Rodger Pryce - Full Interview: Millah Murrah Prue and Rocket Man
Mark Barnett interviews Rodger Pryce from Brooklana Angus, the owner of Millah Murrah Rocket Man and Millah Murrah Prue.
Mark had the opportunity to chat with Rodger enroute to Ben Nevis during the ABS Tour. Rodger shares a bit of his background, his career and journey in purchasing the most valuable bull and cow in the Angus breed.
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Mark:
Well, here we are on the road from Bulliac Angus, where are we going next? Ben Nevis, where we're really enjoying the ABS Tour. I had a great day yesterday and the day before a lot of learning and some wonderful camaraderie being developed, some great networking.
I'm in the car with a colleague of mine, Greg Russell from Ulladulla and Rodger Pryce from Brooklana Angus who most of you know, has ownership of a magnificent cow, Millah Murrah Prue, and recently bought Millah Murrah Rocket Man. Just want to talk a little bit about Rodger's background because it's a fascinating story.
Rodger:
Well, it actually goes back to my first career back in New Zealand, which wasn't in the field of bovine genetics. And I actually worked for ABS in New Zealand. They transferred three of us over to Australia in 1973 to develop the brand and ABS Australia.
So and then I got side-tracked into other areas including property and property development. Bovine genetics is a very narrow field. So there, there actually weren’t many opportunities, but the change was really forced upon me by Elders who at that point of time held the ABS license in Australia. So they transferred me out of the genetic side of their business into the rural property side. So yeah, it was fortuitous. And if you follow the people who make money, quite a few of them make it out of property. So, it was a good change for me.
Mark:
Fantastic. And now you’re near Coffs Harbour with a little bit of moisture lately.
Rodger:
Yes, we're in a microclimate sitting on the escarpment of the Great Dividing Range. Our annual rainfall is three meters. So, our challenges are the same as anyone else and that is rainfall. But invariably our challenges are managing the amount we get, not the lack of, so we've had two meters of rain in the first two and a half months of 2022. So we're a bit of a mess.
Mark:
So, two thirds of the annual rainfall, you've had in the first two months.
Rodger:
Correct, and March is usually a very wet month for us. The first year that we bought the farm, we had five floods and a drought in one 12 months. Yeah, it's interesting. I think we had 110 inches in eight weeks but we're learning to manage the rainfall. We have very much regenerative principles of agriculture. And we make sure that we have a sustainable environment and shy away from, chemicals and things and just get the soil as healthy as we can. Rich in microbes, earthworms and healthy soil, healthy plants, and healthy cattle.
Mark:
Yeah. Beautiful. So, a lot of strip grazing, moving them quite often from one patch to the other and that sort of thing.
Rodger:
Yeah. We basically have a dairy farm with beef cows instead of dairy cows, we sell grazing. Most of our cattle are moved every 48 hours. I think about this time last year, we have about 200 hectares of developed land and 250 hectares of pristine rainforest, adjoining the Dorrigo National Park, and 12 months ago, we had something like 500 head on 500 acres.
Mark:
And so, your silage program this year has been a bit of a shambles with all that water during the harvest period, I guess.
Rodger:
Well, we haven't had a silage program yet. We're waiting for a little bit of a break in the weather, but if the season changes and we start getting a bit colder, then we probably won't be able to bale any silage then, which means we'll be going into our dry time - the winter, and we have a dry spring without fodder reserves.
Mark:
So, things are all thrown up in front of us in terms of management and it changes very dynamically, doesn't it? At the conference we heard about the last four years, fires, droughts, floods, coronavirus, and then we were all gathering around, chatting to each other about how wonderful things are. It's really just an expression of the resilience of cattle breeders.
And here we are driving along on the way to Ben Nevis with pasture up to the fences and paddocks every now and again, where we can see the tops of animals because they're in the depths of a beautiful season.
So, let's talk about this cow you bought, Prue. Now we're going back! When, when was that?
Millah Murrah Prue M4
Rodger:
It was in 2017, at the Millah Murrah sale, where basically the owners of Millah Murrah, the Thompson family split their cow numbers in two and Russ Thompson tried to do it as evenly as he could. And he described this heifer, and she was at the time probably the best animal that he had ever bred.
When I got back into Bovine genetics in 2009, which was when we bought the property. I followed my education in terms of following the science of estimated breeding values and went down that track bred some trait leaders for different traits. But I thought there was something missing. And so I renewed my research and Millah Murrah had traditionally achieved the highest average price for their Bulls. And of real interest to me was really the core of the sale was to produce two commercial producers.
