“IT starts with quiet cattle” Ken Muller from Pluto Pastoral Co told the Australian Brahman Breeders Association’s annual conference when asked how he was achieving MSA grading with his cattle.

Pluto Pastoral runs pure Red and Grey Brahmans on its properties near Proserpine, north of Mackay and Richmond in Queensland.

Mr Muller was a keynote speaker at last week’s ABBA conference, held in Airlie Beach, where a big focus was on getting more Brahman cattle grading for MSA.

Mr Muller supplies NH Foods’ grassfed ‘Nature’s Fresh’ brand, which requires an MSA score of 52 to 54.

“There is a lot of preparation to achieve the results we are, but it starts with quiet cattle,” Mr Muller said.

“We are chasing MSA so based on the advice we got we get our cattle in two days before they have to travel, they are in the yard with very good hay and good clean troughs.

“That means they are settled and then will walk on the truck to go down to Mackay (NH Foods’ Borthwicks plant).

“More than 95pc of our pure Brahmans are grading MSA, thanks to the preparation we have been doing.”

“More than 95 percent of our pure Brahmans are grading MSA, thanks to the preparation we have been doing.”

Producers at the ABBA conference were told they were leaving money on the table by not fitting into the specifications of processor brands.

In the case of NH Foods’ Nature’s Fresh certified grassfed brand program, steers meeting requirements (o-4 teeth, no HGP, MSA graded) attract a premium typically worth 30-40c/kg through the year.

Nick Meara, the General Manager at Borthwicks explained NH Foods’ has two grassfed MSA brands that northern cattle feed into – ‘Natures Fresh’ and ‘Glenyarra’.

“Glenyarra is a relatively new brand that we cut off at (MSA score) 48 and it allows a lot of other MSA cattle, particularly more Bos Indicus steers and cows to go into,” Mr Meara said.

As a passionate Brahman breeder Mr Muller was proud to see his cattle achieving good MSA results.

“We like our cattle to become the best they possibly can, it’s like an athlete – they want to be the best they possibly can without obstruction, we want that for our cattle,” he said.

“We give our cattle good genetics to give them every opportunity to do their best.”

Three areas to focus on to improve MSA in Bos Indicus

Sarah Strachan, General Manager of Research Development and Adoption with Meat & Livestock Australia said there are three areas producers with Bos Indicus cattle could focus on to improve MSA scores.

First, was turning off cattle at a younger age to improve ossification.

“How do you optimise weight at a younger age? Look at things like reducing setbacks early in an animal’s life and having an increasing plane of nutrition to optimise the ossification,” Ms Strachan said.

“Next is marbling. The biggest gain that can be made from marbling is taking it from no marbling to a tiny bit of marbling and maybe a little bit more marbling. It does not need to be extreme.

“The MSA models worked out that if everything stayed exactly the same, the greatest gain in eating quality when considering marbling, is moving it from a 0 marbling to a 1 or 2 score marbling.

“Increasing marbling will always improve the MSA score but the effect does start to plateau out at higher marbling scores.

“Marbling equates to about 20 to 30pc of the whole equation that makes up eating quality, so it is a big one, but it can be influenced by genetics and nutrition.”

The other major influencer on MSA is the use of HGP’s, so Ms Strachan explained if producers are trying to achieve MSA grading HGP’s can reduce the score by five points, making them a big hitter.

“The other impact from HGP’s is it accelerates ossification and drops marbling at the same time so it can have a significant impact.