Scrupulous cattle judges will head out to properties across Victoria once again for the Simmental Victorian On-Farm Challenge.
Now in its third year, the challenge attracted 22 entries and 200 cattle in 2019.
The competition was originally intended to run bi-yearly, however, with a huge year of celebrations planned by Simmental Australia to mark the 50th anniversary of the breed in Australia next year, they will again call for entries in 2022.
There are a number of categories in which both stud and commercial cattle can compete.
"We have different age groups for all the stud cattle, as in bulls and females, then we also have a commercial section, whereby we have classes for the progeny of a bull, heifers, steers, cows and calves," Simmental Australia Victoria branch president Stu Cameron said.
Cattle are judged on 10 different criteria, with judges giving the animal a score out of 10 for each of those categories, including feet, capacity, how they walk, temperament, and udder in females.
Mr Cameron said on-farm challenges were a cost-effective way for producers to showcase their cattle and allowed people to exhibit despite the Covid restrictions.
"A lot of people are not able to prepare their cattle for a show, as far as clipping and feeding is concerned, so we thought we would show them in their 'work gear' you might say, on the farm," he said.
"That's where you see the 'real' cattle, I've shown cattle also but you can see how cattle survive on a farm in these competitions."
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Mr Cameron believes the competition has helped to promote Simmentals across Victoria.
"Our idea was to try and get more commercial people involved and you never know, they might feel compelled to get into registered cattle," he said.
Entry forms for the on-farm challenge will be sent to all commercial and stud Simmental breeders in Victoria.
"Even if people only have a few commercial calves we still want them to get involved," Mr Cameron said.