When asked why she prefers Simbra over any other beef cattle breed, Zimbabwean stud owner Lianne Herbst says: “What’s not to love about Simbra?

For me, they are the complete all-rounder. Simbra do well in our area, they have good fertility, medium frames, are good for crossbreeding, quiet, and ideal for market requirements for feedlots.”

Herbst’s LJ Simbra stud is known for its exceptional fertility. In fact, it has taken top honours every year at the Zimbabwe Herd Book (ZHB) Awards since they were introduced at the ZHB Beef School in 2021.

A stress-free breed

“I’m not sure how we’ve achieved this award for the past three years, but I’m lucky enough to be living on the actual farm, being hands-on with all management. My Simbra are bred to thrive in our environment, ensuring they remain largely stress-free, which is key for fertility. Last year, both our studs – LJ Simbra, in the very large herd category, and MH Boran, in the small herd category – won the awards,” she explains.

The LJ Simbra stud consists of 150 breeding stud cows, 100 commercial Simbra cows, 54 heifers, eight mature bulls and 12 young bulls.

The Herbst family farm on a 650ha leased property in the Karoi district of Zimbabwe’s Mashonaland West province. The farm comprises 300ha of arable land, with additional grazing opportunities on a neighbouring farm during winter. They also rent more grazing 10km away, where they raise the weaner heifers and maintain another commercial Simbra herd of 130 cows.

“The sandy loam soils receive an average rainfall of 650mm from mid-November to March. Karoi is sourveld country, but as we are tobacco farmers, we rotate lands with Giant Rhodes grass pastures.

“The Simbra herd mainly grazes in vlei/veld areas during the wet season due to the crops on the lands. The Rhodes grass is grown out for seed and hay baling. We have a lot of invasive noxious lantana shrubs and, due to deforestation, we only have regrowth of acacia trees,” she explains.

Herbst’s parents, Paul and Sheila Stidolph, once bred cattle on a ranch in the Midlands province, but when the property was taken over by the Zimbabwe government in 1984, a decision was taken to move to Karoi to start tobacco farming. Sheila continued to run the commercial cattle herd.

Although they had always raised Brahman and Tuli, once on the Karoi commercial farm they decided to introduce Simbra bulls to the Brahman herd and slowly developed a full Simbra herd. In 1997, Sheila won Zimbabwe’s Cattleman of the Year award.

Fertility and selection

“I consider fertility to be one of the most important building blocks of any beef cattle production concern. A cow needs to calve and wean a calf each year and should be pregnant when the calf is weaned at six months. However, I am more lenient on heifers, depending on which month they calve, their condition at weaning, and their age at first calving. The heifer that can do it all is the ideal heifer. Unfortunately, though, due to limited paddocks, my heifers run with the cows, and the former must cope with their calves without extra treatment,” says Herbst.

When it comes to selection criteria, dam lines are as crucial as sires, and Herbst selects at weaning for conformation, weight, and performance of the parents. After some time on the veld, the weaners are reselected. A bull is put to the remaining heifers for about 42 days.

The heifers that conceive earlier are obviously the best ones, and another selection process takes place.

She keeps only a few bulls because of a limited demand for Simbra bulls in the country as well as the limited availability of grazing.

Animal recording is one of the cornerstones of an effectively managed stud. Herbst uses the Herdmaster system, and all calves and their mothers are weighed at birth. The average cow weighs 500kg, while the 200-day weight of the calves is 200kg yearly average.

South African genetics

Herbst says Zimbabwe lost many stud breeders during land reform “To source genetics locally has become difficult. Our genetics are from my parents’ herd, which originated from Woodsgift, TMM Simbra Stud, Makera Simbra Stud, and some sires from the US.

“As we moved into stud breeding seven years ago, we decided to import bulls from South Africa. Rick Dell of R2K in Ficksburg in the Free State was the first breeder to open his home and show us how he ran his stud. From there, we drove up to the Malemba Simbra stud in Louwna for their annual sale and again were well received.

“So, our first three imported bulls arrived in 2017 from R2K and Malemba. During the COVID-19 pandemic, online sales became our route to buy bulls from South Africa. With the help of Daleena van Zyl, erstwhile Simba breeder from Potchefstroom, we imported another five bulls and two in-calf heifers, purchased online at the 3 Jack’s and A Jill annual sale, and Richter Simbras in Bloemfontein.”

The bulls, cow and calf herd are kept on the leased farm, which consists of eight paddocks that are either used for crop production or Giant Rhodes grass pasture seed. The paddocks are used for grazing after cropping.

Four paddocks are used for veld/wetland grazing. The veld paddocks are about 20ha each, while the cropping lands comprise paddocks of 20ha to 40ha.

Herbst started with a small herd of about 70 breeding cows. They were initially herded by day and kept in small kraal paddocks by night, but the farm was eventually fenced.

As the herd has progressively grown, the dry herd has, over the past year, been run on a neighbour’s farm on about 1ha of electrically fenced, high-density grazing paddocks. The herd is moved twice daily.

Carrying capacity

The carrying capacity in the Karoi area is about 4ha/MLU.

“With the electric fencing and high-density grazing, this obviously changes, but as it’s new to us, we can’t say how it’s going to affect our cows in the long term.”

A multisire system is used, with an average of two bulls with the cows for a couple of months before being moved. If needed, two younger bulls are added. All calves are DNA tested to determine the most fertile bulls in the herd.

The bulls are kept with the cows all year around due to the specific farming circumstances in the Karoi area.

As Herbst says: “If you don’t keep a bull in, the neighbour’s bull will get in!”

Peak calving

The LJ stud heifers are exposed to the bull only during December and January, followed by a winter breeding season. Once in-calf, the heifers are moved back to the main farm and into the mature cow herd. Weaning takes place monthly and pregnancy detection is done three times a year to be able to cull and check if heifers are mature and cycling.

According to Herbst, the cows naturally put themselves into peak period calving between September and November. She prefers to have bulls and heifers available to buyers all year round and often has buyers needing young weaner heifers, which are more affordable.

Disease management

Leased farms are often unfenced and surrounded by small-scale farmers who can’t afford to put up fencing. This leads to animals straying between farms, but it also happens that cattle are wilfully pushed into adjacent farms. Disease management is therefore of utmost importance.

The LJ cattle are brought in for weekly dipping, and should January disease (theileriosis) or redwater occur in the area, the dipping is changed to a 5-4-4 regime.

The animals are vaccinated annually against lumpy skin disease, blackleg, anthrax and botulism, as well as congenital contractural arachnodactyly and vibriosis. Other than that, they are treated as and when needed. Deworming is conducted based on manure samples sent for analysis.

Email Lianne Herbst at [email protected].