Makayla Saunders with Grand Champion Prospect Steer, Homestead Magpull, at the Cattlemen’s Congress, Oklahoma USA. Picture by Sarah Smith
A love of British White cattle and a passion for bovine genetics are helping one young cattle producer evolve into a brilliant ambassador for the breed.
The bright and enthusiastic 19-year-old Makayla Saunders has been around cattle all her life on family farms near Taree, but her knowledge received a significant boost during an intensive visit to the fifth Cattlemen’s Congress in Oklahoma, USA, in December.
Makayla, who has her own stud, Ghinni Ghinni British Whites, based on her parents’ property, covered a lot of ground on her lightning trip, from specialist genetics labs to Oklahoma’s vast stockyards.
She met and hobnobbed with cattle people; walked and groomed cattle belonging to her American hosts, and during the Congress exhibited a steer and a heifer for Smith Farm & Cattle Co, which she says was “a dream come true”.
Outside of the event, she toured a robotic dairy in Wisconsin, watched a sale at the Tulsa Sale Barn, toured the Oklahoma National Stockyards in Oklahoma City and visited the American Heritage Beef Company in nearby Nowata for a lesson in hoof-to-package processing. She also visited several British White cattle ranches, looking at their breeding herd and studying their feedloting methods, and other aspects of feeding cattle on for slaughter.
The National Stockyards astonished her with their size: it receives cattle 24 hours a day, seven days a week and can hold 20,000 head. Size differences between aspects of the Australian and US industries even extends to the size of the cattle being produced.
“The British White cattle I saw in America were generally larger framed and very stocky, with strong top lines” Makayla says. “The market is massive and highly competitive in America. She states that the breeders she visited had very dedicated feeding regimes and a strong concern for animal welfare. They also have more registered British White cattle, about 17,000 head, and more individual stud breeders. They also have some very exciting genetics programs that I think will do the breed a lot of good in coming years.”
Makayla is increasingly interested in genetics, so tours to Flying Cow Genetics and Bullnanza Stud Services, both of which run IVF, AI and semen collection programs, were particularly informative.
The recent trip allowed her to make contacts with “heaps” of different breeders in America, which will hopefully lead to the importation of semen and embryos. “We are in the early stages of talking to breeders and looking into if it will be a viable option and how much it is going to cost.”
Visits to rural stores, such as Atwoods, Tractor Supplies and The Mill gave her insight into some different feeding options. She talked at length to cattle breeders about nutrition and getting cattle ready for market.
“Feed for cattle in America is very different, with much greater use of grain/pellet mixes, in blocks and so on, which can have 30-40% protein in them. They also make a lot of their own feed mixes, using corn, cotton seed hulls and the like.”
She says that while the experience Stateside may not have changed her breeding objectives, it has made adherence to them “stricter”. “I am now aiming to breed cattle that mature a little earlier or are ‘growthier’ and are more stocky; thicker, with more red meat”, when fed on grass and grain.
She has also slightly changed her daily feeding regimen for the animals she has on hard feed. “I’m incorporating more fibre into their feed mix to allow them to fill out more”, something she hopes will make them more competitive.
“I have also changed how I prepare cattle for a show,” she says, and now washes and prepares them every day leading up to the event.
The new learnings are additions to a lifetime’s familiarity with cattle farming, from helping raise poddy calves in the family’s backyard to setting up her stud.
“My parents owned 100 acres of land where they raised beef cattle, and I spent a lot of time out there as a youngster,” she says. As she got older, she leaned towards trying to halter break and in Year 9, in 2020, she “eagerly” joined her school’s new agriculture program, set up to teach preparation of cattle for local shows, including halter breaking and animal presentation. At her first show, in February 2021, she was lent a heifer, Dingo Quinn, bred by the Society President, Dr Lindsay Murray, and “fell in love with her”.
She started Ghinni Ghinni British Whites in late 2021, after she visited Lindsay’s farm in Northern NSW and purchased her foundation herd, two yearling heifers and a cow with a heifer calf at foot.
“Since then, my herd has grown to nearly 20 stud females and two mature bulls, and I attend about eight shows with them every year, with my first Royal Show (Canberra) in late February.”
Her experience of shows includes competing in Junior Judging, which she says has helped to sharpen her eye for quality.
She describes herself as a “big softy”, even driving three hours to deliver her first bull sale to see where he was going to live, but she has a hard-headed approach to business and her plans include production for sale of quarters of beef, or halves.
Her personal goal, however, is to become a better breeder and this year she is switching from her engineering course to focus on studying insemination, embryos and IVF; there’s also a hope to return to the US to deepen her learning.
Such commitment and ambition bode well for Makayla’s future – and for the future of British Whites in Australia.
