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Agriculture

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Decades of Experience
From a 100 hectare hobby farm in 1969, to over 400,000 hectares in 2009, Twynam has a long history in agriculture as a family business.

Today, our agricultural focus is Beef and Regenerative Ag.

We breed and grow out our animals on two farms near Marulan NSW – Wingello Park and Johnniefields.
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We also operate a herd of 1,300 Angus cows at Jugiong which are used as ET recipients and to produce animals for progeny testing, which will give us insight into sires and sire lines that are feed efficient whilst also having desirable carcass traits.

Feed Efficient Beef – Angus & Composite

A beef producer’s biggest cost is feed, whether it is the land to be grazed or the grain and hay fed out. Our focus is to produce cattle that genetically eat less feed while maintaining or gaining the same weight. 20% gains in feed efficiency are achievable.

Whilst we concentrate on feed efficiency, we do not lose sight of the other attributes required for profitable beef production, notably fertility and structure. An animal must reproduce and be able to walk for many years.

The other key breeding objective of the Twynam herd is marbling. We’ve always believed that marbling enhances eating quality, which in turn encourages consumers to choose our product.  

Feed Efficiency

There are four measures of feed efficiency that include:
• NFI (net feed intake)
• FCR (feed conversion rate)
• DMI (dry matter intake)
• ADG (average daily gain)

Each measure tells its own story. We consider all of them in our breeding and selection process.

One of the challenges facing the industry is the limited amount of Feed Efficiency testing being conducted. Twynam is the largest tester of Angus cattle in Australia and the only stud that tests all its female as well as its male progeny. In 2024 we tested 900 animals.

The accuracy of EBVs (Estimated Breeding Values) for Feed Efficiency leaves a lot to be desired due to the very small amount of actual testing that is done, so we place a lot of emphasis on our own derived data. At present we are not submitting our Feed Efficiency data to Breedplan.
How accurate is it?
The heritability of these traits vary between 0.2 and 0.5. Very similar to many of the traits we normally select for.

Questions are often asked about the relevance of testing young animals on a grain-based diet. The science shows that:
- There is an 80% correlation between heifer feed efficiency and that shown by adult cows.
- There is also an 80% correlation between feed efficiency on a feedlot ration compared to an animal grazing pasture
Methane Correlations
There is growing global concern about the sustainability of beef production. There are arguments for and against. We do know that there is an 80% correlation between dry matter intake (DMI) & methane emissions. So any improvement in Feed Efficiency wont just help your profitability but will also help the environment.
Regenerative Farming
Our system revolves around minimizing artificial fertilizers and chemicals as much as possible, applying biological mixes, multi-species pasture and intensive rotational grazing. Our goal is to increase the carbon content of our soils. We have also implemented some swales to manage water flows, along the lines of Natural Sequence Farming (Peter Andrew’s concept).
Customer Spotlight
“We've had great success with Twynam Angus bulls on our NT and QLD stations. They've thrived in tough conditions and produced high-quality calves for feedlot markets and replacement females. After purchasing stud females from the Twynam Angus reduction sale, they've excelled in our central Queensland operations, handling heat and parasitic pressure remarkably well, with top-tier calves. Having worked at Twynam for 10 years, I knew the rigorous selection process they apply, and this gave me confidence in choosing their genetics for the CPC stud and commercial herds.”
Troy Setter
Chief Executive Officer, Consolidated Pastoral Company

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Twynam Funds Management Pty Ltd ACN 665 482 119 (Twynam Funds Management) is a corporate authorised representative (CAR) (CAR Number 1302016) of Boutique Capital Pty Ltd ACN 621 697 621 (Boutique Capital) AFSL 508011.  Any information or advice is general advice only and has been prepared by Twynam Funds Management for individuals identified as wholesale investors for the purposes of providing a financial product or financial service, under Section 761G or Section 761GA of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth). Any information or advice given does not take into account your particular objectives, financial situation or needs and before acting on the advice, you should consider the appropriateness of the advice, having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs. If any advice relates to the acquisition, or possible acquisition, of a particular financial product you should read any relevant Product Disclosure Statement or like instrument.