Livestock breeders with a scientific focus on outcome, Michael and Susan Lytton-Hitchins of Kyabra fame, are closing a long and fruitful exploration into the arts and science of livestock husbandry.
Aged 82 and 78 respectively, they both credit age, and a lack of mobility, for their decision to completely disperse their last and final stud animals, with Michael recently breaking his left leg for a fourth time while Susan has not long endured a double hip operation.
It has been a looming decision, following on from an earlier retirement from superfine merino wool production at Kentucky. As a result, they have decided to part with their latest stud enterprise, this time in Aussie Red dairy cattle on their retirement farm at Fitzroy Falls, situated above Kangaroo Valley.
Their middle son, Andrew, praised their endeavours as part of lives well lived, with Michael starting life in Kenya on his parents' Zebu ranch while he and the girl from Nullla Nulla Creek created history with the Australian Stockhorse, Brahman cattle, Superfine Merino sheep and over the years had a host of other studs that included everything from Romney Marsh and Southdown sheep, Australian Ponies, Thoroughbreds, Clydesdales, Quarter Horses, Shorthorn, Brazilian Gyre, Angus, Charolais and Hereford cattle.
Breeding livestock for pleasure and profit, through innovation and adventure, have been hallmarks of the family's history from the times soon after colonists settled the fertile plateaus south of Sydney.
Frederick Lytton-Hitchins migrated from England to purchase a hilltop of volcanic soil from the original selection, Throsby Park, at Moss Vale. He had the good sense to purchase excellent land, with springs, dams and a well.
Jersey cows were run here to supply milk and cream to the Moss Vale butter factory.
Prior to farming, Frederick was an officer in the Royal Navy and was remembered for his act of bravery on horseback, in Centennial Park, when he rode to save a young woman from her bolting stallion.
Unfortunately, Frederick was thrown clear off his mount and landed under the wheels of a fully laden coal wagon. The head injury left him in a coma for the next three weeks.
Upon his recovery he was barred from ever being allowed to command a ship at sea again. The restrictions irked Frederick to the point that he left the Royal Navy, with an honourable discharge, to jackeroo his way around a new colonial land. Upon his return he looked up his old friend Mr Throsby and purchased that plug of volcanic soil, in 1896.
Frederick farmed the Moss Vale country as if it was an English garden, complete with chestnuts growing for harvest in company with oak and maple trees, thousands of daffodils and other flowers and vegetables for the table. There were also numerous horses, Wessex Saddleback pigs and Hereford cattle.
In 1921 Frederick took his young family on a visit to the old country and on their return his son Roger became enthralled by the tales of a renowned adventurer and author, Sir Frederick Traves. He also met a New Zealand man named Mr Dearsley and together they travelled to Kenya in East Africa, eventually starting a ranch in Lumba country under the banner Dearsley and Lytton-Hitchins.
It was a bold move to buy Fort Estate, on the road from Kisumu to Nakuru, where they raised the native Boran cattle breed, a fertile and early maturing Zebu type that has been crossed with European and African taurus.
These animals were bred for meat and they also had Afrikander bullocks, to till the red soil for corn with the local Lumba tribesmen handling both beast and plough.
The partnership dissolved during the depression years, after consecutive corn losses due to locusts one year and floods the next. But there were good years before that which included many adventures and memories.
There was the time an enormous hippo broke the surface of Lake Victoria on a fishing trip and yawned in a way that frightened Roger's English fiancé Kathleen, the nanny on a property nearby and not at all used to the wild beasts of Africa.
Roger refinanced and bought another ranch and included a new and diverse income stream in the form of a safari business, where wealthy young English and American tourists came to shoot big game with guns and a camera.
Roger was fortunate to live in peaceful Lumba country, untouched by the infamous Mow Mow wars elsewhere in Kenya, that pitted fierce tribes against the new English, while the Maasai herds people on the plains were too migratory and peaceful to get involved with fighting.
On a visit back to Australia in 1930, Roger had the chance to ride Phar Lap after his historic Melbourne Cup win. His comments to family years later described the red chestnut legend as a "gentle giant". It was a chance opportunity from Jim Pike, the jockey at the time, that was later continued at Sutton Farm, Sutton Forest, the neighbouring village of Moss Vale, where Phar Lap was trained and stabled.
