Beef Cattle

For many years local producers have successfully used beef cattle as a good diversification option to compliment sheep and goats. Traditionally it is accepted that the addition of cattle to a paddock has very limited, if any, reduction in the number of sheep or goats being run and therefore has the benefit of increasing total carrying capacity.

The location of the Traprock offers producers a number of good options for either Bos Taurus or Bos Indicus cattle. The local weaner market is amongst the best in eastern Australia and producers have often used the Granite Belt blue ribbon sales to market their younger livestock. Slightly older cattle are able to target the feeder steer market as the region has the benefit of a very large number of feedlots. Cross bred animals have the very real advantage of hybrid vigour and do extremely well under most conditions and generally are sold at the regional selling centres in Warwick or Toowoomba.

By using good genetics, some supplementary feeding and good husbandry practices, producers have been able to use beef cattle as another very successful local industry.

The Beef committee was formed at the 2012 Traprock Group Annual General Meeting. The purpose of the committee is to assist members to better manage their beef herd in the Traprock region.

Objectives of the Beef Committee

The main objectives of the Beef Committee are:

  • identify and prioritse the main issues affecting beef cattle producers in the Traprock

  • provide information to members, focused on those issues, in the form of:

    • field days

    • workshops and

    • guest speakers at general meetings

  • provide other relevant information to members as and when it becomes available

  • provide a 'voice' at management meetings to ensure that issues affecting beef producers are promoted

  • support other Traprock Group initiatives.

From inception, the Traprock Group Beef Committee has worked towards identifying the critical issues affecting beef producers in the Traprock and then working towards meeting those needs where ever possible. It became very clear from a survey of the membership that Nutrition was far and away the most important issue.

The committee is currently working on modifying the DAFF nutrition spreadsheet to be more suitable for Traprock users and acquiring funding to establish a development site to test the empirical data in the spreadsheet.

Chair Beef Committee:
Peter Reimers
Phone: 0427 156 121
Email: traprockgroup@gmail.com