The measure of a successful farming enterprise is not by live weight or breeders trophies but by the health and happiness of the cows and the satisfaction of the end consumer of the beef product.  At GRA we focus on animal welfare and low stress cattle handling techniques to ensure that all of our meat is tender and flavoursome.  At GRA we breed Red Angus cattle because of the breeds excellent maternal characteristics and gentle disposition.  The Red Angus Breed has traditionally not been as popular in Australia as the black Angus breed, and as a result they have not suffered the same ruthless genetic selection for production efficiency.  As a consequence, the Red Angus breed has retained the eating quality that initially made Angus cattle such a popular breed. 

We produce long milk fed calf's weaning them at 12 to 14 months of age to ensure that they have the best possible nutrition and a low stress quality life. We also cycle our cows on an 18 month breeding rotation to ensure that they receive adequate rest and opportunity to regain condition between weaning.  

As the Australian economy has changed over the last 30 years the beef industry has unfortunately drifted further and further away from the consumer.  Performance measures such as retail beef yield and cost of production per kg have been pushed onto farmers to reflect the objectives of the butchers and large corporations that purchase farmers livestock in the sale yards.  These measures reward producers for maximizing the growth rate of the animal to the detriment of all other traits.  Industry literature focuses on improving cattle fertility, maximising the amount of pasture eaten, and focussing on early weaning and other measures to reduce the time between birth and sale of the animal.  The problem with all of these indicators is that there is no link between the eating quality of the beef and the quality of life for the animal.  Breed societies are equally guilty of perpetuating the emphasis on production efficiency over eating quality of the meat that ends up on the plate. 

The result of this drive for production efficiency is that beef is now very much in danger of becoming a “Modern Food “ where the old fashioned flavour and texture of the food has been lost in favour of the look and uniformity of the product  (try to remember what chicken, tomato and banana's used to taste like when you were a kid and you will know what I am talking about –if you still don't know what I mean ask me to send you one of my home grown tomatoes that we grow from seeds that Chris' mum Margaret has been preserving for the last 50 years).

In contrast to all this GRA believes that good farming is best measured at the plate, by the person with the knife and fork in their hands, and that as a beef producer the only true measure of success is in the eating satisfaction of the consumer and in the pride that you feel when you know that your cows are both happy and healthy. 

How do we do it??

The most important part of our farming operation is the realization that we are a meat producer rather than a cattle producer.  The decisions we make with respect to how we treat our animals and our pastures are driven by animal well being and by what we believe will result in the best meat quality.  Integral to meat quality is low stress handling and cattle management techniques.  Chris has led all of us in this area and her concern for animal welfare has shaped our animal handling practice and resulted in stress free cattle that produce the highest quality meat. At this stage we  still produce only seasonally as we prefer to rest our cows and produce calves on an eighteen month cycle rather than focus on production efficiency and have each cow produce a calf every 12 months as is the fashion.  We believe that this extra time that the calf spends on its mother represents a better life for the calf's and our precious cows, and that the resulting “bovine happiness” produces a better end product.  We keep our cows healthy and in prime condition year round and we lead them from paddock to paddock rather than chase them.  Sometimes our fluffy Belgian Shepherds try to hurry them up but the cow's know who has the upper hand.  Our cows are fed only pasture and hay and silage that we grow ourselves on farm.  We even go so far as to deliver our animals to the abattoir ourselves in our own truck, late at night for processing first thing in the morning.  Our cattle are delivered Tuesday night and are processed independently on Wednesday morning before the arrival of the sale yard cattle and prior to the stress of the mainstream cattle industry starts up.  

These may all seem like little changes in cattle raising techniques yet they are quite controversial in the cattle industry.  Every now and then we get a nod from someone else who knows the secret but by and large the mainstream cattle industry did not take us seriously, until the word started to spread about the eating quality of Gregory's Red Angus steak.  We don't care about the cattle industry but we do care about our animals and the quality of our meat.  Chris and I invite you to try our product and taste for yourself what makes our meat special.