JBarT Livestock

History of how the Australian Lowline came to be... renamed to American Aberdeen in the United States...

THE LOWLINE STORY

In 1929, the Trangie Research Centre established an Angus herd to provide quality breeding stock for the New South Wales cattle industry.

The foundation cattle came from one of the most influential Angus herds in North America: the Glencarnock Stud at Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. The cattle embarked on the steam ship ‘Huraki’ in December 1928 making it the first shipment of any cattle breed from Canada to Australia.

The original shipment included two bulls, Glencarnock Revolution and Brave Edward Glencarnock, along with a cow and calf and 17 heifers.

Brave Edward Glencarnock was a grandson of the great Blackcap Revolution, and his influence was quickly evident in Australia. His descendants included several Sydney Royal Show champions, and Trangie exhibits sired by him won the Narrangullen Cup three times.

The cow Glencarnock Eurotia 4th proved equally valuable. Her descendants included champion bulls Trangie Prism and Trangie Edward 4th, as well as the twice-champion cow Trangie Eurotia 2nd.

The Trangie herd continued to gather influential Angus genetics from around the world.

Cattle came from Canada, the United States, Scotland and England. Revolution of Page 28th arrived from America. Everside 2nd of Maisemore came from England in 1941. In 1947, Trangie purchased Erision of Harviestoun from Scotland's Dalmeny Stud for 3,000 guineas, followed by four Dalmeny-bred heifers the next year.

By the middle of the century, Trangie had established a formidable Angus herd.

And the Angus itself was becoming firmly established throughout Australia.

The cattle were valued for their ability to calve easily, and their beef was increasingly sought after as Australia's export trade with Japan developed.

But at Trangie, the focus was about to change.

By the 1960s, Trangie was becoming increasingly interested in a different question:

Could cattle breeding be measured objectively?

In 1963, the Australian Meat Research Committee asked Trangie to undertake a project examining the role of performance recording in a breeding program.

Weight gain and visual conformation were both considered when selecting replacement bulls and heifers.

The work continued through 1970 and helped pioneer performance testing in Australian stud cattle.

Further trials followed from 1971 to 1973, comparing objective measurements with the assessments of experienced cattle breeders.

Then, in 1974, the experiment that would eventually create the Lowline breed began.

The researchers wanted to know whether selecting cattle for different rates of growth would affect the profitability and efficiency of beef production.

The Trangie researchers divided the cattle into three groups.

One herd was selected for high yearling growth rates.

Another was selected for low yearling growth rates.

A third group was maintained as a randomly selected Control Line.

The names were simple:

High Line.
Low Line.
Control Line.

The experiment was designed to be much more than a study of size.

Researchers measured weight gain, feed intake, reproductive performance, milk production, carcass yield and quality, and structural soundness.

Satellite herds were also established at Glen Innes in the northern tablelands of New South Wales and Hamilton in Victoria so that environmental differences could be taken into account.

The Low Line itself began with 85 cows.

From the beginning, it was a closed herd.

Replacement bulls and heifers were selected from within the Low Line, and those animals were themselves selected for low growth from birth through yearling age.

Generation after generation, the selection continued.
The cattle were getting smaller—but they weren't losing the characteristics that had made the Trangie Angus herd valuable in the first place.

After 15 years of selection, the Low Line cattle had stabilized at roughly 30 percent smaller than the High Line cattle.

The mature Low Line bulls stood around 43 inches, while the cows were approximately 39 inches or less.

They retained the smoothness, conformation, structural soundness and productive qualities that had characterized the Trangie herd.

The researchers also measured how efficiently the cattle converted protein from grass into beef.

The High Line cattle were found to be about five percent more efficient overall.

But the results were more interesting than that single number might suggest.

When the researchers looked at the actual range of animals, the computer records showed that although the very best performers were High Lines and the least efficient animals were Low Lines, the great majority of High Line and Low Line cattle were surprisingly similar in their efficiency as protein converters. And they had developed into a remarkably consistent population.

The scientists had never intended to create a breed.

Their goal was to conduct a controlled experiment in beef production.

But the people working with the cattle were good cattlemen, and the selection process had produced a uniform group of small, well-conformed Angus cattle.

Then the future of the experiment was threatened. The New South Wales Agricultural Department was considering ending the trial and sending the experimental cattle to the abattoir. To the researchers, the experiment had reached its conclusion. To others, however, the cattle represented something entirely different.

Among those who recognized their potential was Ian Pullar, a grazier from Armidale. Pullar secured 43 Low Line cows from the Glen Innes satellite herd and later obtained two bulls. Pullar promoted the cattle and generated public interest in them.

They were compact, smooth and free from excess waste. They produced high-quality beef, were adaptable to Australian conditions and, having descended from cattle handled in Australia for generations, were exceptionally docile.

The pressure to preserve the cattle eventually led to sales at Glen Innes and Trangie. On August 8, 1992, nine bulls, 23 heifers and seven cows were offered at Trangie. The cattle brought a total of $19,475.

But the most important event of the day happened after the sale.

Seven purchasers—Ian Pullar, David Barnett, Des Owens, Don Burke, Carolyn Tebbutt, Kevin Everson and Bob Pringle—met beneath a gum tree at the Trangie Centre auction site. There, they formed the Australian Lowline Cattle Association. And they adopted a name for the cattle: LOWLINE.

Those seven people would be recorded in the Herd Book as the foundation members of the breed.

The following year, the experiment came to its final conclusion. On October 30, 1993, the complete dispersal sale at Trangie offered 20 bulls, 44 cows and 51 heifers. The cattle brought $228,200, with lively bidding from buyers across all mainland Australian states.

What began in 1974 as a scientific experiment into growth rate and beef-production efficiency had become something the researchers had never set out to create: A distinct breed of cattle.

It was not created by a breeder who set out to establish a new breed. There was no grand plan to develop a smaller type of Angus. No breed standard was written. No one at the beginning of the experiment could have known that the cattle they were selecting would eventually become the foundation of a breed recognized around the world.

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