WHO ARE WE?
Principal of the Galimbang operation is James CRAWFORD. James and his
family originally came from properties in the Naas district south of
Tharwa in the Southern Tablelands/Monaro where they bred and ran
Sheep, Cattle and Horses suited to the light and mountainous country.
They were among the first to adopt AI in cattle breeding in the 1970s,
progressing seedstock production both for themselves and other leading
district operations.
The “G and a Spur” large stock brand of Galimbang was first registered
by James’s Grandfather, Granville Crawford in 1924 and has been passed
down to James through his father, also named Granville Crawford.
James is a graduate in Applied Science in Agriculture from the prestigious
Wagga Agricultural College (now Charles Sturt University) and then furthered
his experience with time on an ICM cattle breeding operation “Vieta” at
Hillston. He also spent some time on a Bankers Trust finishing operation
“Ravensworth” at Hay before a year in Canada on a family stud cattle and
cropping operation outside Claresholm Alberta.
A career in Rural banking followed over the next 20 or so years providing
an opportunity to observe farm operations throughout Qld and NSW and the
relationship between various production approaches and their business performance.
Around the year 2000 and concurrent with banking, James owned and ran a
mixed cropping and feeder steer backgrounding operation at Junee Reefs.
This was an opportunity to measure and observe firsthand the performance
of cattle from varied backgrounds and breeding.
In 2013 the family seized the opportunity to relocate to Yaven Creek ADELONG
- a tightly held locality of high rainfall grazing in the Riverina Highlands.
This enabled the effective pursuit of excellence and scale in beef production
and breeding.
The property is operated by James with assistance from his partner Carolyn
BROWNE, whilst children William and Ellie CRAWFORD are pursuing tertiary
education in Engineering and Data Science respectively.
WHERE ARE WE?
Galimbang is located 20km up the Yaven Creek Road, south of the Snowy
Mountains Highway in the Riverina Highlands of NSW. About midway
between Adelong and Tumbarumba, West of Batlow.
The property is approximately 915 Ha in size with some 620 Ha now cleared
and watered to achieve a notional Carrying capacity of ~10,000 DSE whilst
maintaining 1/3 area timbered.
It has a winter dominant median annual rainfall of 884 mm or about 35 ½
inches in the old money, and an elevation difference from the Yaven Creek
flats to Yaven/Oberne plateau country of some 300m.
So pretty wet, pretty steep and pretty heavy carrying with strong flats
and slopes for young stock and some bush country for cows.
We have also recently added a small block at Willigobung, closer to Tumbarumba.
60Ha in size at over 800m ASL in the snow zone to provide additional summer
grazing.
WHAT WE DO?
We run a spring calving, two cycle, self-replacing purebred Angus
herd. We employ fixed time AI in our maiden heifers and first calvers
to elite sires for replacement bull production.
Producing:
Feeder steers ~450kg LWT at 13/14/15mths.
Mature cows ~625kg LWT or 325kg DWT with Empties to the works and late PTIC on the box.
Surplus Heifers. ~425Kg LWT at 18mths. Empties as feeders and late PTIC on the box.
Seedstock. Young Bulls. Consistent with our standards and objectives and surplus to our requirements.
Our base program is to:
Breed close to 650 females (~200 heifers, ~450 Cows) for a 63 day or
three cycle joining. Pregnancy scan and age embryos retaining only the
first two cycles of pregnancies for about 500 PTIC (150 heifers 355
cows) to mark about 475 calves.
In 2021 we embraced Genomics starting with our Q cows and now have profiled
our entire herd to facilitate objective selection, commencing with the
entire Q19 drop heifers and their calves.
We have a genomic profile on every bull used in the herd since 2018 (some
where done retrospectively and posthumously). This has allowed Sire Verification
and a more robust EBVs profile of all animals from the Q drop onwards,
Parent Verification for some of the S drop increasing to the full W drop
onwards.
Performance:
In a steady state (before the significant losses from the 2019 Dunn’s
Road Fire and subsequent recovery period) the operation regularly
produced in excess of 325kg/beef/Clear Ha.
Our weaning rate from genuine 2yo heifers is comparable to the cows at
~97% of scanned in calf from 28 days. With one assisted calving in the
last 2 years of 217 heifers calved (a breech presentation twin) that did
not require the calving jack to deliver.
Carcass Feedback on 133 head of R20 drop steers from the Feedlot Average
Austmeat marble score 3.1 and Dressing 56.15% after 162 Days on Feed
