George Walsh purchased the first Limousin bulls for his yearling beef operation at Injune four years ago. Now, due to the attractive weaning weights and excellent doing ability of the Limousin-cross progeny, George and his wife are planning to lift the percentage of Limousin bulls that they use to be equal to the number of Angus bulls that they run.

"We’re currently running three of John McCarthy’s Rosehill bulls but I’d like to eventually be running equal numbers of Limousins and Angus bulls," George said.

"I’d especially like the Limousins to put over the Angus-cross heifers that we retain because I’ve found that once you get up to the second cross of Angus they’re just getting too light."

George crosses his Limousin and Angus bulls over 520 bos indicus type females.

Limousin bulls are producing great calves from a variety of crossbred cows

At the time when they purchased their first Limousin bulls George and his wife were finishing their crossbred cattle as two-year-old bullocks.

"We were looking for a straight Euro bull to put more muscle on our bos indicus type cattle. Limousins were the cheapest of the three options at the time. More importantly the Charolais and Simmental cattle make really big bullocks where I think the Limousin bullocks looked finished at around 500 kilos. Being able to finish them earlier was important to us"

George added that these early maturity traits proved especially handy after they reassessed their breeding program at Palestine.

"We were finishing our cattle as two-year-old bullocks but we had a dry season and had to sell one year’s drop as weaners. They only finished a few hundred dollars behind what our bullocks usually made and yet we could turn them over in one year instead of two."

The reassessment of their breeding strategy was one of a number of changes that George and his wife made after taking part in the Grazing for Profit, Gradlink and Executive Link farming programs.

The other key change involved a shift towards a cell grazing program for their 5,000 acre property rather than the traditional program which George and his father pursued for a generation of farming at Palestine.

The 5,000-acre property is situated between Roma and Injune and is divided into 23 different paddocks of varying size. The mob grazes on each paddock and then it is rested for approximately 120 days in winter and 30 days during then wet summer months.

"We’ve basically just divided the cells according to soil type and pasture types," George explained.

"Last year it saved us a lot of money. It was a reasonable season so the pastures weren’t too bad. We would normally have had lick blocks out as well but with the cell grazing we didn’t need to. I’d say that saved us between $5,000 and $10,000."

Despite the financial benefits of cell grazing the program was not without teething problems.

"It got a bit hectic during calving season so we had to just put electric tape on the gates to make sure the calves were mothered up properly. "

He added however that there were some unexpected benefits to cell grazing.

"We’d already gotten into the habit of breaking all of our weaners in with dogs and a team of musterers each year but the cell grazing meant that we were handling the cattle even more often. It not only helped to make the cattle quieter but it made it easier for us to monitor how they were going and to select the tops of our weaners for the sales."

The changes that they have made to their management style have seen George and his wife lift their profit on assets managed from 0.1 percent to 7 percent over a two year period.

George said that at this stage he could not credit much of this improvement to his use of Limousin bulls.

"Considering that we’re only running three Limo bulls compared to about 12 Angus bulls I don’t think I could say that they’ve really helped to lift our profit - I think most of the improvement was probably due to cell grazing."

"I think when we can lift the ratio of Limo bulls to Angus bulls to about 50/50 they will have an effect on our profitability because the Limo-cross calves always weigh heavier and get you that bit more money at the end of the day," George said.