The sale, held in Mortlake, saw 148 bulls offered and sold, to a high of $52 000 and an average of $9439.
Three generations of the Evans family were in attendance but their farming history runs much deeper than that.
Bernie Evans is the fifth generation to have worked the family farm, son Terry the sixth and grandson Jake the seventh.
And they were happy to spend big on their farm’s collective future, putting together a draft of four bulls to a high of $12 000 and average of $7752.50.
Their property Ennisvale runs a 500-cow Angus herd and about 1000 first-cross ewes across an aggregation Terry is looking to expand through the purchase of more land.
While his father Bernie might be remotely thinking about cutting back, his 15-year-old grandson Jake has just taken the next big step in his farming career.
The Benalla P-12 student has started a school-based farming apprenticeship through Wodonga TAFE.
“We have been buying Te Mania Angus genetics since the 1970s and I would say our herd is about 75 per cent pure to their bloodline,” Bernie said.
“We are a spring-calving herd and while we have a strong history of selling steers to backgrounders, and heifers to people wanting to join them to trade on, we are very aware of market trends.
“Our older cows often go direct but we have also started using AuctionsPlus a fair bit, it makes things very easy.
“In 2019 all our steers and heifers went through their online sales.”
The bulls the family purchased — Lot 47 for $10 000, 110 for $8000, 113 for $12 000 and 123 for $11 000 — were selected to complement their herd’s easy management, easy calving and high performance steers.
“We were looking for good, balanced bulls with great potential in easy calving and we always want genetics to add marbling and eye muscle area and we think that’s what we got,” Bernie said.
The Evans are also farmers happy to lend a hand and Terry, who runs an off-farm trucking enterprise, has been shipping hay to farmers around bushfire-ravaged Corryong.
Next he is taking another load north, way up north. On a round trip of 2800 km to drought-damaged Roma in Queensland.