Wattletop Livestock

Breeding Philosophy

Eating quality is front and centre within the Wattletop Livestock breeding program however, we will not compromise on getting the basics right. We strive to breed Angus cattle with a sensible balance of moderate (breed average) birth weight, fast early growth where mature cow weight shuts down to reduce maintenance needs.  We have a strong focus on carcase quality targeting high IMF and EMA without compromising on our sire selection for structure (particularly feet and mobility), temperament, milking ability, natural muscle and thickness and fertility (choosing sires out of proven cows).

Every year, independent structural assessor Dick Whale goes through the whole cow herd as well as the sale bulls and grades every registered animal.  They are graded on their feet, temperament, frame score and muscle scores, doability, bull’s testicles and sheath, cow’s udders and their milking ability.  By culling unsound females and poor performers we are reducing the risk of producing more poor structured animals and improving the consistency and reliability of our herd. 

The general feedback we are receiving from our clients is that our bulls are quiet and easy to handle and produce quiet progeny that are heavy and command a premium in the marketplace.  Our bulls have ventured north to Central Queensland and south to Victoria.

The Wattletop stud herd has been acknowledged for inclusion in Bush Agribusiness’ “Top Studs” publications.  We sit alongside 236 studs from 14 breeds for the following criteria:

• They, and their breed, utilise BREEDPLAN and have at least one selection index
• They register at least 50 animals a year on BREEDPLAN
• Their 2022 drop average equals or exceeds the breed average for at least one maternal selection index (i.e. excluding terminal indexes).

On breedplan the Wattletop herd has been identified as high performing for Net Feed Intake.  In Bush Agribusiness’ analysis of the 2022 drop of calves the whole calf drop ranked in the Top 25% for Net Feed Intake which is a trait that is becoming more critical in breeding animals that convert more kgs of weight with less feed. We are keen to keep pushing the boundaries with our genetic improvement and we want to identify our most efficient grass converters.  In 2024 we inserted GPS tags into all of our yearling bulls to measure their pasture feed intake against their weight gains. It is early days with analysing this data but we are a step closer to identifying our best performers which will influence our breeding decisions on this important but costly and difficult to measure trait.

About Us & The History of Wattletop

We live, breathe, sleep and eat beef!

Sitting at 1300 metres above sea level 18kms east of Guyra, Henry and Jess MacDougall operate a herd of 1000 Angus breeders amongst the granite boulders on their beloved farm Wattletop.  They have a huge passion for all aspects of the beef industry from breeding, growing and eating beef, they love to challenge themselves to raise the bar to produce a better crop of calves each year that are fertile, quiet, fast growing and packed with marbling.  There is nothing more enjoyable for them than spending the day mustering a mob of cows on horses and working them through the yards to then finishing the day sampling the end product, usually home grown and home killed with a glass of red!

Henry and Jess are the fourth generation to farm at Wattletop, taking over the reins in 2018 from Jess’ parents Lock and Trish Rogers.  Lock and Trish founded the Wattletop Angus stud in 1982, starting out with 25 registered cows from Trish’s brother Fred’s Glenavon Angus herd.  The bloodlines of these original cows trace back to the neighbouring Bald Blair Angus cows which are one of the oldest registered Angus herds in Australia.

From 1982 to 2017 Lock grew the Wattletop Angus herd to around 500 registered Angus cows selling around 120 bulls at auction and 50 bulls privately each year.

To facilitate family succession, a dispersal of the stud herd was undertaken in 2017 and 2018. The first sale in 2017 set a new female sale record within the Angus breed with 259 cows selling for an average of $8494.

Through retained embryos and Jess’ existing stud cows, Henry and Jess continued the Wattletop Angus stud herd now trading as Wattletop Livestock. 

Through extensive Embryo transfer and Artificial insemination Henry and Jess have quadrupled their registered herd size over 6 years to calving out 200 stud angus females. Alongside the registered Angus herd, they run 800 commercial angus cows with half joined to Angus bulls and the other to Wagyu bulls sourced from Jess’s father’s Wagyu stud Door Key Wagyu.