I was also interested that the foundation of the Millah Murrah stud was based on New Zealand genetics and of course being a Kiwi, when ABS purchased the little artificial breeding company that I was associated with in New Zealand. They said they did that, that was about 1970/71, because at that point of time, they believed New Zealand had the best quality Angus cattle in the world.
Mark:
I remember those days the Kiwis were, you know, the Aussies would flock there, and they had fabulous sales of cattle with great depth and width.
Rodger:
Yeah Mark, they had to forage. When I left New Zealand, you never heard of a feed lot. So even today, hardly any feed lots on the New Zealand side. Basically a grass-based industry, the beef industry but cattle have to move. They have to forage. They have to look after themselves. Raise a calf and sometimes pretty extreme climatic conditions. So that was a bit of a tick for me with Millah Murrah and then I went down and I had a look prior to the sale and when I saw the heifer, there was only one place she was going to end up. And that was back at Brooklana Angus.
Mark:
Love that determination!
Rodger:
Well, we paid $190,000 and then the next highest price paid for an Angus female, prior to that was $48,000.
Mark:
So, what has become of her? So she'd be seven, eight years old now.
Rodger:
She was rising two when I bought her in 2017. So maybe not that. Probably 5 or 6. Look, I've only flushed her a couple of times. And one of my objectives was to really honour the contribution that cows make to the beef industry. In an actual fact, the contribution that females across all species make, to whatever the species happens to be. So, I wanted to look after her, give her a really good life.
I'd lost my mother a couple of years previously, I think she was 98, and my mother-in-law and two amazing women coming through that generation really held families together. They were magnificent providers.
In my opinion, you know, the concentration is on the bull, whereas behind every breeding operation is a herd of cows. And I honestly believe that we've got it all back to front. We concentrate on the end product, the terminal product, which is the steer that is sold off on everybody, concentrates on what they look like and all the rest. But I think the concentration should be on the cows.
Mark:
So, you've got a handful of daughters who are in production themselves?
Rodger:
Yes. The first year we had Prue, she had 12 calves, obviously all but one via ET. And those daughters, we subsequently selected the best three or four of those daughters and we flushed those daughters.
So we've got ET calves out of Prue's daughters. And we also flushed Prue to Millah Murrah Paratrooper who has become a little bit of a legend in the Angus breed, even though he's still a relatively young sire, his progeny is outstanding. And our Millah Murrah Prue and Millah Murrah Paratrooper son is now about 18 months old and he's exquisite and he's an amazing looking animal.
Mark:
So Paratrooper’s son out of Prue.
Rodger:
Correct.
Mark:
That sounds like hot property to me!
Rodger:
He's a beautiful boy and temperament is outstanding as is phenotype. So estimated breeding values. This is a little bit of a fluke I suppose. But the EBVs that he excels in are based on these pictures of the ones that I concentrate on as a maternal breeder of Angus cattle.
Mark:
So, gestation length, that sort of stuff you talking about?
Rodger:
Look, gestation length is very short - top 1% Growth is all positive food conversion, which there's going to be some interesting revelations before, too long in relation to the corresponding trait being food conversion with methane gas emissions. So, there's a link there.
Mark:
The NFI is going to be something that we're going to hear a little bit more about, isn't it?
Rodger:
Look I believe so. We were all conscious of it. A changing world, changing climate conditions. Cattle are actually high contributors to emissions and so if we can find the key to identifying those cattle that genetically emit lower levels. Then I think that's going to be a very important trait going forward. And interestingly enough, it appears as though there is also a link to feed efficiency. So again, if we carry animals that eat less to reach their peak performance, coupled with lower emissions, I think that's going to become a very, very important trait.
Mark:
It's interesting that Carbon Cattle, we might call them. We're doing a trial shortly utilizing seaweed of all things which was spoken about at the ABS conference, and I think it was one of the more interesting talks or certainly grabbed the attention of a lot of people. Lots of research going on there, how they commercialize it. Like any of these things is always going to be a challenge, but some fascinating data is coming from there. And I think you're right, Rodger, the guys on King Island, for generations have been harvesting seaweed, giving it to their cattle, turning it into soap, doing their own thing with it. And I think it's going to become a global opportunity in that arena.
Rodger:
Look, I couldn't agree more Mark. And we received three meters a year of rainfall, where we are. The challenge is keeping up pastures together and keeping them healthy. So, I first identified King Island kelp back in 2009, and I've been using it in various forms with various additives during that period of time. So we apply the folio application. And as I stated earlier, I think the healthier you keep your pastures, then the healthier cattle actually are. So, I'm in full agreement.
