Minto Galloways

10/05/2026

Can you spot the three different breeds we have at Minto Galloways in the video below?

Over the next couple weeks we are going to talk about the three different breeds, why we have them at Minto Farm and the differences between the breeds.

The reel below is taken from our quarantine paddock where the girls from Tocal field day and Royal Bathurst show are hanging out together. We also still have two heifers from Canberra to keep them away from the bulls.

Unfortunately, while the cows are not sick, our videographer and voice person is! She has lost her voice so there isn’t any voice over this time around.

The video first shows Gail - She is a dun Galloway heifer. Next to her is Udele a black Galloway heifer, then Meme a silver Galloway heifer. These are the standard sized Galloways. This show cases the three usual colours of the Galloways.

The video then pans to Fiona and Flora two White Galloway heifers. White Galloways come in red, dun and black with a variety of patterns that we will talk about another week. This is our second breed. The White Galloway is distinct from Galloways but they look fantastic.

Finally. The camera sings to Eve, Eve is a Belted Galloway, the third of our breeds. Most people readily recognise the Belted Galloways and Eve is no exception.

Next week, we’ll take a bit of a deep dive into the Galloway.

If you have a question you’d like asked pop it in the comments.

03/05/2026

The Minto Galloway and Lilliesleaf team want to give a big shout out the the Bathurst Royal Show and especially the Country Women’s Association under the Grand Stand. Good food to keep us going from bacon and eggs rolls in the morning to soup and sambos at lunch!

Must be good we came back each time the humans needed refueling!

01/05/2026

When you have finished your dinner, pinch your calf’s

30/04/2026

Set up at Tocal Field Days, waiting for gates to open. Black Sprite’s ribbons from Canberra on display

30/04/2026

Day One of Bathurst and Tocal. What a great morning..

The Minto, Lilliesleaf and Monreith Galloway teams are ready at Bathurst Royal Show and Minto’s Greg and Chris along with moo’s Eve, Black Sprite, and Fiona are up at Tocal Field day.

Royal Bathurst Show
Tocal Field Days

28/04/2026

Wow!

We are really honored that Minto Keith won at the Hawksbury Hoof and Hook.

We keep saying that Galloways have a place in the beef industry and this just demonstrates it yet again.

Meat quality and the perfect size for the domestic market.

We’ll bring you some details of our school program soon! Right now we are focused on showing our herd this weekend at Bathurst show and demonstrating Galloways, White Galloways and Belted Galloways at Tocal field day!

Congratulations to both steers, their breeders and the schools that prepared them and us!

(Thanks Jandrew for a great write up below!)

RESERVE LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPION CARCASE at Hawkesbury Hoof and Hook comp - another excellent breed story!

Ri-ala Downs VOLTRON . Bred by Colleen and Peter Garvey. Very well prepped by Chifley College Shalvey Campus. Sired by Jandrew STANLEY ST. 80.35 points. 394kgs. Above average 58.88% dressing percentage. Led the lightweights with a 77 cm2 EMA, 6 cm2 ahead of his nearest competitor, a Simmental. Significant marbling at 360 MSA. Perfect meat colour; perfect fat colour; perfect fat distribution. 6th overall in comp for MSA Index - 62.29. The only flaw, a millimetre of unwanted rib fat over market specs. Cost him a few points.

Thank you Colleen and Pete....yet again! And thank you to Alison and the whole enthusiastic gang at Chifley (including maternal overseers!) for your excellent team efforts in bringing this result home. You are all to be proud of yourselves of all of your achievements at this gig! Impressive.

Many congratulations also go out to Oakhill College and Minto Galloways for pipping Voltron at the post with their 377.5kg Galloway steer Minto KEITH who, on 81.27 points, was awarded LIGHTWEIGHT CHAMPION CARCASE. An excellent little steer, its lovely to see that both the Galloway and the Belted Galloway took out the two top lightweight spots.

The Hawkesbury carcase comp is one of the smaller comps held in NSW, often used as an outlet for steers that weren't ready in time for Sydney Royal. It is an interesting comp, for the weight bands imposed on classes. It is a comp directed towards preparing carcases for the domestic market rather than the export market ie. this abattoir prefers under 480kg liveweight. While well-bred and fed Belties can achieve export weights in the milk-tooth and two-tooth stages, these bigger animals require different butchering approaches to service the retail markets eg. a T-bone steak the size of a dinner plate isn't always what the market is after. Belties, with their medium frame size of FS 3 and 4 have always been competitive in the domestic market and the weight bands it services (FS 5 Belties can start to compete with larger mainstream breeds in terms of steak size if the muscle is there). The Hawkesbury comp offers something different to larger comps, who often use processors with higher and more demanding weight bands.

