Diamond Tree sparkles to $19,000

An Angus spectacular that glistened was the best way to describe the Diamond Tree annual bull sale held last week at the Gandy family’s Manjimup property.

Stud records were broken many times over, with the largest offering yet of 75 bulls, reaching a stud record top price of $19,000 and a stud record average price of $7870.

With only one more bull sale to go in 2017 for Diamond Tree co-principal Kim Gandy, he is truly making a mark in the industry as he contemplates retirement.

Mr Gandy sold the stud prefix with 300 registered females back in October and will wrap up his career as a seedstock producer next year.

“I was extremely pleased with the support over the years, looking forward to what next year brings,” he said.

Many repeat buyers were on hand to bid on the quality at the sale, including the Phillips family of Manjimup, who secured the sale-topper Diamond Tree Mentor K14.

The 820kg bull was at the top of their list, according to Lyndsay Phillips.

“He is a big sirey type with a good temperament, structurally correct and will go over a select group of cows,” she said.

“He represents a new bloodline and has good growth Estimated Breeding Values as well as carcase eye muscle area and with a moderate birth weight.”

The Phillips family run 850 cow breeders and have 150 heifers and are wanting to increase cow numbers to 1000 and sell calves mostly to feedlotters and supply heifers to commercial producers.

They bought three other bulls for $8000 and two at $7000 each.

The $15,000 second top-priced bull, Diamond Tree Bartel K34, sold to Joe Bendotti of Pemberton.

The Bendotti family mostly produce avocados and also run 100 head of Angus breeders, a win-win with both commodities doing well in the market place.

Another Mentor son, DT K161, sold for $14,000 to Anthony McDonald of Kuloomba Farming, Esperance, a first-time buyer at the sale.

Mr McDonald, who was the under bidder on the top-priced bull, said he was moving his herd of 1200 breeders back to Angus and was selecting for balanced EBV figures and would put the bull over cows that were third calvers.

“I sell calves into the feedlots before the beef ends up at Woolworths,” he said.

FV Hortin & Sons of Albany paid $13,500 for a 1036kg upstanding, 7.9 framed bull catalogued as lot one.

Sired by Dunnon Gabba, the massive bull kick-started a sale that had competitive bidding from beginning to end.

The Hortin family also bought bulls for $9750, $9250 and $8250.

Account DR & DJ Roche, of Pemberton, paid $11,250 for DT Mentor K120, while RJ & JD Reed, of Albany, paid $10,750 for DT Bartel K22 and account Glenbrae Pastoral paid $10,500 for DT Bartel K141.

G & N Wilkinson, of Badgingarra, paid $10,250 for DT Mentor K195.

The Schwartz family, who have bought the Diamond Tree stud prefix along with 300 females, paid $9250 and $9000 for bulls.

Howard Schwartz said his family was preparing to sell Diamond Tree bulls in 2018.

“We have lots to do, but there is good time to prepare,” he said.