Central Queensland grazier's focus on diversity, fertility and pasture improvement

In 2018, at the age of 35, Mr Hinz left the tools as an electrical contractor to work with his wife, Diana, and in-laws, Stewart and Glenda Jones, on the property, first owned by Mr Jones father, Jack.

As well as Forest Home which is a mix of bloodwood forest and vine scrub country, the business includes a 2000 acre (809 hectare) river block, Hillview, near Glenroy, which is used to grow out weaner heifers.

Combined, the two properties host a breeding, backgrounding and trading operation.

Mr Hinz said they run 1400 Braford Brahman cross cattle and had recently introduced Droughtmaster bulls into their breeding program.

"The Brafords were always in the family here. This place is a long standing Braford breeding property, it used to be Braford stud years ago, Forest Home Brafords, but the stud has wrapped up," he said.

"We try to join 550 breeders a year. Our heifers are joined at two years old. The maiden heifers get joined to a Droughtmaster bull or Brahman bull to get a bit more Brahman content in the herd and the older breeders are going back to Braford bulls.

"If we keep going Braford they throw back too soft for us here in these conditions so that's why I've opted to go to the Red Brahman bulls and even the Droughtmaster to put a bit of Bos Indicus content back into the herd.

"We went for Droughtmaster bulls because there's some good Droughtmaster herds in this area and they're good cattle in this country."

Mr Hinz said the bulls go in from December until the end of March which puts all their calves into a window in spring so all their branding can be done in January.

"If we join any earlier then we're calving back in July and August and we can't do that here, it goes to pieces," he said.

"It would mean the cows would have fairly big calves on them now and they just can't hack it where you take a traditional year when the rain stops in March or April, it's a long time until (possible rain) at Christmas."

In the past five years, Mr Hinz has focused on lifting the herd's fertility through a strict regime of culling empty cows and was happy with this year's calving rate of 85 per cent.

"We're culling, we're being super hard on them. Every empty gets culled - it's calf or carcase - so I'm gradually trying to breed through a more fertile herd," he said.

"If we could get to 90 odd per cent (calving rates), we'd be happy in this country."

As to the breeders, Mr Hinz indicated that if they were productive and calved every year, they would stay in the herd until they were about 10 years old.

"We have to be productive or we won't be here. I can't afford to carry empty cows or unproductive cows so I guess like in any business I run a pretty hard business model...I will start to look down the road of the bull fertility as well... but until I know we have our heifers or cow herd fertile, we can't start just with the bulls," he said.

"We will probably start to put the Braford bulls back over the Brahman cross heifers because we're aiming for a flat back article - a hardy flatback article is what we need.

"A baldy faced steer that will grade as a flatback that will grow out in this country is what we're after. It will go to a feedlot as a flatback or we could sell him as a weaner to a flatback backgrounder or he could end up as a bullock."

A catchcry for Mr Hinz and the operation at Forest Home and Hillview is 'diversity'.

"In this business, I want to have the diversity - I don't want to have all breeders and be geared up just for weaners," he said.

"I don't say we just sell weaners or we just sell feeders or we just sell bullocks... in this game, between the seasons and the markets, I like a bit of everything.

"So if an agent wants to ring us today with a specific thing that he's looking for, I'd have them somewhere.

"So if they say they want a feeder heifer, I've got some feeder heifers. If we want to grow some heifers out, we've got some some heifers to grow out, if we want to sell some weaners, we've got weaners - steers or heifers."

This year, because of the low prices, Mr Hinz bought in 100 young cattle - mainly Brahman cross steers and some flatback Charbray - to top up their weaners.

"We'd normally sit tight, but this was an opportunity for us to buy some this year and top up our own steers and heifers because we had the grass and the room," he said.

"I've no set plan on how long to keep them, but if it was to rain or there's a change in the market and they're a saleable item, they could go out by Christmas.

"They may go through to a feeder steer or if we don't want to go to a feeder steer they may get finished. Again, I'm trying to keep that diversity.

"I don't want to just fill up with breeders and just breed and sell weaners, I like to have a little trading enterprise within the business as well."

With the introduction of more watering points, fencing and paddocks, Mr Hinz started rotational grazing to "heal the country and recover some of the rundown pasture".

"We've done a bigger scale rotation for the past four years, but we're gradually making the paddocks smaller," he said.

That decision has seen one breeder paddock divided into eight paddocks of about 400 acres (161 hectares) each, with 240 breeders under rotation. Another paddock is earmarked to become six.

Mr Hinz said the country at Forest Home was productive, but needed to be closely managed.

Over the past five years, as well as equipping three bores with solar pumps, pipes and tanks, two big stock water dams were built to improve Forest Home's water infrastructure.

"I went down the road of upgrading the water and fencing to try to improve the pasture. Traditionally, it would have been a lot of spear grass and blue grass, but we've got a lot of Indian couch due to pasture rundown.

"We haven't started reseeding yet, but will have to eventually."

By 2028, Mr Hinz wants to have "a hardy flatback article that can be saleable either as a weaner, feeder or grown out to a bullock".

"So we need a growthy, early maturing animal where good temperament is paramount," he said.

Currently, Mr Hinz has 500 breeders on a molasses base lick because of the dry weather.

"It was a big decision but you've got to look at they fact they're calving now. We have a lot of dry grass so the way I looked at it is we have to supplement... to support the calf that they've got on them and focus on getting them back into calf," he said.

"We have 500 PTIC females left and 90 empties have gone to the scrub country to be finished - hopefully, they will all be gone to the meatworks by Christmas."