MUCH has changed since 1955.
Australia has gone from an imperial to a decimal currency, the VFL became the AFL, the Beatles came and went and Australia has won the Ashes 15 times.
One thing that hasn't changed is that the Roe family are still running Angus cattle on their property in Gingin.
David and Sara Roe along with their three sons Will, Lewis and Fred live and work on the same land that David's father Bruce cleared in the early 1950s.
"Dad came here in 1950 with his father and his two brothers and they cleared the property which is now known as Benalong," David said.
Bruce and his wife Pauline also live and work on the property and together they are continuing on the family cattle farming tradition.
The original Roe men started with a herd made up of Poll Hereford, Shorthorn and Angus breeders but it wasn't long into the operation that David's father and grandfather realised the attributes of the Angus and to this day David and his family remain passionate about the breed.
"They are such a great dual purpose breed, are very fertile and fit a broad range of markets," David said.
"They also have a good doing ability on grass and are excellent mothers."
Currently David runs 600 breeders which come from a mixture of bloodlines from the Coonamble, Ardcairnie and Te Mania studs.
The Roes also artificially inseminate (AI) about 100 cows every year to infuse additional genetics into their herd.
"AI is the only way to go to get good genetics at a reasonable price," David said.
"We have recently used genetics from the Renny Lea stud from NSW."
David markets his cattle as grassfed beef aiming to meet the spring demand in October.
He sells the majority of them to Borello Beef, the local Gingin meat processor, and on average turns over 550 calves annually.
"This year our turnover was slightly down as we had to drop our numbers by five per cent over the drought in 2010," David said.
In a normal year 275 heifer calves are born, of which 140 are kept as replacements and the rest are weaned in December and marketed to the local supermarket and processing trade.
They are sold directly off grass the following spring.
"Grass is the cheapest form of feed and breeding total grassfed cattle means we don't have that extra expense of buying in grain," David said.
"The Angus do exceptionally well on a grass diet as well and apart from the drier years we have never had any trouble getting them up to weight.
"We average between 240kg to 270kg dressed weight for the steers and between 210kg to 270kg for the heifers."
David said as markets were always changing it was important to stay informed about other options available and in 2010 when feed was scarce on their property, he opted to enter into the live export market, sending his calves to Turkey.
"The Turkey market only required animals at a minimum 200kg rather than the domestic market's 500kg," David said.
"A lot of the cattle producers around the area did the same thing and it was good to have that option."
David added that although he didn't usually rely on the live export market it remained an important and viable alternative market for cattle producers.
"We don't normally do live export but due to the special circumstances it was one of our alternative options and it is important for the industry that the trade continues," he said.
David chose to retain his steers in 2011 to get back into the local market for 2012.
"It has been tough for the cash flow but I wanted to get back into the local market on the scale that we were supplying before the drought," he said.
The bulls are joined with the heifers on July 1 and are kept in for six weeks which gives the heifers a chance to cycle at least twice before the bulls are removed.
One of David's main objectives for the cattle is to establish a highly fertile breeding herd.
The six-week mating time for the heifers means that anything that isn't highly fertile doesn't conceive and therefore is culled.
"We get an average 82pc conception rate in the heifers this way," David said.
"Out of every 100 or so calves we find that we only have to pull two or three from the heifers and anything that needs assistance is culled."
The bulls are kept with the cows for nine weeks and are joined 10 days after the heifers.
David said when selecting his bulls he used both visual asssessment of the animal as well as its estimated breeding values (EBVs).
"EBVs are a fantastic tool and I wouldn't buy a bull without them, especially when it comes to selecting a bull solely for the heifers," he said.
As is the general response from all cattle producers at the moment, David is extremely happy with the prices he has recently been receiving for his beef and he can't see them dropping any time soon.
"Beef is a commodity and like any commodity it is about supply and demand," he said.
"As harsh as 2010 was for cattle producers it got rid of some of the oversupply we were seeing that was helping to push the prices down."
While he is positive about the future of the WA beef industry David said one of the threats comes from the lack of competition between the two major supermarkets.
"Again, it just comes back to the supply and demand issue and it is just that Coles and Woolworths are such a big part of that demand," he said.
"We need some more competitors in the market.
"IGA has been good for that and companies like Tesco, although it is foreign owned, will also become another player bringing more competition to the table."
Cattle have always been and will remain the main game at Benalong, but David and Bruce also run 1200 crossbred ewes and 450 White Dorpers.
"We run the sheep to offer a level of diversification to the business," David said.
"Sometimes people get too excited with diversification but with the two enterprises we can effectively spread our risk."
Although there were plenty of other enterprises out there to get involved in, David said he and his family would stay committed to cattle well into the future.
"We are cattle farmers, it is what we do, we know it and like it and I can't see us ever getting out of them," he said.
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