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About Us

Brett Davidson and Dr Sarah Chaplin along with our children, Ted and Maisie, welcome you to have a look at our web site.

Mount Major Murray Greys is situated in a picturesque setting, 8 km north of Dookie, with views of Mount Major.

Our stud is founded on bloodlines from Dajory, Lindsay, Willalooka, Mount View, The Glen and Monterey. Through the use of these elite genetics we aim to provide high indexing animals with low birth weights. We want to provide quiet, well-handled bulls that will produce soft, well muscled, thick, meaty calves for our clients.

At Mount Major we have built up our herd into one that has outstanding type and performance,  producing industry leading the cattle that perform in the paddock. We are thrilled with our lastest herd EBV's which show that we have improved all carcass trait indexes, rib and rump fats, EMA, carcass weight, growth and now our IMF is a massive 0.7% for the whole herd, and our EBVs for EMA are now more than double the breed average. We have lowered birth weight and improved calving ease. All our herd sires have indexes in the top 1% of the breed, and since 2015 most of our drop has been in the top 10% of the breed and with over half in the top in the top 5%. We feel very proud that our breeding goals are coming to fruition.

Sarah and I are actively involved in agricultural research and extension. Sarah is on the Dookie Show Committee and Davo is the Victorian representative and Treasurer of the Board of the Murray Grey Beef Cattle Society. Sarah has a PhD in animal behaviour and welfare and works for Agriculture Victoria as a Senior Policy Officer for animal welfare. Davo has a Bachelor of Agriculture from Dookie College and also works for Agriculture Victoria as Regional Manager for the dairy extension team in Northern Victoria. Ted and Maisie both own cows in the herd and help with jobs around the farm.

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Cattle photography

On the day before this year's National Show & Sale, the Murray Grey Beef Cattle Society organised an education day which included a fascinating morning on marketing led by Ben Simpson of OGA Creative Agency. Ben is a professional cattle photographer and a cattle breeder himself, and showed us some techniques for taking better photographs of our cows. Davo and I are both very keen on using the flight zone and points of balance for calm, quiet stock handling but it was fascinating to see these principles being put into practice not so much to move cattle but to position them precisely for the perfect photo opportunity.

The tips we took home with us have taken our cattle photography to a new level (not Ben's level but a LOT better than what we were doing before). We tried out our new skills at the weekend with stunning results, using these guidelines:

• choose the time of day - either cloudy and overcast or evening
• be aware of the background - Ben taught us to think of our images as "a window into the health of our business" so a pile of old silage wrappers and hay band in the background is not a good look
• kneel down on one knee or crouch to make the animal look larger and more impressive - in our experience this means someone with good knees needs to take the photos as there can be a lot of up and down, shuffling around
• avoid shadows on the animal's body - we found that, when taking photos at sunset we would have to re-position the animal so their head didn't cast a shadow on their shoulder. This is where full sun is a problem, also.
• aim to have the nearside hind leg slightly extended backwards so you can see testicles/udder
• aim for "golden balls" - if you're lucky or very talented a shaft of light on the testicles highlights the important package
• take at least two people into the paddock for your photo session - Ben used three in his demonstration but we don't have that option and, for what we needed, we managed well with two. One person positions the animal; applying slight pressure at the front or back to move backwards or forwards and backing off quickly when the animal falls into position.
• get the animal's attention once it is in position - the helper needs to stand behind the photographer and slightly to one side, towards the animal's head, and do something interesting - waving a hat and making a loud "meurghh" noise worked for us. You don't want the animal to turn it's head too much so both people need to be positioned forwards of the shoulder.

This is our concept of what it all looks like:

Calving behaviour

It is important to recognise that no-one knows exactly how to predict when a calf is born. Preg testing and due dates will tell you approximately when to expect a calf but there is no way to pinpoint the day of calving until it has already started. It is the calf that determines when it will be born and this is most likely to be when staying in the uterus causes stress levels to rise, i.e. when it has got too big to stay there any longer.

Signs that calving is close

About 1 week before calving is due, the udder will start to fill with milk, ligaments around the tailhead relax, and the teats may appear waxy. This tells you when to bring cows into the calving paddock for closer observation.

12-24 hours before calving, you may start to see frequent urination/defaecation and restless behaviour with more activity, less total time lying down and more standing up/lying down. The cow may separate herself from the rest of the group, seeking a birth site, or show more interest in other cows' calves.

There are three stages of calving in cattle:

Early stage I -  suddenly tense and enlarged udder, raised tail or relaxed pelvic ligaments (these signs could also be immediately prelabour). The cervix dilates, the uterus starts rhythmic contract of increasing frequency and at the end of this stage the cervix will be fully dilated. The cow may turn to look at her belly, swish her tail and kick as she notices the contractions.

Late stage I - signs of viscous, bloody mucus or abdominal contractions; could also be transitioning to stage II labor

Calving - Contractions will increase in intensity, with the cow starting to "push". The placenta, may appear as a black bag which bursts, releasing placental fluids. In a normal calving, the front feet of the calf will appear first, pointing downwards as if the calf is going to dive out of the cow, followed by the calf's nose.

Expelling the placenta - usually the placenta is expelled within 8-24 hours of birth. The cow may eat the placenta so you may not be aware that this stage has occurred.

When it all goes horribly wrong . . .

Cows that are having dystocia (difficult calving) will spend longer in the later stages of labour and there may be more evidence of pain behaviours.

Where there is a malpresentation (the calf is coming the wrong way) you may see more contractions, more time lying down, more restlessness (stamping, tail switching, rubbing, turning head back) and more time with the tail raised.