Thanks for that link Marc- very interesting, and I agree wholeheartedly with their cattle-ranching policy. There is way too much focus on marketing hype and EPD's (which we call EBV's  - estimated breeding values - over here). Basically the more feed you stuff into an animal, the bigger it gets. High performance equates to high maintenance. Like them I would rather have cattle that are natually good doers, that survive solely on the pastures and the hay/silage produced from the pastures.

Fertility is of high importance - having a cow with the best figures in the world means nothing if they don't produce a calf each year. Our figures are low to moderate - you certainly wouldn't call them high performance cattle - but they do what we want, and if they don't, they have to go.

Your friends are big-time - we are probably of the smaller scale that they dislike, but I'd like to think our philosophies are similar. We produce the best possible cattle for the limited amount of money that we have. We will probably never be truly profitable, because our numbers are so low and input costs high, but we do the best we can and we very much enjoy doing it.

Thanks again.