Mandie Scott making a name for herself as an upcoming Brangus breeder on the Atherton Tablelands

Growing up in South Australia, Mandie Scott had no farm experience or the knowledge to run a beef herd.

"Anything to do with babies, that was me, I would babysit anyone's child all the time and my passion was to be a paediatric nurse," Ms Scott said

"My husband's dream was to own a cattle property and be a farmer, but I had nothing to do with farming and I was petrified of the bulls.

"I use to run in the opposite direction when a cow would come and sniff me."

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Mandie and her husband Dr Brett Scott have lived in Ingham for 18 years and are the proud, dedicated owners of Ingham Family Medical Practice.

Dr Scott is the leader of a team of doctors and a passionate beef producer on the side.

Looking to fulfil a dream of running a cattle stud of their own, Brett and Mandie purchased 'Whataview' on East Evelyn Road, in-between Millaa Millaa and Ravenshoe in 2016, after falling in love with the property.

In it's past life, Whataview was an old dairy farm and had all the infrastructure (paddocks, sheds, troughs, fencing) in place to run a successful beef operation.

"When we saw this place, we immediately wanted to buy it, so we made a decision that it was going to be a family thing," she said.

From there, Millstream Springs Cattle Company was formed.

"Gradually, Brett wanted to go into stud breeding and I just let him do his thing and then he realised that he as a doctor was not able to do this and he just didn't have enough time," Ms Scott said.

"Our kids had got to a point where they were old enough and in order to make it work, I needed to come up to Millaa Millaa and step in to look after the property."

The Scott family now run their cattle across three locations including the key property Whataview, a farm in Ingham and another property at East Barron near Atherton.

At first, they were running a commercial herd, with 250 mixed commercial breeders running with herd bull, before purchasing their signature stud cow, Miss Foundation 468L9 from Telpara Hills stud.

Millstream Springs now run between 130 - 160 recip cows in a program either IVF or ET Program.

Recip cows are prepared (with medication) to come into cycle and then receive an embryo (which is taken from their donor cows) and fertilised.

Once the embryos have reached eight days old they are then implanted into the recip cows.

With a long term focus on stud breeding, the Scotts ventured into AI and IVF programs in mid 2020, to improve the genetics of their herd.

"We're phasing out of the commercial cattle, with a focus now on putting a high value calf on the ground," Ms Scott said.

"Brett started doing IVF in the herd for a little bit and then he realised he was a bit busy and couldn't do it, so I took over.

"We started our IVF program in mid 2020, which was probably the beginning of ramping up our stud numbers."

In 2022, Ms Scott did an AI course and since then, Millstream Springs have completed four AI programs in their herd.

"We're enjoying the process of selecting bulls from across Australia and internationally, to improve productivity and fertility in our herd," she said.

"It's exciting to see the calves on the ground, because you study each individual donor cow and bull, then we go and marry up the semen to the right cow - it's an exciting process."

The area in which Whataview is based is known for it's high rainfall - receiving an annual average rainfall of 87 inches (varies in La Nina seasons).

Ms Scott said monitoring cows calving during winter time was challenging due to the extreme cold.

"Winter time last year was probably the biggest test I think I've ever had up here," she said.

"When it's calving season and your out checking 28 recip cows with embryos that are due to calve every couple of hours, the rain and cold can be difficult.

"Calves are dropping and it's one o'clock in the morning and they're shivering."

Though, the biggest challenge Ms Scott said she had to face was two years ago, when she had to prepare and take their stud bulls to the Rockhampton Brangus Sale by her self.

"I try and put my nursing knowledge into an animal world and I know they're not exactly the same, but concepts are the same," she said.

"We had our first lot bulls to take to the bull sales and my husband said basically, he wasn't coming and I needed to take the bulls to the Rockhampton sale and I was like, are you kidding me?

"I've just got up here and I'm petrified of the bulls and you're now telling me I have to take him to Rocky?

"I had no idea what was involved in getting ready for sale, so I had to just do a bit of researching and got them prepared and in the end took them to the sales and sold them."

In early 2022, Millstream Springs Cattle Co employed stud manager and local grazier Isaac Ramsey to help run the stud.

"When I knew I was here for the long haul by myself, we employed Isaac Ramsey, which was probably the best thing we ever did," Ms Scott said.

"Isaac comes with a lot of knowledge in regards to the stud world and has helped me become the person I am in regards to dealing with the cattle, mustering and drafting.

"We sit down and work out our breeding programmes and we do IVF and embryo transplant, so we sit down and work out our programme for the year or the six months.

"We go out and look at our cows and heifers, our stud stuff and then we go and do semen research to try and better the genetics that we have on the ground."

In 2021, the Scott family branched also into stud Speckle Park with the purchase of two heifers from Beef 2021 in Rockhampton.

"Speckle Park are getting a name for themselves and you can actually turn them off a lot younger and they are getting a good reputation with their carcass and marbling with minimal excess wastage," Ms Scott said.

"It's can be a bit more of a boutique breed and I don't have a lot but what I've got at the moment we're just enjoying them.

"Brangus will remain our selected breed in our herd, as they're are a good return, high fertility, ease of calving, great mothering skills, the carcass and tenderness score is great and they add a great quality to any herd."

The Scott family have sourced their genetics right across Australia and overseas from the United States and Canada.

"We are continually looking for bulls that will complement our herd," Ms Scott said.

This year, Millstream Springs have plans to showcase their cattle in the stud competition at the Malanda and Atherton Shows.

Ms Scott said they were excited to exhibit their cattle against other studs in the Far North.

"We're just going to show two heifers this year and we're really excited to see how'll they'll go in the ring," she said.

The heifers are expected to be first showed and prepped at this year's Malanda Cattle Handling School.

Still learning the ropes of being a stud principal in Far North Queensland, Ms Scott said she hasn't looked back.

"I think there's proud moments every day, because every day, I'm doing something different and trying to better myself," she said.

"My goal for Millstream Springs or my long term plan is to get to a point where we can have 150 stud calves on the ground a year, bearing heifers and bulls.

"This is my dream, my reality and I don't know if I want to go back to where I was."