Community & Business
8 August, 2021
Farming like childbirth says Dr Scott
AS they prepare for their second Better Beef Open Day in less than two weeks time, Mandy Scott reflects on how life has changed for her and her husband Brett over the last few years.
BY SALLY TURLEY
AS they prepare for their second Better Beef Open Day in less than two weeks time, Mandy Scott reflects on how life has changed for her and her husband Brett over the last few years.
Just five years ago the pair of health professionals were living in Ingham, running a medical practice and getting their four children through school.
Then Dr Brett Scott decided to indulge his life-long dream of owning a cattle property and establishing his own stud beef herd.
The couple purchased a glorious 121.4ha ex-dairy property between Millaa Millaa and Ravenshoe, when it came on the market in 2016, named it Millstream Springs and got straight into establishing their very own Brangus stud.
After discussions with the highly respected Pearce family, of Telpara Hills Brangus stud, at the Tableland's Upper Barron, they purchased Telpara Miss Foundation, who went on to become the actual foundation of the newly formed "Millstream Springs" Brangus Stud.
"Brett liked everything about Miss Foundation. She was a big bodied cow with excellent temperament, a good udder and was built for ease of calving. She ticked all the boxes as the ideal female for us to base our stud on," Mrs Scott said.
"We had her flushed, bought a mob of embryo recipients and started an IVF program with her eggs which went on to produce a total of 30 calves. All of her female progeny have been retained as breeders in the stud and some of the bulls have already been onsold."
More recently, the Scotts decided to expand into breeding Speckled Park cattle, a breed combining Angus, White Park and Teeswater Shorthorn cattle that were developed in Canada over several decades and registered as a breed in Australia in 2007.
Noted for their strong maternal characteristics, their high marbling and fertility, their polledness and their attractive markings, it was what was under the skin that interested Brett and Mandy Scott.
The breed's ability to achieve dressing percentages 10% higher and up to 70% has been creating quite a buzz in the cattle industry.
"We have 10 Speckled Park embryo transplant recipients due to calve in the next 4 weeks and we bought two females when we were in Rockhampton for Beef Week.
One of those is also in calf and the other is rising 11 months, so the new stud will get quite a boost over the next few months," Ms Scott said.
As an urban South Australian, who trained as a nurse in Townsville, managed a medical practice in Ingham, was in the middle of raising 4 children and had never been near cattle in her life, Ms Scott admits the transition into property management was quite a challenging one.
"I was afraid of cattle, but we had invested everything we had into this property, so somebody had to be here. I have had cold, rainy days where everything goes wrong from burst water pipes to a randy bull swimming the dam to get to girls in the ET paddock and the key breaking off in the tractor, while trying to slash a paddock and the mower blades becoming completely blocked after accidentally hitting a tarpaulin."
When Mandy contacted Brett to seek advice on any of these situations, he had one nugget of wisdom to help her through her day – "It's like childbirth, you'll figure it out!"
While character building in the long term, this was not exactly the response she was looking for.
But five years on, after many lonely, frustrating days and endless challenges, Ms Scott said she has grown to love life on the land and would not choose to leave it and return to the medical world.
With Brett catching up on medical training most weekends, she is handling preparations for the Open Day in her stride.
Millstream Springs currently have two Brangus bulls ready for sale, Millstream Springs Bon Jovi Q4, born July 2019, is destined for sale in Rockhampton unless someone desperately wants him during the open day.
Ms Scott said Bon Jovi, son of Telpara Hills Real McCoy 920J19 was a head turner and the type of bull they would want in their stud if he was not genetically related.
In line with their current 80's rock star theme, the other bull, Millstream Springs Def Leppard Q5 is by Mr Newblood 50H, out of Miss Foundation 468L9.
Weighing in at 900kg, the polled sire , born July 2019 displays good heavy bone, great temperament, structural correctness and has impressive EBV's for purchasers consideration.
In addition to the bulls on offer, Ms Scott said they would again be presenting a line of 20 Brangus/Brangus cross steers which should average from 250-350kg and which would be weighed closer to the day.
"We have both Brangus stud and Brangus commercial sires available and plan to do the same with the Speckled Park stud, having the first of those bulls available for sale in late 2022," Ms Scott said.
