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GETTING STARTED
We often get asked why we got involved in
miniature Herefords in the first place. The short of it is that 3
years ago we were looking to make our small acreage in the Southern
Highlands more commercial with minimal effort.
We weren't looking to make a
lot of money, but we were keen to keep our primary producer status
and tax deductibility of the business. We already had commercial
Herefords (full sized), but weaker beef prices and the drought took
the profitability out of small herds altogether.
We looked at some of the 'new'
opportunities for small farms - olive trees, grapes, meat goats,
dairy sheep - but stayed well clear of ostriches and emus!
We went to an open day at Don
Burke's Lowline stud at Wildes Meadow and decided that Burke's (and
others) theory on the future of a viable small cattle industry made
a lot of sense. But Lowlines are small Angus cattle and we have
always preferred the more docile nature of Herefords, and their
colour and general appearance.
So we searched the Internet
and discovered that there was indeed a very well developed miniature
Hereford line in Texas, USA. We discovered that the line had taken
25 years to develop and many sub herds from the same bloodline were
scattered throughout the USA and Canada.
We then visited a number of
the American miniature Hereford breeders, stayed on their ranches,
and learned as much as we could about the breed and the proven
marketing efforts of the miniature cattle industry in America. We
subsequently set up importation arrangements to get the best of the
breed into Australia.
From this beginning, we have
imported around 50 miniature Herefords (as fertilised embryos) and
several hundred straws of first grade semen. We have sold cattle in
NSW, Queensland, Victoria and New Zealand.
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