TEN months ago Alan and Sonia Martin and their five boys (aged one up to 11-years-old) moved their business ‘Riverslea Santa Gertrudis Stud’ from northern Victoria to ‘Fishponds’ on Gragin Road, 11 kilometres from Delungra.
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‘A Taste of the Future’ was their official opening held on the property on Saturday.
The dress code was described as ‘a Touch of Red’ and Alan and Sonia were delighted with the welcome to this community the day brought.
“It was an absolutely outstanding success, we had about 80 people for the day and it was just a huge day, absolutely fantastic,” Alan said.
“We’ve been a stud way down south for quite a few years and decided to relocate.
“We’re going to have a sale later in the year and it’s time for people to get to know us and what our product is.”
The couple saw the move as a good chance to expand their whole operation and involved moving 250 head of stud stock.
“We shifted all of our stud cattle up and some of our commercial cattle,” Alan said
“The big aim is to grow the stud and be able to produce on an annual basis approximately 100 Santa bulls to sell and to be really connected to the commercial cattlemen.”
Personally and commercially Alan and Sonia are pleased by their acceptance within the local community.
“It’s been brilliant, absolutely outstanding and Saturday was proof of that. To have 80 people on a Saturday afternoon turn up and have a look at your cattle and we made a fair few sales as well, which we weren’t expecting to, but we did. Yeah, it was just an absolutely outstanding day.
“A lot of the comments from people walking around about the cattle were about how quiet they were … probably more so of recent times we’ve been able to get them more docile; years ago they were a bit ‘iffy’ that way, but in comparison to Brahmans and things like that they’re dead quiet.”
Alan agreed there is a big difference between here and northern Victoria.
“Certainly at the moment there is; we’ve got grass they haven’t,” he said.