Voltron was not a spillover steer from Sydney, competing at Hawkesbury because he did not make weight in time for Sydney. He was earmarked for Hawkesbury from the get-go, and fed to achieve these market specs specifically. There is a market out there for everything. There is also a bit of chat atm in increasing the Hawkesbury Carcase comp profile, which I think would be a good thing, offering wider variety in the carcase comp scene.

Consider participation. The comp pits fullbloods, purebreds and crosses together, and bungs in led steers with unled steers. There is breadth of opportunity and approach in what you can enter, and how you do it.

Hawkesbury is a very easy, quick show to work. For miniature breeders, they also have a Small Breeds stud section to compete in as well, that doesn't clash with Bathurst Royal which happens the following week. Perhaps include both shows in your circuit.

Another good day 😃

25/04/2026

Reason 4: Grazing and Conservation 🌿
Over the past three weeks we've covered mothering ability, temperament and meat quality. Today we wrap up our four-part series with something we're genuinely passionate about — what Galloways do for the land they live on, and why that matters.
They eat what others won't.

Galloways are non-discriminating grazers. That means they don't just eat nice green grass — they'll work through coarse tussocks, rushes, shrubs and woody browse, seeking out whatever mineral or nutrient their body is telling them they need. It's worth knowing this before you put them in a paddock with young trees. They will eat bark. Ours have even been spotted nibbling dry pine needles — though in fairness that tends to be the show team, and it's more of a bored nibble than an actual feed.

This broad diet and ability to digest a wide variety of grasses and plant material means they can be put to work on country that other breeds simply walk past. Combined with their hill country roots — Galloways have no problem navigating rough, steep terrain — they'll find and utilise feed in places other cattle won't bother with. That's productive land use on country that you'd never crop or sow to improved pasture.

Now let's talk about cattle and the environment.

Cattle cop a lot of criticism, and honestly, some of it isn't entirely deserved. In most parts of the world, cattle are a natural part of how grassland ecosystems function. Wild herds roamed and grazed for thousands of years, shaping landscapes through their movement and feeding habits. Australia never developed its own native cattle species — all cattle here are imported — but they are now a deeply embedded part of how we farm and how our landscapes work.

Do cattle have an environmental impact? Yes, of course they do. So does every species on the planet. But that impact changes dramatically depending on how they are managed.

A few things worth clearing up:

🔹 "Cattle use enormous amounts of water" — Cattle drink water, yes. But they also return it to the environment through urine, manure, and breath. It doesn't vanish. And what comes back out feeds soil biology and supports fertility. That's not waste — that's a cycle.

🔹 "Cattle take up land that could grow food crops" — Some breeds do require good lowland pasture. Galloways don't. They're built for marginal, rough country that no one is cropping anytime soon.

🔹 "Cattle destroy the environment" — Now this one is interesting. Unmanaged livestock in sensitive areas? Yes, they can cause damage. But the reverse is equally true — well-managed grazing actively improves land. Galloways in particular have been used extensively in conservation grazing programs across the UK and Germany, deployed into sensitive environments where overgrowth was actually smothering other species.

A good example from Germany: researchers found that certain specialist butterfly species were declining not because of too much land use, but because protective grassland management had allowed grasses to grow too tall and dense, eliminating the short-sward habitat those butterflies depend on. Managed, low-intensity grazing — the kind Galloways are perfect for — is now recognised as part of the solution. It's a good reminder that conservation is rarely as simple as just leaving things alone.

Back home at Minto.

We're based on granite outcrop country with the soils that most of the Southern Tablelands is known for. It’s better than many Australian soils. Minto Galloways Having an animal that works with the land through its natural grazing behaviour — rather than against it — is exactly what this country needs. Where we can, we back that up with rotational grazing, w**d management, soil testing and targeted nutrient application to keep our environment in the best condition we can manage.

Reason 4: the Galloway. A great grazer, exceptional eating, and genuinely good for country. 🐄

And that wraps up our four-part series on why we choose Galloways here at Minto. Thanks for following along — we hope it's given you a better sense of why this breed means so much to us.

Next week the Minto team will be headed to Tocal Field Day with Eve, Fiona, Black Sprite and her calf Black Hawk. Come along to have a chat. We’ll be back in two weeks with a look at the difference between Eve a Belted Galloway, Fiona a White Galloway and Black Sprite a Galloway.

