In their 64th year of offering calves in the Ensay leg of the mountain calf sales, Barry and Topsy Newcomen expect every animal in their top pen of steers to weigh in excess of 400kg on-farm.
Barry and his brother Evan, trading as BC & EO Newcomen, were regular sale toppers for 34 years before they each went into partnership with their wives 30 years ago. Both have continued to offer top class animals every year.
Barry and Topsy, trading as BC & AJ Newcomen, will weigh all 220 of their sale calves this week and post the average weight of each pen of animals on the fence at the sale – for five pens of steers and four pens of heifers.
“We always weigh each animal a week out from the sale and then run them through the race again to give them a numbered tag, corresponding to their weight. So, tag numbers 1-20 will be the heaviest animals,” Barry said.
“It’s something we started doing a few years ago to give buyers as much information as we can. We post the pen average on the fence for the sale, but if any buyer is interested to know, we can provide every animal’s individual weight.”
The top pen of 20-odd steers will comprise animals ranging in age from nine months to a year old and Barry is confident they will all be in excess of 400kg, an extrapolation based on earlier weighings and their proven growth rates.
“All the calves are by the stud sires we use in our Newcomen Herefords stud; sires selected to improve growth rates and put weight into all our animals,” Barry said.
“For instance, we are selling calves by our impressive
new sire Quamby Plains Quandary, who has an EBV 600 day growth weight of 141 and Yarram Storm, whose 600-day growth weight is 114. Those bulls have sons in our 21st annual bull sale on Wednesday, March 13, but they’ve also got sons in the calf sales and that means they’re influencing weights right through our herd.”
Barry retained a solid proportion of heifers as replacement stock, so only 90 of the 220 calf offering are heifers. But all the sale calves have had a good run up to the sale – they were weaned in November, put into the better paddocks and have been well-handled on horseback, with the Can-Am, bike and dogs.
They’ve all had 5-in-1, Multimin and been drenched for worms. Like many farms in the area, pinkeye has been a source of constant concern but vigilance and treatment whenever its required means that any animal presented for sale by the Newcomens is considered to be on the mend or healed.
“We’ve been right on to it,” Barry explained.
“It seems to be widespread in the area this year, so we have had them in to the yards frequently, going through them and treating where it’s needed. It’s time consuming but the up-side is that they are well handled and quiet.”
Bulls to be sold in the Newcomen Herefords annual bull sale will be on display at Barry and Topsy’s property Kanangra on Ensay calf sale day. The property is a few kilometres from the Ensay sale yard and on the Highway to Omeo, where the calf sales will continue in the afternoon.
