For Steve Taylor and his family, beef runs in their veins. From Augathella to Charleville to Mitchel to Morven to Chinchilla, the same philosophies rule when it comes to being profitable. Yet underpinning all they do is that nature knows best and man has a habit of making decisions to disrupt this. Steve is the last person to call himself a greenie, and being profitable is not an option but a necessity.
He is a keen observer of natural processes, and of wanting to work in tandem with those to produce high-quality beef. Such is Steve's respect for his country that the cattle operation was accredited organic for a number of years to recognise the natural production system. The Taylors run a herd of productive cows across western Queensland, and their breeding strategies see a mix of Bos Indicus and Bos Taurus genetics, usually in a ratio of about 30:70, respectively.
He is a keen observer of natural processes, and of wanting to work in tandem with those to produce high-quality beef.
Their particular mix offers the best of both breeds-Bos Taurus for meat quality and Bos Indicus for climate suitability. They breed their own bulls, initially for their own use, and select the top 5 percent of calves at marking and allow them to remain entire.
Those bulls are weighed and have scrotal circumference measurements taken as part of a later selection process to narrow down the number of potential sires. But the interest they attracted from other breeders led to an annual offering of Rangeland Bulls each year.
It was recognition of the commercial pressure they put on breeding a profitable herd of cattle for their own stations that sees about 100 bulls sold to a range of loyal clients wanting to tap into the genetic progress made with the Taylors' herd.
Steve and his wife Esmae now live on a property at Chinchilla, where they run their own smaller herd of cattle and produce bulls, while their daughters and partners, Kate and Peter Maloney and Kenton and Amy Peart operate the western Queensland country. Steve says he wants to continue to work with nature to produce the greatest amount of kilograms per hectare of beef sustainably and profitably.
