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The Hicks family have now been involved in the bull breeding business for the past 70 years.
In 1947 Keith Hicks started breeding Herefords without horns, a radical step at the time.
The Hicks famliy know what it takes to breed quality cattle capable of performing in all aspects of a beef enterprise.
Currently Andrew and Tom Hicks are breeding Australian Beef Composites, based on a breeding program researched by Nebraska University to maximise profit, by increasing hybrid vigour and using breed differences to optimise production.
This may still be considered radical in the beef industry, but it is the cornerstone of the poultry and pig breeding industries and is becoming more popular in the lamb industry in Australia.
The US is leading the composite beef production.
The Seedstock 200 reports the third largest breed behind Angus and then Red Angus, is now Sim Angus.
The Sim Angus combines the marbling and finish of the Angus with the muscle of the Simmental to optimise carcase.
The success of this program is reflected in the dominance of Sim Angus in the largest feedlot Beef Spectacular trial.
“We have never had bulls like this before,” Tom Hicks said as the team finished drafting the bulls for this year’s sale.
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“It summed up what I was thinking, in that we have experienced a massive improvement over the past seven years since joining the U.S. Multi Breed database,” Andrew Hicks said.
“The 70 bulls for sale on Wednesday September 6 are measurably better for calving ease, growth, and carcase traits as our graphs show.
“Clients say that they can see the difference in the bulls.”
The Hicks Red Angus bulls again show why the herd is ranked as one of Australia’s leading performance herds.
The lead bull, Hicks Redemption L10, a performance registered bull, has a Supermarket Index value of 64, the top value for the breed and nearly double the average of 33.
This year’s offering of 55 Australian Beef Composite bulls are genetically tested for polledness, and the black bulls are tested for homozygous black genes.