Ponderosa Brahmans were amongst a number of Northern Territory buyers paying the big bucks for bulls at this year's Rockhampton Brahman Week Sale.
The stud outlaid $261,000 in total, taking home seven bulls at an average price of $37,285 per head.
Based 200km south of Katherine, stud principal Paul Herrod said the bulls would go back into stud duties with the Ponderosa Brahman cows.
Having selected bulls as young as 18-months of ages, Mr Herrod said he was chasing bulls that would produce cattle suited for the Indonesian export market.
"We like to buy the younger bulls to bring them up here and give them that extra year to acclimatise to this country," he said.
"We were looking for them to be early maturing bulls that would produce good weight cattle.
"We try to aim all of our cattle for the live export market, which is to get a beast up to 350 kilos as early as you can get him there, so we were looking for bulls that would do that job.
"This year we found a few different vendors that had bulls that we liked, so that was also very pleasing.
"We probably paid a bit more this year but for what we got, I'm very happy with them."
The Herrod's purchased two bulls for a price $50,000, both offered by the Harch family of Danarla Brahmans, Wooroolin.
Mr Herrod said he had bought from the Danarla stud before, including the half brother of one this year's purchases, and that they had performed well in the northern climate.
"We bought a good polly bull from them last year who's doing a good job for us and has calves on the ground, and another one as well," he said.
"They've really done the job up here and they've held up well."
With commercial herd of around 8000 head and a further 2000 stud breeders, Ponderosa offer a draft of 100 bulls at their own sale each year, and Mr Herrod said that investing in quality genetics was vital to furthering the success of their stud.
"We're looking for that higher end things so we can keep breeding for our stud, you can't afford to go backwards so you've got to look higher."
Mr Herrod said the Rockhampton Brahman Week Sale had been an annual event for the family since starting their stud in the 1990's.
"We've been going to the sale for 30 years or more now," he said.
"That's where we always go to select our sires, because it's a premium sale and you get to have a crack at everyone's cattle."
Similarly to other Territory buyers at the sale, Mr Herrod said it had been a tough few years of below average rainfall in the Katherine area, highlighting the resilience and doing ability of the Brahman cattle.
Mr Herrod said the family arrived home from their trip to Rockhampton to a welcome inch of rain, hopefully a sign of things to come this wet season.
