THE scenery may have changed a few times over his lifetime but for Ross Fraser, cattle have been a constant over the years.
"My father was a drover in the Kimberley so I was brought up around cattle," Ross said.
"And my wife Lynette and I have always run cattle on our properties."
Ross and Lynette moved from Bridgetown to Boyup Brook 15 years ago after sub-divisions saw their once tranquil property almost swamped with new neighbours.
"We moved to get back to the peace and quiet," Ross said.
Since then they have continued with their cattle enterprise and currently run 250 Angus cross breeders on their 395 hectare property.
While Ross and Lynette are no strangers to cattle, they have only been involved with the Angus breed for the last four years moving away from a mixed Murray Grey and Charolais herd in 2007.
Over his years of being involved in the industry, Ross said he had always noticed how well the Angus breed seemed to do at sales but the turning point for the couple to move to Angus was in 2006 when they took a trip to Queensland for Beef Week.
"That was the first time we got a chance to have a good look at Angus bulls and we saw that genetic gain for the Angus was the best of any breed," Ross said.
"Since then we only run Angus bulls and have been breeding out the Charolais with the aim to becoming pure Angus."
Ross and Lynette have a split marketing system selling 50 of their calves as vealers with the remainder of the calves put into their own feedlot.
The calves are fed a ration of oats, lupins and hay for around 70 to 100 days, depending on their weight gain.
"We sell on weight rather than days on feed," Ross said.
"After they make weight we use an agent and sell to local butchers and processors and have never had any problems getting rid of the calves, which is the beauty of the Angus cross."
Ross said selling weight depended on individual butchers but aiming for the 240-250kg mark would usually guarantee a purchase while the lighter steers and heifers were sold to Goodchild Meats in Australind.
"The Angus are a great, easy-doing breed, that we can sell even if we don't finish them off ourselves," Ross said.
A majority of the Fraser's herd is self replacing as they keep 30 of their heifers each year but Ross said he sometimes bought in breeders to up his numbers.
"While it's nice to have my own line of cattle that have been bred from my own bulls it works out to be more economical to buy in breeders," Ross said.
"Buying them 'in calf' means you can get an almost immediate return but breeding them sees you carrying heifers over for a year or two before you get any return.
"But then again, with the prices where they are at the moment it is much better to be selling than buying and we haven't bought in breeders for a few years now."
Ross specially selects a smaller bull for his heifers which he joins on June 1 to aim for a March calving.
The heifers are mated at 14-15-months-old to calve at two years.
"This is a bit younger than normal as most people mate as 2yo but it works well for us," Ross said.
"Sometimes the heifers don't grow out as well when they reach maturity but we get an extra year of production out of them which pays off."
Ross said he never had any trouble mating the heifers at a younger age.
With a smaller bull they only had to pull two calves from heifers last year.
The cows are joined a month or so after the heifers from early July to August enabling Ross to get the heifer calving out of the way before the cows start in April.
Each bull is joined to 35-40 cows with the breeding herd split into smaller mobs and kept separate during mating.
Ross has five Angus bulls which he has sourced from the Monterey, Keston Vale and KDM studs.
"As we are new to the Angus game we haven't really had much of chance to try many genetics," Ross said.
"But we are happy with the bulls we have been purchasing so far.
"I am quite open and I keep my ear to the ground to see what is out there and will no doubt try other studs in the future to continually improve the genetics of the herd."
Ross selects his bulls mainly on visual appraisal as he said he was still relatively unfamiliar with the estimated breeding values (EBVs) of the Angus breed.
"I do look at the EBVs and raw data but the look of a bull is the main thing for me. I also spend time talking to the stud breeders about what I am chasing and get their recommendations."
Ross has bought one or two bulls every year since he started with the Angus breed five years ago.
The beginning of the 2011 season was a tough one for many in the South West and Ross and Lynette were unable to mate as many of their breeders as normal.
"We only mated 230 breeders rather than our normal 250," Ross said.
This year Ross and Lynette plan to keep a few extra heifers over as replacements to bring the numbers back up to their previous levels.
Because 2010 was a tough season and there was limited feed available, Ross and Lynette decided to sell a majority of their calves to a feedlot rather than feeding them themselves.
"We felt we needed to get rid of some numbers so we decided to sell them to a feedlot," Ross said.
"We ended up getting 200c/kg for them but the few that we did keep over and put in our own feedlot ended up selling for 460c/kg.
"I wish we could have kept more over but at that stage we weren't in a position to do so."
Ross said being small farmers can sometimes give them an edge when it comes to marketing options.
"We are opportunistic when it comes to marketing," Ross said.
"Every season is different and you have to be flexible to survive, especially as a small farmer."
Ross said although it was early days with the Angus breed he had been impressed with their performance over the past five years.
"I still have a lot to learn but the Angus are an easy care, good-doing breed that are exceptional mothers and meet many of the local markets," Ross said.
"They are very suited to our enterprise and we are going to continue with them well into the future."
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