Talk of the Town: Horn debate here to stay

Strewn across the front page is a mob of Brahman bullocks with horns mirroring that of a Raider's helmet.

It hardly seems controversial - the story was about Queensland being the nation's beef powerhouse.

It was harmless really in comparison to a rugby league scandal or political uproar that graced the metropolitan papers beside it.

But during my first stint at the Bible of the Bush, back in 2017, that innocent photograph sent phone lines buzzing.

"That's not an accurate representation of the industry," one reader said.

"Nobody has horned cattle anymore".

"Why would you put a mob of cattle like that on the front?".

Yet that photograph was a snapshot of a 170,000 head herd run by a major pastoral company in Cloncurry.

While the animal welfare movement is gaining momentum, horned cattle still hold a valued place in the mindset of many.

A picture rarely ever lies.

For some producers the pursuit for polled cattle is ranked below fertility, temperament and meat quality when it comes to selecting stud sires.

Some believe that polled genetics come at the sacrifice of other traits including bone or weight.

But research wrapped up in 2020 called Improving the Australian Poll Gene Marker Test confirmed there was no significant difference in fertility or other traits when comparing polled and horned cattle.

In fact polled cattle were found to "perform equal to or better than horned animals in later stages of life traits across all breeds".

During the Droughtmaster National Sale in Rockhampton this year 176 bulls were listed on the supplementary sheet as homozygous polled, which was 36 more than last year.

In 2019, only 70 head were listed as PP at the same sale.

But at Rockhampton Brahman Week last week, that trend was almost the opposite.

At least 467 of the 883 catalogued bulls were horned - that's 52 per cent - and only 49 bulls were listed as homozygous poll.

Carinya Brahmans for example offered a draft of almost entirely horned bulls and still walked away with multiple six figure price tags, proving that buyers were willing to spend big money, regardless of if they came with built-in dehorners.

So if the Bible of the Bush published a front page picture of horned cattle from the north west, would we still have that same outcry today?

At a time of unprecedented appetite for our beef, when demand outweighs supply and the seasonal outlooks have never looked better, aren't all cattle valuable?

Every producer has their choice of breeds and many are driven by management tactics.

Animal welfare will continue to be at the forefront of their minds, and the purchase of a horned bull doesn't subtract from that.

They know what performs on their country, what breeds well in their herd and what suits the markets they are targeting.

While not everyone may follow the same path or seek out the same things, horned cattle are still a part of the Queensland cattle landscape.

Look over the fence at a paddock of your matriarch cows and I'm sure you'll spot a few horns prop their heads up.

I'm sure they're not going anywhere.

- Lucy Kinbacher, North Queensland Register editor

Talk of the North is a weekly opinion piece written by ACM journalists. The thoughts expressed are their own.