Mark:
We've got another one to talk about. Rocket Man was not a two-bob investment. It was quite significant! Rodger, another Millah Murrah. One of the highest priced bulls in the country. What's become of him, whose catalogs is he in? And well firstly, why did you buy him? Trying to get rid of some money or what were you doing?
Millah Murrah Rocket Man R38
Rodger:
Well, because I bred this Paratrooper bull out of Prue. And I knew from an early age and Bill Cornell, the beef manager for ABS saw the calf when he was three to four months of age. And we agreed at that point of time if he ever developed into a bull worthy of being in an AI catalog. And if he did go into an AI center, it would be with the ABS. The bull has developed in accordance with our expectations.
And then along came Millah Murrah Rocket Man. A Paratrooper son and was touted to be an exceptional bull. I viewed him as a potential area of competition from the bull that I had bred. So, I bought the competition. He cost $280,000. So that's an Australasian record price for an Angus bull. So right at this point of time also right at this minute, I happen to own the most valuable bull and cow in the Angus breed. I dare say that’s going to be broken very shortly, but…
Mark:
Why? Are you going to buy another one?
Rodger:
Somebody else. Yes. The nerves get a bit frayed. Particularly with my wife who doesn't swear very much, but she swore when I told her how much we paid for Prue. I think she's still stuttering over Rocket Man.
If I did something again, then you'll probably read about my accidental death in the papers I think so no I don't want to buy another one. I'm not young. And I've got a few years. of breeding ahead of me playing around with Prue and Rocket Man. And the new one, which is the Brooklana Revolution.
Mark:
Well, that sounds pretty exciting. So, the future of Revolution is via an ABS catalog sometime soon.
Rodger:
Yeah. Well, Rocket Man has been leased for life to ABS. It took a little bit of time for him to get over his trip and the sale and everything, which was reflecting on the quality of his semen, so it wasn't until late 2021 that he started producing viable commercial semen.
We are now midway through March and already he's ranked number three Angus bull in terms of sales. I think he's probably going to reach the number one position before too long. 500 doses went over to America two or three weeks ago and he has appeared in the ABS American catalog.
Mark:
Rodger, just on that for a moment, that's not something that's very common. These American bulls have been coming out here for a long time and the American steak, the view that they've got the best thing since sliced bread. And it's pretty exciting to have Aussie bulls going back that way. This is kind of a new experience
Rodger:
I think it's the old coals to Newcastle analogy and yeah, I think our cattle are going to perform extremely well over there. We do have different selection criteria to a degree than the Americans. Other things are more important to us than they are to the American market.
But yeah, I think that's probably going to be a very lucrative market and we also have South America and we also have New Zealand. So, it's Revolution will be down at the collection center in Camperdown and Victoria. He's the Prue x Paratrooper son. Later on, this month. So, I would suspect the way he looks and his fertility, which we've already tested. I would expect that semen would be available on the market in the short term.
Mark:
And so, I'm getting a feeling that a Rocket Man x Prue mating might take place sometime soon.
Rodger:
Absolutely. She was supposed to be open. I had a run-in with a bull we had a lot of success with.
An Emperor son out of a Champagne cow who I had sold and I bought him back. He had done his stifled, but was hopping around and riding them and appeared to be in pain. So I had him with Prue. So we got the vet out to check that she was emptied before we started getting him ready for an ET program in September and she's pregnant with twin bull calves due to calve next month.
Mark:
Wow. Okay, well, this has been a lovely ride.
Thank you for having us in your vehicle, rather than the bus. Albeit the bus was a bit of fun too. So, we're not far from Ben Nevis and we've been enjoying the cattle everywhere we've been, and it's great to socialize and talk and, and Rodger, thank you. It's been good to hear about your program and a bit about your background.
Rodger:
Well, look, it's been my pleasure Mark, and we strike up new relationships, new friendships and it all broadens our experience and keeps our minds active. And sometimes people think that learning is only a one way street, but I can assure you it's always a two-way street. We always learn something from each other. And I think that's great. So, I'll look forward to maintaining my relationship with you guys, and we'll keep in touch and probably do some business.
Mark:
Well, that'd be awesome. Tassie's a good place to visit. So, we look forward to having you at some time in the future.
I hope you have enjoyed this interview and please drop us an email any time and share your thoughts.
All the best. Mark
