a 1200ha property, situated in Victoria’s Western District.
It is owned and managed by David and Wendy Kelly.

The Barwidgee Angus herd is a leader in performance recording and is one of the foundation herds for the performance recording system in the Angus Group Breedplan.

For over 80 years Barwidgee Pastoral Co has been synonymous with high productivity, high stocking rates and superior cattle genetics.

Barwidgee Pastoral Co

For over 80 years Barwidgee has been synonymous with high productivity, high stocking rates and superior cattle genetics.
The Barwidgee Angus herd has been a leader in performance recording since the 1960’s and was one of the foundation herds for the performance recording system that has ultimately developed into Angus Group Breedplan.

Barwidgee is now a herd of over 600 performance recorded cows. Our focus has remained unchanged with all the breeding fads that come and go. Our number one goal is producing cattle that will increase the profitability of cattle breeders.

The breeding philosophy at Barwidgee is very simple.

For the cattle breeder the key to profitability lies in the performance of the cow herd and its ability to turn off the maximum kilograms of beef per hectare at the lowest cost of production.

A low cost of production program does not mean low inputs, on the contrary the best way we find to achieve a low cost of production is to increase output. This means optimizing the performance of every animal on every hectare of land we have.

Females

The focus of breeding low cost of production beef is mainly the responsibility of the cow herd. The selection of sires used to produce the cowherd is of great importance. Many EBV’s are generated to predict the $ value of sires progeny. The main fault however is that these EBV’s are skewed towards production for the feedlot industry – yes the feedlot industry is important to us as it is one of our major customers. However as producers of high quality Angus beef meat quality is not the number one factor affecting our profitability – our profitability is the margin we can achieve between the cost of production and our sale price.

Barwidgee is now a herd of over 600 performance recorded cows. Our focus has remained unchanged with all the breeding fads that come and go. Our number one goal is producing cattle that will increase the profitability of cattle breeders.

​

Our cow herd has the ability to perform at high stocking rates and with less than optimal nutrition. Selection for fertility over many generations has ensured that the cow herd achieves high pregnancy rates over short joining periods in all years.

EBV’s, they are a great tool that we cannot live without, however they do not take into account some really important underlying contributors to cost of production. For example longevity of females is a key to profitable commercial production. The longer a breeding female can be retained in the herd the longer her amortized costs can be spread over.

Bulls

Barwidgee sells around 120 bulls per annum. All of our sale bulls are selected for growth, carcass and fertility. Their EBV’s place many of them in the top percentiles of the Angus breed.

Most importantly they are selected from a cow herd that does not compromise selection for profitable traits.Our bulls are rigorously selected from over 250 male calves born each year. They are independently assessed.

Semen testing is also done before each sale and all bulls are guaranteed for fertility and structure.
On property sales are held in February and September. Private paddock sales are occasionally available. Seedstock females are often available for sale.