Glen & Karen Hastie
960 Wildwood Road
Sunbury
Victoria
Australia 3429
Phone (03) 9740 9010
Fax (03) 9744 9010
hasties@bairnsley.com
OUR FARM
Highland cattle first took over our life in 1996. When we decided to start
breeding, it was a simple choice as to the breed of cattle. With our Scottish
heritage, and the
breed
being well known for low maintenance and
meat quality, there
was really no choice.
Over the years, through careful selection, we aim to put together the finest fullblood fold of Highland cattle in Australia. This all started with building up numbers slowly by purchasing fullblood, foundation females from selected folds around the country. Our initial criteria of structural soundness and breed character gave us an excellent stepping stone into the breed. Since then we have used a lot of AI and more recently ET. We believe that this has allowed us to use some of the best genetics throughout the world and still maintain genetic diversity. (Our goals in breeding.)
Our property is 60 hectares (150 acres) of grazing land which we purchased
in 2001. (Where are we?) With a modest
average annual rainfall of 550mm (22 inches) we soon knew that we had to be more
efficient with our pastures and not long after began to utilise cell grazing
with a New Zealand system of mobile fences and mobile water troughs. This has
allowed better utilisation of .jpg)
pastures, improving stocking rates, as
well as encouraging perennial grasses and improving weed control.
Our capacity is around 25-30 breeding females with a total of 70-80 animals. This certainly means we are well understocked through spring but allows us to cope better through the tough times without as much reliance on fodder.
In 2003 we undertook the necessary blood testing and management protocols to allow us to be JD accredited. This allows our cattle to be taken into SA, NSW and Queensland. Our current Cattle MAP JD status is MN2.
