By Burt Rutherford Contributing Editor
“It’s the same. We just use different words.”
Of the many things Mia Doering saw and learned during her time observing the cattle business in Texas and comparing it with Australia, it was that the similarities far outweigh the differences.
She got the opportunity to study abroad when she received the R.J. Kleberg Scholarship, through the Australian Santa Gertrudis Breeders Association. “I grew up on our family ranch,” she says, where they raise seedstock Santa Gertrudis and a commercial cow-calf herd.
Presently, she works for Consolidated Pastoral Company in Australia as a safety and welfare business partner, “working alongside our teams to improve our safety performance, our communication skills, our training and all the people components of the ranching side of things.”
That’s quite a task, given that the company’s ranches span 3.2 million hectares (nearly 8 million acres) on nine ranches spread across Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia.
Interestingly, her dad received the same scholarship more than 30 years ago. It was through the connections he made back then that gave Doering a truly insightful experience.
Those connections led her to visit James Clement with the King Ranch in Texas, where the Santa Gertrudis breed originated and where she lived and worked alongside the cowboys and other employees for nine weeks.
“I was really lucky that I got to spend a bit of time at King Ranch, working across all facets, including Santa Gertrudis cattle, Quarter Horses and and learn about their lotting operations,” she says. Consolidated Pastoral’s ranches are all in regions that are hot, remote, with sparse forage. That’s not unlike the Wild Horse Prairie where the King Ranch is located, other than the terrain. The Australian ranches are in rough, rugged, rocky and sometimes steep landscapes with little infrastructure, where being a cow can be challenging.
As such, they have an early weaning program, she says. “It’s very similar to what you guys call preconditioning. We develop a ration to kickstart the rumen.”
However, it’s designed primarily to give the cows ample time to recover and breed back. “We wean them early to increase fertility rates and the chance of rebreed in the seasonal conditions.”
Doering spent many hours with Clement, learning not just the daily happenings on the King Ranch, but the longer term management objectives as well. “He showed me their way of life in Texas and the ranching culture, the stewardship of the land and all the values of the King Ranch with family, the cattle, the horses, the history and the people. Very much the culture we value in Australia.”
Some of those conversations were about ways to revitalize the scholarship into a two-way exchange, where a young person in Australia comes to America and a young person from America goes to Australia.
“I was also very blessed that Dr. Rick Machen invited me to the King Ranch Institute of Ranch Management,” on the campus of Texas A&M-Kingsville. “The lectureship that was on while I was there was on cow-calf operations. It was really insightful and had a lot of principles I could take back and apply on our own operation.”
Following her nine weeks on the King Ranch, Doering joined Chris McClure and his wife, Missy, on a tour across Texas, visiting more ranches and feedyards. “There were some really awesome ranches where you could see the consistency in their breeding and creating a really superb animal, both phenotype and genotype,” she says.
“I think in Australia, we value our Santa Gertrudis so much for their phenotype,” she added. While some breeders are chasing genetic indication numbers, which are called EBVs in Australia, “You can’t evaluate an animal just on numbers unless you’ve got the phenotype to support that. We are a lot tougher on phenotype because our climate and terrain is so extreme.”
While her memories are many, spending several days in Fort Worth to enjoy the Fort Worth Stock Show and Rodeo are a highlight. The King Ranch had a team in the Ranch Rodeo, “and that was truly incredible to watch,” she says.
The second night, she was able to go behind the chutes and visit with the cowboys she got to know on the King Ranch. “That was a really special privilege.”
But it was on the first night that made the greatest impression. “I was so moved by the opening ceremony and the patriotism of Americans. It truly brought a tear to my eye.”
Then there were the “firsts,” like the first time she beheld the wonder of snow. “From the Fort Worth Stock Show, we we’re going to the Amarillo area,” says McClure, former executive of the Santa Geretrudis Breeders International, the U.S. breed registry for Santa Gertrudis cattle. “But we made a detour through the Wichita Mountains in western Oklahoma. And it snowed while we were there.”
What’s more, her exposure to a Southern Plains winter didn’t stop with a snow ball. She got to experience truly bone-chilling weather. “Our trip to the Texas Panhandle was to see the sheer scale of cattle feeding, which compared to Australia is pretty extraordinary,” Doering says.
That wasn’t the only extraordinary thing she experienced. “It was -18° Celsius [hovering around 0° Fahrenheit]. It was bloody cold!”
One difference she noted is the rate of technology adoption between the two countries. “I think Australia is really lucky that we have corporates like Australian Agriculture Company, Consolidated Pastoral and a few others. Because we’ve got such large-scale operations, we can afford to try new things and try new systems,” she says.
“If the big guys try something, then the smaller producers will pick it up.” But a “smaller producer” in Australia is different than in America. “I was shocked to know that in America, the average herd size is 30 to 40 head. In Australia, we would call that a hobby farmer.”
There’s also a difference in land value, especially in states like Texas where often the landowner also owns the mineral rights below the surface. “It a completely different system here. A lot of big mining companies will own the underneath, not the producer. So if we’re running cattle, the cattle have to pay for the land.”
In a sense, that’s no different from many parts of the U.S., where either the present landowner doesn’t own the mineral rights or there is no oil, natural gas or other minerals to worry about.
Another difference Doering noted is how male dominated the cattle business is in the United States. In Australia, “It is so common for females to be working out in the yards and on stations, doing big hours and working just as hard as any of our male counterparts.”
She still does that and found it funny to overhear a few comments. “Like when I was riding the feedlot yards and someone came in and says, ‘Is that a ponytail in the yard?’”
The person wasn’t used to seeing women on horseback, working cattle. “And I just thought, ‘wow.’ I didn’t think anything of it because that’s exactly what we’d do at home.” Then, sitting in management meetings, she noticed something strange. “Being the only girl in the room, I thought there’s something wrong with this room. There needs to be more women in here.”
It’s different in Australia. “It’s interesting the way things are changing here in Australia and I wonder if there’ll be more women in beef over in America, especially in leadership positions. We’re almost more than 50 percent female on the ground, which is fantastic to see because that is essentially our labor force.”
As more and more women enter the labor force in the cattle business, both in the U.S. and Australia, Doering expects to see more and more women in management and leadership positions on boards of directors. “That’s what makes me excited. That’s where I want to be in 20 years.”
She hopes someday to return to the family ranch. “But Dad’s not looking at slowing down anytime soon.” So she will continue to work hard and learn more management skills with Consolidated Pastoral.
But her mind’s eye is looking across the globe. “I definitely will be back. That’s for sure.”
And it won’t just be to learn more about the cattle business. After all, she told McClure that one of the things she misses most about her time in Texas is the Mexican food.
