Getting Gene home
We'd been talking about buying our own bull for months before we did anything about it. That's fairly typical of how decisions get made here — a lot of conversation, a fair bit of second-guessing, and then eventually something happens that moves things along.
Until then, we'd had a much more practical arrangement. Our neighbour had loaned us his Boambee Angus bull, who went over our cows and heifers and has done an excellent job for us. They're now carrying his calves, and we're looking forward to seeing what he produces.
So buying another bull wasn't about replacing one that hadn't worked. It was about what came next.
We were getting more serious about the direction of the Angus herd and, for the first time, were in a position to choose and buy a bull ourselves with that longer-term direction in mind.
As it happened, I only knew the Karoo Angus sale was on because Fee from Hamlet & Fields mentioned it to me a few days beforehand. She was doing the marketing for the sale and said it was coming up.
I didn't make any particular plan to go.
Daniel did that for me.
On the morning of the sale he said, "I think you should go to that bull auction."
Then, a little while later, "I really think you should go to that bull auction."
Fee was going to be there, the sale wasn't far away, and eventually he wore me down.
So I went.
Five minutes before the sale
I arrived about five minutes before it started, which was late enough to discover that everyone else had apparently arrived in time for morning tea, cakes, a proper look at the bulls and, more importantly, bidder registration.
I had done none of those things.
By the time I realised I actually needed to register if I wanted to buy anything, everyone was seated and the auction was underway.
So I texted Daniel.
Am I just watching this, or am I buying? Because I need to go and register.
He replied:
Go register.
We were already up to Lot 9.
I liked the look of Lot 11, so I ducked out to register. By the time I got back, Lot 11 was gone.
Lot 13 looked interesting too, but by then it had occurred to me that if I was actually going to buy a bull, I should probably stop casually flicking through the catalogue and start reading it properly.
Which meant speed-reading it while the auction continued in front of me.
Lot 19
When I got to Lot 19, Karoo Versatile V214, I stopped.
That was the bull.
It sounds like a fairly quick decision, and on the day it was, but the thinking behind it wasn't. We'd spent months talking about what we wanted from the next bull and I knew what I was looking for.
Versatility mattered a lot to me. I wanted growth and temperament, but I also wanted cattle that could keep performing when conditions weren't particularly generous. Around here, there are seasons when being able to get by on the smell of grass is a useful quality.
I'd also been looking for a lower birth-weight bull, particularly with heifers in mind, and Gene wasn't quite where I'd originally intended to land on that.
That was the compromise.
The cows and heifers we had at the time were already going to be joined to the Boambee bull before Gene arrived, so there was time to work out exactly where he would fit into the breeding program. Against the higher birth weight were the things I really liked about him: his growth, carcase, temperament and, appropriately enough given his name, his versatility.
On balance, I thought those were worth investing in.
So I bid.
I may also have accidentally put the price up by $2,000 in one bid.
And Lot 19 became ours.
What comes next
Gene is the first bull we've selected and purchased ourselves specifically for the longer-term direction of the herd.
That doesn't mean everything before him was accidental. The Boambee bull has served us extremely well, and his calves will form part of the herd we're building from here.
What has changed is that we're now thinking further ahead.
Which females do we retain? Which traits do we want more of? What works here, on this country, in good seasons and bad ones? And what sort of cattle do we want to be producing several generations from now?
Gene is part of answering those questions.
His first calves here are still some way off, so most of that story hasn't happened yet.
For now, this is simply how he arrived: months of talking about buying a bull, a chance mention of an upcoming sale, Daniel insisting I go, arriving five minutes before the auction, registering after it had already started, missing Lot 11, speed-reading the catalogue — and finding the bull we wanted at Lot 19.
