We are breeders of commercial Droughtmaster cattle underpinned by the genetics of our bull breeding operation. As such we are well aware of the profit drivers in the beef industry and realise that a functional breeder herd achieving high survival and calving rates is the main determinant of profitability in breeder and breeder/fattener enterprises. We don’t waste selection pressure on anything that isn’t related to dollars for a commercial operation.

High levels of breeder performance and environmental adaptation are intrinsically linked because only functional cows are able to maintain body condition to survive, lactate, cycle and fall pregnant in our too often challenging environment. Our cows are run under strictly commercial management conditions so that we can select the genetics that will be profitable for our commercial clients, and are expected to present a healthy calf for branding each year after a fourteen week joining period during which it may or may not rain.

The Bulls we offer you are the product of these efficient females. They are run on Buffel grass pastures under the same conditions as our steers, before silage preparation at Avilion, Greymare. Our aim is to safely prepare the bulls to an impressive but highly functional sale condition without compromising their current and future health. Valera Vale bulls are ready to work as soon as they’re off the truck.

We do not believe in over-preparing our bulls and often face discrimination in the marketplace because of it. However, we continue to under prepare our bulls so they can over perform for our clients. As a result, Valera Vale bulls have a reputation for being able to adapt to any of the conditions experienced throughout Northern Australia. We do hear from clients that bulls grow too big but have never had them criticize them for being small. We do not trim feet. Ever. 

We were late converts to the breeding of polled cattle, and did not see any problem with dehorning. Our clients began demanding polled bulls and we struggled to accommodate the demand using phenotypically polled and even DNA tested “homozygous poll” sires. We found the existing DNA tests to be very unreliable and they have only ever been presented as having a less than 100% probability of having the right result. With the availability of the more accurate SNP DNA test through Neogen we have been able to select for poll cattle more effectively and have had no further instances of horn calves from inaccurately identified “Polled” bulls. The majority of our calves born now are double polled. We are able to produce large numbers of polled cattle without having to sacrifice selection for other traits by only selecting for polledness in our sires. We do not select for polledness in our females, they are selected based on their reproductive performance.

We are now convinced of the value of breeding polled cattle especially in light of the 2% extra mortality associated with dehorning recorded in the broadly based Cash Cow project.