John Poulsen and his sons Greg and Mark operate 34,400 hectares of country spread across three properties in the St George district.

Mr Poulsen (pictured right) lives on the 16,188ha “Wongalee”, while Greg is at the 10,118ha “Tippendale” and Mark looks after the 8094ha “Kullinjah”, with all three properties within a half hour radius of St George.

The family previously ran Poll Herefords in the Gympie region, as well as a number of butcher shops, however, these properties were resumed by the State government about 10 years ago for water conservation purposes.

“We wanted to keep breeding cattle, and the boys were not long out of school, so we took our money and headed west,” Mr Poulsen said.

The family has a long history with the Hereford breed, with Mr Poulsen’s sons the fourth generation of the family to use the breed in their beef operation.

They run 2200 purebred breeders across their three properties, having bought the quality Poll Hereford herd which was on “Wongalee” when they took over.

Bulls are run with the cows all year round, although the majority of the females calve during spring.

“I’d love to be able to join seasonally, but the seasons haven’t really been good enough for it,” Mr Poulsen said.

Keeping the bulls in all year meant they were more likely to get a calf from each cow every year, even if the season was poor at their preferred joining time.

Any females which were suspected to be dry were pregnancy tested, and were sold if found to be empty.

And this practice has certainly worked, with calving rates of 95 per cent being consistently achieved.

The Poulsens focus on producing feeder steers, with the Whyalla feedlot at Texas, Queensland, being the main destination.

For the feedlot market the steers have to reach weights of about 450 kilograms, with most of the Poulsen’s cattle achieving this before they break their first permanent teeth.

Between 400 and 500 heifers are retained each year to replenish breeder numbers, with the remainder being supplementary fed a grain ration of wheat and sorghum and finished on-farm.

The finished heifers are then sold direct to processors, returning carcase weights between 240kg and 290kg.

The Poulsens also have a contract to supply Kevin Murray, Surat Butchery, Surat, Qld, with finished heifers all year round.

Mr Poulsen markets all of the cattle himself, and said he’d built a relationship with cattle buyers just like an agent would.