My 2011 Study Tour

MY 2011 STUDY TOUR:
I am a young stud Angus breeder from "Hollywood Angus Stud", Peak Hill, NSW. I was awarded the Matthew George Young Stockman Award for 2010 at the Royal Melbourne Show. In April, I will be heading to Mexico and Canada for a four month study tour to get an overview of the beef cattle industries in these countries. I will be visiting a range of enterprises, including major shows, stud and commercial operations, and feedlots. I wish to thank the Ballarat Foundation for the opportunity to live my dream, and hope to share my experiences via this blog.

"LIVE YOUR DREAM"

"LIVE YOUR DREAM": THE MATTHEW GEORGE YOUNG STOCKMAN AWARD
The Matthew George Young Stockman Award was established as a sub-fund of the Ballarat Foundation in honour of Matthew George of Stockyard Hill, who was tragically taken in a car accident in 2007 at 21 years of age. Matthew had an absolute love of animals together with a thirst for knowledge and a passion for breeding. This annual award provides a young breeder aged 18 to 25 years with the opportunity to live Matthew's dream, and travel overseas to become an ambassador for the beef industry and study other beef cattle breeding programs and developments.
APPLY NOW FOR THE MATTHEW GEORGE AWARD 2011: Applications are now open for this year's Matthew George Young Stockman Award. This is an amazing award for anyone who wants to learn more about the beef industry. If you're aged 18-25, make sure you apply - the opportunities it opens up are just incredible! For application details, go to www.ballaratfoundation.org.au click on 'sub funds' & then 'matthew george award'. Applications close 30 June.

Tuesday, 24 May 2011

Remington Ranch


Am having an incredible time at Remington!  The ranch is set in the rolling foothills of the Rocky Mountains and is so beautiful. There are still some snow drifts on the higher parts but the grass is starting to grow and everything is lovely & green. The weather can still be fairly inclement – you can get every season in one day, from warm & sunny to freezing with severe wind chill factors, which can be pretty tough on stock as there are no trees for shelter. From the workers lodge, I have amazing views of the snow-capped Rockies - the view changes constantly with different cloud formations and light & I never get tired of looking at it.

Since arriving I’ve been really busy. We’re doing lots of cattle work on horseback - their stud cows are still calving and we’ve been riding the calves daily & checking them. So much more fun than a four wheel motorbike! We’ve also been processing calves – tattooing & needling etc.
Currently Remington are in the process of breeding (joining) cows & we spent 3 days pulling CIDRs, heat checking & AI’ing Angus, Simmental & SimAngus cows. Some of the semen they used was from “Happy Vale Jumbo”, who was just the 7th bull in Canada to have semen collected (back in the 70s) & the semen was frozen in little glass ampoules, not the straws used today which I found interesting.
Remington are dispersing their entire registered herd in October this year and plan to breed all commercial cattle and focus on developing a branded beef product, so we’ve been busy starting to get organised for that as well. It will be an incredible opportunity to buy some really great cattle – I wonder how many I can fit on the plane with me when I come home??!! Might need a jumbo ….

It’s been great to help out with a range of management operations and see their facilities & how they manage so many cattle. I’m really looking forward to next week…
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