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Eastern Plains Angus Bull Sale – Wednesday 7th August 2024

"Getting You Ahead"
ABOUT US
About Us
History

  • Eastern Plains Angus is family owned & operated by Andrew & Sally White.  Our children Eliza (22yrs), Evey (20yrs) & Gus (17yrs) all help out whilst on school & university holidays.  Andrew is the 5th generation in his family to breed Angus cattle in NSW.
  • Eastern Plains Angus has a continuous, unbroken 120+ year family history of breeding & performance recording Angus cattle in NSW.  Our Angus herd can trace its origins to the importation of Angus cattle from Scotland by the White Bros of Edinglassie, Muswellbrook, in 1888.  Eldest son, FJ White, then brought Angus cattle to Saumarez Station, Armidale, with his son, HF White, registering Bald Blair Angus Stud, Guyra, in 1908.
  • HF White’s sons, Richard & Graham White, ran Bald Blair Angus in partnership until 1985. When they dissolved their partnership, the stud & commercial herds were divided between them.  Graham then established Eastern Plains Angus stud with his portion of the female herds.  In 1997, through family succession, Graham’s son Andrew White, assumed ownership & management of Eastern Plains Angus, continuing to the present day.
  • We’re very proud of our continuing association with Angus cattle. We truly 'live & breathe' Angus & know it is ‘the business breed’.  Our family ethos, for over a century, continues to be ….. ANGUS BEEF IS BEST!!
Location

  • Eastern Plains Angus is located at “Eastern Plains”, Guyra, on the New England tablelands in northern NSW.
  • Our stud Angus herd is run alongside a commercial Angus herd across 3 properties totalling approx. 6700 acres, west of Guyra.  Our stud Angus cattle run on “Eastern Plains”, where our selling centre, main cattle yards & home are located.  Our commercial Angus herd is run on properties “Merton” & “Beckmore” further west of Guyra in the Ben Lomond district.
  • Soils across the 3 properties are largely basalt.
  • Pastures are predominantly improved pasture species of phalaris, red & white clovers, cocksfoot, rye & fescues & receive an application of superphosphate based fertiliser in alternate years.
  • Average annual rainfall is 900 mm, which usually falls over the Spring & Summer.
  • Winters are very cold & heavy frosts are experienced April to September with minimal pasture growth during this time.  Undoubtedly, the greatest challenge & limit to our production system, is the harshness of our Winter.
  • We rely heavily on Spring & Summer rainfall to produce enough pasture growth, to enable us to carry stock through our harsh Guyra Winters.
Breeding Philosophy

  • Eastern Plains Angus comprises a stud Angus herd of approximately 220 females, all fully performance recorded & registered with Angus Australia since its’ inception.  Our stud Angus herd is entirely self-replacing, so breeding our own replacement females is an important part of our seedstock breeding program.
  • Our breeding program at Eastern Plains Angus aims to produce seedstock Angus bulls with a balance of growth, fertility & meat quality traits.  We deliberately breed for moderation in traits rather than extremes in just the one trait or one set of traits.  We continue our genuine commitment to this breeding discipline.
  • Structural soundness is a must & we continually assess both bulls & females, culling those animals deemed inadequate from our breeding herd.
  • Increasingly it seems there is a growing trend to 'sacrifice' fertility & structural soundness for carcase, IMF & ever more growth.  However, this is a trend we deliberately seek to avoid. Selecting for balance & moderation in a range of traits will ever be our mantra!
  • In an environment dominated by long winters with severe frosts, our female Angus herd has been continuously selected for fertility, low maintenance & hardiness.  We do not supplement stud females nor graze them on crop.  They graze improved pastures, year round, alongside their commercial contemporaries.  These tried & proven maternal lines form the foundation of our seedstock breeding program.
  • Proven in our own commercial herd - year in, year out, we routinely test the performance of our stud genetics in our own commercial Angus herd.  We’re one of just a few Angus seedstock producers who follow this practice.  We join only our own stud bred Angus yearling bulls to our self-replacing commercial herd of approx. 700 Angus females.  Thus our stud genetics are mirrored in our commercial Angus herd, & we have a long term, first-hand experience of their performance under commercial conditions.  In effect, we are our own largest client, so we understand how important functionality is in a bull.
  • The focus of our commercial operation is the turn-off of feeder steers at 18 months of age at approx. 530kgs. For the most part, they are sold into (JBS) Beef City or Caroona feedlots, destined for their mid & long fed markets. We also sell cull heifers over-the-hooks into MSA graded markets, usually via JBS Scone Abattoir.  In addition, we breed all of our replacement commercial females, so place an emphasis on fertility, moderate frame & low maintenance.
Joining Program

 

  • We rank FERTILITY as our most important trait for profit.

 

  • Our joining program, whether in the stud or commercial herds, selects for Angus females who will wean a calf early March, calve (unassisted) Jul/Aug when pasture nutrition is poor, & re-join again Sep/Oct without the added cost of supplementary feeding or grazing crop, & importantly with an interval of less than 12 months between calves.

 

  • Using a short controlled joining period, we’re continually selecting for females who not only fall in calf, but to do so early in the breeding season. Late calving females are less profitable; their calves are lighter at weaning, they are more likely to PTE next year or have another less profitable late calf.

 

  • Joining up early in the breeding season is a particular requirement for maiden yearling heifers who are Spring joined for a 6-week period giving them 2 cycles at most to fall in calf. Older females are Spring-joined for a 9-week period, following on from a Jul/Aug calving, giving them approx. 3 cycles to join.

 

  • Females, especially 1st calf heifers, can do it ‘tough’ in a harsh, cold Guyra winter, & be in ordinary condition coming into Spring joining. However we do not supplement females or graze them on crop in the lead-up or during the joining period. Rather, we select for females who are truly low maintenance, moderate framed, that cycle & join whilst lactating, with out the added cost of feeding, supplementation or grazing crop. (Drought forced feeding is an exception to this practice, as in 2019).

 

  • Artificial breeding technologies of Artificial Insemination (AI) & Embryo Transfer (ET) have been used in the stud herd for the last 30 years. To best select for structural soundness & fertility, increasingly we’re selecting Australian bred AI sires for use in our AI programs.  We find there is a growing trend in USA-bred AI sires to 'sacrifice' fertility & structural soundness for growth & carcase.  However, we do still believe there is a place for USA-bred AI sires in our program, as a source of ‘outcross’ genetics + genetic improvement.

 

  • AI - stud females are synchronised & AI'ed on standing heat over a two-cycle program early in the Spring (not FTAI) by 'resident' AI technician, Andrew White. They're then run with (our own stud bred) back-up bulls; approx. 4 week period for heifers & 6 weeks for cows.
  • ET –Donor Dams are selected following their natural calving in early July of each year.  They're AI’ed mid to late Sept & embryo's are flushed at Peter Brown's, Bovine Breeder's, Armidale.  They then return home to go into our Spring AI program for rejoining. That is, in a single Spring joining season, our Donor Dams will birth & raise their own calf, are AI'ed & flushed for donor embryo's & then go on to be part of our own Spring AI program for re-joining.  We're one of only a few seedstock producers to apply such rigour to Donor Dams in a truly uncompromising test of their fertility.  It's one of the reasons they are selected as donors in the first place, along with quiet temperament, sound structure & moderate EBV’s across the full range of traits. Following the flush program, embryos are then frozen & implanted into recipient dams late Oct.
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