No-one has ever accused Mark Gubbins of standing idle when it comes to his livestock pursuits.

The Coolana Angus principal and former Angus Australia president has earned a reputation which spreads far beyond his Western District home as a passionate, energetic and innovative operator.

Together with his wife Anna, Mr Gubbins has built up one of the highest profile studs in southern Australia, and increasingly, one of the most influential Angus herds in the country.

And much of Beef Central’s recent catch-up with Mr Gubbins sums up why the Coolana story will continue to evolve into the future.

Inspecting cattle on Hamilla Downs, one of two Coolana properties in the Coorong district of South Australia’s Upper South East, Mr Gubbins points to some young calves. The Autumn-drops are black, in keeping with the rest of the Coolana herd, but have subtle, slightly lighter rings around their eyes. They are, in fact, part of Coolana’s growing herd of Black Simmentals.

“When I first saw Angus-Simmental cross cattle in the US, I thought the world was changing and that I’d better get involved,” he said.

“And now, when you look in the paddock at our Black Simmental heifers standing next to our commercial Angus heifers, they could be 10-15-20 per cent ahead. That’s a significant difference.”
Coolana's initial venture into the world of Black Simmentals was through a joint venture which has since finished, leaving the Gubbins family with all of the venture’s females and half of the males.

“I think we’re getting to the stage that we’ll look at some sort of sale in the next 18 months,” Mr Gubbins said.

“I think Victoria might the best place to launch from, especially given the Cartledge family’s Lancaster Black Simmental stud has become well established in the Upper SE of SA.”

Mr Gubbins said the success that American cattlemen were having with crossbreeding, especially by using a Black Simmental bull over Angus cows, was producing superior offspring.

“Australia’s beef industry cycle runs about 15 years behind the US and about 15 years ago, crossbreeding was taking off in the US. Now it’s just starting to take-off in Australia,” Mr Gubbins said.

“We’ll be telling our clients about the crossbreeding benefits of a Simmental infusion, while still producing black calves. Part of that process is more broadly getting the crossbreeding message out there to explain what we’re doing and why.”

Mr Gubbins says his experience with composite breeding in sheep is now being applied to beef cattle. Coolana has evolved from a traditional Corriedale flock to today’s composite flock of shedding-type sheep, comprising 7000 ewes.

“We’ve done a lot of composite breeding and crossbreeding in the sheep industry in order to produce better sheep. Now we’re turning off better lambs a lot earlier – all because we’ve gone out and tapped into the genetics from different breeds,” he said.

“Now, we believe we will be able to offer our clients something different to what they’ve got now. We hope to be able to work with them and set-up breeding plans where they can crossbreed in and out of Angus and Simmental.”

“As beef producers, our costs continue to rise and we need a better return for our cattle. So even if we can get five per cent more from hybrid vigour, that’s a significant free kick.”

Mr Gubbins said that while first-cross Black Simmental calves weren’t eligible for established Angus markets such as Certified Australian Angus Beef, the calves would demand a premium price in the market.

“These cattle speak for themselves so they’ll find a good market – good cattle always do,” he said.

Despite the Black Simmental venture, Mr Gubbins said Coolana would remain a committed Angus stud.

“We don’t feel it will compromise our Angus business, I think the Black Simmentals will actually complement our Angus operation,” he said.

“I don’t think the Black Simmentals will overrun Angus. They are just a very exciting crossbreeding option for Angus breeders“

Mr Gubbins said it was very easy to “have the blinkers on” as a stud breeder, but that commercial realities should always be in focus.

“The Angus breed has been very good to us and we want to continue to grow our Angus business,” he said.

“I’m an Angus breeder and we are committed in a big way to the Angus breed, but first and foremost I’m a beef producer.”

Key to ensuring that Angus numbers did not need to be sacrificed to make room for the Black Simmental program has been an increase in Coolana’s overall size in recent years, including the purchase of properties in South Australia.

“As our commercial scale grew, we ended up with sufficient commercial cattle to be able to start the Simmental program a couple of years ago,” Mr Gubbins said.

Expansion into SA

A significant part of Coolana’s commercial expansion has been the purchase of two grazing properties in South Australia. Hamilla Downs was purchased seven years ago, with the nearby Carinya added more recently, giving the Gubbins a strong foothold of about 4000 hectares along the Coorong, with a further 1000ha of adjoining leased land.

The Coorong country is 420 kilometres from Coolana home property at Chatsworth in Victoria, even though both areas average close to 500 millimetres of rain a year.

The SA purchases came about as part of the family’s succession plan for Mark and Anna’s two sons, Ben and Max, should they wish to pursue farming.

“We’re developing an autumn stud over here (SA) because I think this is better autumn country,” Mr Gubbins said.

“The other reason for splitting the stud up (autumn and spring) was so our two sons have the option of taking on an Angus stud each if they want one each in different places. Otherwise, when Anna and I come to retire there’s the possibility of selling one of the studs as a bit of superannuation, because much of our retirement nest-egg is locked into the properties.”

The stud’s links across the state border have grown in other ways over the years. The stud has built a loyal clientele in SA, particularly in the South East but also into the Mid North and pastoral areas. In addition to two annual bull sales at Chatsworth, Coolana has also held a bull sale at Willalooka in SA since 2010. With this in mind, the purchase of Hamilla Downs and Carinya made plenty of geographical sense for Coolana.

When Mr Gubbins was initially looking to buy more land, he quickly discovered the Coorong was very affordable, especially when compared to other options.

“The type of country I was looking for had become very expensive because of trees (Blue Gums) and the cropping boom,” he said.

“I reckon this Coorong country has a DSE rating of 1.5-2 and we bought it seven years ago for $640 an acre. I reckon that was good value.”

“Some other country we were looking at was near Geelong which they were trying to sell for $1800/acre. It was rocky and had no infrastructure, no pasture improvement and I thought it was DSE 1.5 country.”

The distance from Hamilla Downs and Carinya to Chatsworth means the Coolana herd is now spread over two quite distinct climatic areas. This brings with it both several advantages and challenges.

“We can push our Victorian country very hard and it doesn’t blow unless it’s the worst year imaginable. But you can rape and pillage this Coorong country quite easily if you’re not careful,” Mr Gubbins said.

One obvious challenge was how the Coolana cattle would cope on the Coorong’s sandy country, compared to the ironstone gravel of Chatsworth.

“Structure is one issue that’s getting worse with Angus and we’ve always spent a lot of time with our cattle on structure,” Mr Gubbins said.

“I wondered how their feet would cope on the sand but the cattle stood up very well over here.”

Mr Gubbins says the Coorong’s combination of veldt grass and lucerne is “just about unbeatable” as paddock feed.

“This is warm, healthy country. I think it really is fantastic grow-out country,” Mr Gubbins said.

“We’ve been growing out all of our pedigree heifers in SA and taking them home once their pregnant. They’ve classed back into our herd even better than those which have stayed at Chatsworth.”