25/04/2026

Follow us as I describe what goes into packing for a show!

Minto and lilliesleaf Galloways

19/04/2026

Week 3 of why we choose Galloways: Meat Quality

Each week we put our reputation on the line with selling meat directly to our local community. We believe in our Galloway family product.

But before we get into Galloways specifically, let's talk a little bit about what meat quality actually is. To explain why, it helps to understand what meat quality actually means. Because it is different for different cultures and different people. Here in Australia, most of us grew up with meat as the star of the plate with three veg. For most nations meat production was limited and factory farming became more popular as more people wanted to have quality meat. So the heavy meat eating countries were sold on the idea that grain fed animals was the best and tastiest option - predominantly so that the producers could produce the amounts needed. Other countries went to an opposite extreme where meat production became almost artistry, feeding cattle on beer and other products to ensure a highly fatty cut such as Wagyu steaks. Over time the meat industry started to codify what the specific quality for meat for the specific population was.

In Australia quality is usually considered to be that set by the Meat and Livestock Association. Understanding meat quality became a science — driven by genetics research, promotion, and advertising.
So meat quality is usually considered to be made up of the pH of the meat, the colour of the meat and the fat, the taste, the fat content and mouth feel of the product. Most of these can be measured and there is some genetic science behind it. For example, most Australians will recognise a nicely marbled steak, neither too red nor too purple in colour. But when presented with a Wagyu steak (if unfamiliar) the incredibly high fat content and generally pink colour is off putting.

So, what about our Galloways and why do we think we have consistently good meat quality? It does come back to the breed history again. These animals are built for walking up and down hills, they eat almost everything — they are non-discriminatory eaters, they are generally chilled out and they have a big wooly coat.
Why does this matter? We believe that an animal living a natural life eating a range of grasses will taste better than an animal that stands around waiting to be fed a diet which is uniform and usually high in grain, which is not healthy for the animal.
The walking is important — they are actually using their muscles, building them up naturally. Yes, this means there may at times be more gristle than otherwise, but this is also healthy for humans to be consuming. Some breeds like Galloways are hill country animals, used to walking to find food. They are quite content moving about freely.

Their temperaments mean that they are usually not putting stress hormones into the meat. This, coupled with gentle handling techniques, produces better meat quality on the plate.

The wooly coat. This is controversial, but the breed spent hundreds of years developing this coat — it is dual layer, an inner wool and a longer outer hair. It means that the animal is able to survive in cold extremes without necessarily needing to shed. But it also means that it does not need to be layering on external fat to survive. So instead it stores the excess fat (created from that wonderful mix of natural grasses) as intramuscular fat — or marbling.

And this marbling is the Galloway's great weapon in the meat quality department. To get marbling in many breeds, the animal needs to be in top condition all the time and fed a specific diet. The animals become 'fat' first, putting on external fat, and only when that is achieved do they start to develop intramuscular fat. Galloways don't need to do this — hundreds of years of genetics means they marble on grass, with no need for additional feed.

Unfortunately, our fairly rare and unique genetic characteristics mean that a lot of the promotional science genetic markers don't pick up on the quality of our meat. They are set for large-scale industrial breeds, not for smaller breeds.

So reason 3: Meat quality.

For those interested, we are hoping to launch some new Facebook and Instagram pages specific to the meat shortly — so stay tuned.

15/04/2026

14/04/2026

Following on from the weekends post. What is the impact of having quiet cattle? Is there a downside and can animals be too quiet?

There is an impact of having trained cattle in your yard work. Most animal handling techniques rely on the flight response of the animals. Most people will be aware of the zone (flight zone response) on either side of the animal that places pressure and moves an animal forward. Well in a trained animal they may not respond because you have trained them to stand still. They can also then be stubborn and not move in the herd simply because you have trained them to not respond when people move around them. This is easy enough to adapt your handling techniques to and you need to accept and have bribes on hand.

The second downside is more serious and often happens with younger bulls. A friendly bull calf is a great bull calf until they start play fighting you. Unless you establish your role at this point you risk it becoming a human aggressive animal. The calf goes from being fun run up to you and prance around to 500 kg plus of bull wanting to play or worse case fight you. Your role as a trainer is to manage the transition from friendly calf to respectful bull. As bulls mature you want them to work as a bull but you don’t want them running up behind you or shaking their head at you. If a bull appears to be becoming human aggressive the best thing to do is remove it from your herd. If it’s an exceptional bull you can always use their semen.

So yes there may be downsides to friendly temperaments but it’s still better than the alternative.