Mt Pleasant Station's fertility success with South African-bred Nguni cattle transition

Jamie Gordon and Garlone Moulin and their family, run and operate Mt Pleasant, a 13,800 hectare cattle station located 60 kilometres inland of Bowen.

They run anywhere from 2000 to 3000 head of cattle, depending on the season.

The Gordon family have been at Mt Pleasant since 1917, with Jamie and Garlone taking over management and ownership in the late 90s.

Their original herd was Brangus and Brahman cross, but as Garlone told the Queensland Country Life, they had struggled with fertility in their herd.

"We struggled to get three-year-old heifers back in calf wet on a five month mate," Ms Moulin said.

It was only when Mr Gordon went on a South African farm tour back in 2010 that they found the solution to their problem at home.

During this trip, Mr Gordon came across Nguni cattle, a Sanga breed, pronounced 'en-goo-nee' and named for the Nguni people who took them south in Africa.

The Nguni is a tropically adapted Bos taurus, and when crossed with a Bos indicus, is said to give great hybrid vigour.

The Nguni have been in Australia since 2006, when Harvey and Hannelie Roux imported the first embryo near Cardwell and founded Genesis Nguni stud.

Back home, the couple purchased three Nguni bulls and put them across their small composite herd.

"We decided to give Nguni a try just on their reputation for outstanding fertility," Ms Moulin said.

"We bought our first pure Nguni bulls from Genesis Nguni stud in 2010 and put them over some trade cows we had.

"The resulting heifers got in calf wet on a two month mate with their first calf at foot at 85 per cent, something we had never experienced."

Ms Moulin said Nguni cattle were known for their ease of calving.

"Cows are excellent mothers, calves have great survival instincts, cows cycle wet even in tough years, and we started mating 14-month-old heifers, number one's achieved 70pc conception and 60pc rebred wet at 24-26 months of age," she said.

"Older cows average about 86pc."

In the past, Ms Moulin said they had fed a lot of urea lick, but the Nguni cattle were performing better than their old herd since 2015.

"Nguni cattle have a higher blood nitrogen level than other breeds which gives them the ability to do better on lower quality pasture and browse," she said.

"Our stock are not challenged by ticks and we have not dipped for over 20 years, but we hear from other Nguni breeders that their Nguni have far less tick burden than other breeds running in the same paddocks."

Their cows are joined from February 1 to April 1, with calving from mid November to mid January, which Ms Moulin said was an ideal time for cows to be on the best nutrition at peak lactation.

Ms Moulin said they cull any females that fail to get back into calf.

"We are also culling on any fly bites, poor temperament and loose sheaths, below 80pc semen motility in the bulls, and obviously cows need to have a calf every year on the two month mate," she said.

"We have been joining at 14 months of age since 2016 and as the Nguni percentage in the cows has grown, so has the yearling pregnancy rate, starting at 25pc in the number sixs up to 70pc in the number ones.

"Around 60pc of the yearling mated heifers get back in calf at 27 to 28 months of age."

Ms Moulin said the downside of operating Nguni cattle in Australia was fitting them into mainstream markets.

"Live export won't take Nguni cattle at this stage, so feedlot or meatworks is where we sell," she said.

"Live export have not so far wanted to look at the Nguni due to the colour, but our first and second cross calves fit into the feedlots quite well at 380 kilograms and around milk to two tooth."

Ms Moulin said they make their profit from the very low cost of production.

They also started time control grazing in the mid 2000's, which Ms Moulin attributed their herd's improved performance to better landscape health.

"Our good, unsupplemented performance of 80-90pc pregnancy rate on a two month mate is a result of the combination of genetics, grazing management, timing of mating and weaning on cow condition," she said.

"We are on moderate fertility, red goldfields soils with Indian couch and black spear and stylo but with good native grass and legume diversity slowly returning."

Jamie Gordon and Garlone Moulin are also growing a purebred herd in partnership with Henry Townsend alongside their crossbred commercial herd using natural mate and E.T /I.V.F to help speed up the process.

Ms Moulin said they're aiming at having an open day to showcase the breed and purebred Nguni bulls in 18 months time.

"We are also working on increasing the polled content with polled genetics from purebred Nguni and crossbred polled cows," she said.

"Now that we have a high percentage Nguni commercial herd, to cross them back to an indicus, this would give a very fertile mid size, low LSU/cost of production cow with a great hybrid calf for slaughter or feedlot."

Ms Moulin is also on the Nguni Breeders association of Australia's management committee, where they were in the process of upgrading the registration system for registering purebred animals and developing a breeding up program.