Finishing cattle on superior pastures has given one Gippsland family the edge with an average Meat Standards Australia Index of 63.51 across 2021-2023 for their steers and heifers.
Neville and Karen Beecher run a grazing operation at Churchill using Hereford and Angus genetics, and were awarded the Most Outstanding Band 1 (larger non grainfed) MSA Producer of the Year in Victoria in the 2023 MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Awards.
The awards recognise producers from across the country consistently delivering beef of superior eating quality based on the parameters of the MSA program.
MSA registered producers since 2017, the couple also achieved an impressive average MSA compliance of 99.7 per cent by meeting grid specifications, having quiet cattle and being a short transport distance to the processor.
They use the philosophy of 90 per cent nutrition and 10 per cent genetics to achieve eating quality in their cattle, and dovetail the grass finishing operation with a busy contract silage and hay making business supplying the local dairy and beef industry.
Their 121ha property sits in an 800mm rainfall zone and has grey clay soils supporting 300 head, including 100 Hereford and Angus breeders.
A first-generation farmer, Neville manages the pastures along dairy lines with the multi-species mix, prescription blend fertilisers, lime application and grazing to vegetative growth stages.
“In the last downturn of cattle prices, we were running 200 head as a management tool to control pasture growth in the autumn, and then predominantly cutting fodder and sowing it,” he said.
To boost numbers, they bought weaner steers plus a line of 200 Hereford heifers (from Kent Park, Mount Taylor, and Dalkeith Hereford Grazing, Cassilis, NSW), for either fattening or joining to a low birthweight Angus bull.
All calves were yard weaned with hay, then turned onto ryegrass and clover pastures to be finished as bullocks or fat heifers. There are no antibiotic, hormone growth promotants or genetically modified organisms used but the cattle are treated with Multimin or selenium and a drench.
After several years of the cow-calf operation, they now plan to transition to a steer fattening enterprise for ease of management. In the past they have pasture finished up to 1000 steers and find this integrates better with the hay and silage business.
When it comes to pastures, Neville makes his own custom blends including perennial, Italian and annual ryegrasses, clovers, and chicory. He fallows some paddocks over summer for moisture retention then sows annual ryegrass into these paddocks in February to fill the autumn-winter feed gap. The chicory pastures are oversown with ryegrass and grazed before the chicory runs to seed.
Paddocks are soil tested and lime applied if needed with base fertiliser applied in the autumn, followed by direct drilling. Pastures are top dressed with urea and potash for harvesting as hay, or wrapped round bale/pit silage for their own use, or to sell to local dairy and beef farmers.
The steers and heifers are either rotationally or stripped grazed, according to pasture growth, and the tops drafted off at 650-750kg liveweight at 24 to 26 months to Greenhams Never Ever Beef program.
The program specifies cattle are grassfed, MSA certified and free of hormone growth promotants, antibiotics and Genetically Modified Organisms.
Neville said the cattle’s quiet temperament and low stress handling techniques combined with a short transport distance to the processor contributed to the family’s high MSA compliance rate.
He also feels giving the cattle daily access to clean drinking water (town water) improved their overall health.
The Beechers look at their MSA feedback in myMSA and use it to finetune when drafting off animals for processing.
“The grid specs are 420kg carcase weight with 22mm of fat. We draft off the tops based on their cod, brisket and rump shape,” Neville said.
“The highest MSA Index we have achieved was around 69.83 – high performance pastures equate to eating quality.”
Karen said their five-year-old Hereford and Angus cows would be sold once the calves were weaned to enable the enterprise to move back to steer finishing.
“From our experience with both the Hereford and Angus breeds, we find crossing them gives us an animal that finishes well,” she said.