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, who also manages AGnVET Wagga, whilst children
William and Ellie CRAWFORD are pursuing tertiary education after
schooling at KWS.
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.
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.
WHAT WE DO?
We run a spring calving, two cycle, self-replacing purebred
Angus herd. We employ fixed time AI in our heifers 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 600 females (~200 heifers, ~400 Cows) for a
63 day or three cycle joining. Pregnancy scan and age
embryos retaining only the first two cycles of pregnancies
for about 475 PTIC (120 heifers 355 cows) to mark about 450
calves.
In 2021 we embraced Genomics profiling of our female herd to
facilitate objective selection, commencing with the entire Q19
drop heifers and their calves, followed now by the R20 drop also.
We have a genomic profile on every bull used in the herd since
2018 (some where done retrospectively and posthumously) which
has allowed Sire Verification and a more robust EBVs profile
of all animals from the Q 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 PTIC. 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