Mainly, Roger saddled-up horses for pleasure but during the war years Roger enlisted in the King's African Rifles and rode into war with their transport division, trucking commodities from Mombasa and Nairobi through the back blocks of Ethiopia to Cairo and as far north as Jerusalem.
Mines littered the way and one explosion rocked the vehicle upwards with such force that Roger's back was never the same again.
The next generation of Lytton-Hitchins came back from Africa hand in hand with his parents. Michael was then just a boy, but he grew up to expand the family holdings at Moss Vale and beyond.
Michael attended Gatton Agricultural College and discovered his favourite subjects were animal husbandry and veterinary surgery - skills that would support a passion for breeding that would last the rest of his life. In fact, he might have gone on to complete veterinary studies had Michael not declined the job of beef officer out of Townsville, Qld, and been pressured by his family to return home to farm.
Michael came back to Moss Vale in 1961 with a new love in the form of Brahman cattle, no doubt influenced by his father's tales of the African Boran and his new love of the Queensland outback.
Michael married Susan in 1969, born a McIntyre from Nulla Nulla Creek on the upper Macleay, and together they showed Brahman cattle at the Sydney Royal Show during the 1970s, just 30 years after the breed was first brought to Queensland.
Together, they took home senior and grand champion and supreme champion ribbons for the Kyabra Brahman stud with Kyabra Florida in 1971, Kyabra Fiona and calf Kyabra John in 1973, Fiona and calf Leonie and Kyabra Florida in 1975, and Kyabra National in 1980.
Australian Stockhorses became another important part of the Kyabra name, with Susan's family connections to Theo and Bonnie Hill at Comara Station on the Macleay producing their foundation stallion Comara Abbey's Cattle King, regarded to this day by Andrew as a "once in a lifetime horse".
Cattle King won many led and working stockhorse classes, including champion led stallion in 1981 and champion working stockhorse stallion and supreme working Australian stockhorse in 1982 at Sydney Royal Easter Show, along with many campdrafts and cut out prizes throughout the country, including his first draft he entered at Braidwood as a three year old in 1975 and the sweepstakes campdraft event at Sydney Royal Easter Show in 1983.
Cattle King incorporated confirmation, temperament and natural ability to work stock, like his sire Abdul and Grandsire Abbey, who were living legends in the campdraft world and between them won three world championships, Warwick Gold Cup and the International Expo Draft.
Cattle King sired many champions, campdrafters, polo and polo cross horses, hacks and station cattle horses during his life and is a current Foundation Sire and Impact Sire of the Australian Stockhorse Society.
Some of Cattle King's impressive progeny were Kyabra Precious, Champion three year old Working Stockhorse Filly at the Australian National Championships in 1982, the Australian Record Sale Price for an Australian Stockhorse Female at Auction with Kyabra Lady Jane at $11,700 in 1982, which stood for many years, and Kyabra Lady Diana, along with many other successful progeny, whose bloodlines continue to this very day, such as Cattle Baron; Bob Palmer's Cattle King mare, Monkey Creek Fable, who won drafts all around the country, including the World Championship Campdraft at Sydney Royal Easter Show, and Julia Kopfel's Kyabra Elegance, who won showjumping and dressage events in Sydney.
Cattle King progeny are still found in nearly all States of Australia and even overseas, with the Marharajah of Jaipur purchasing and exporting a Cattle King stallion to his stud in the early 1980's.
In 1995 the next generation of Lytton-Hitchins, in James, Andrew and Peter, convinced their parents to take a giant leap away from their Moss Vale roots, selling the original holding along with their Paddy's River property to occupy over 16,000 acres of Northern Tablelands country at Standbye Station, Kentucky, full of feed and promise at the time.
They brought with them stud Merino rams of Tasmanian blood and purchased almost every surplus CFA ewe in the district - 15,000 at $30 a head - to start building their large flock of over 20,000 superfine Merino sheep.
There was a lot of fencing work to do, and they employed 2000 head of British-bred trade cattle to mob graze and knock down the long grass, particularly in the gullies, so they could see the sheep's back.
Holistic resource management, as described by Alan Savory, was adopted with excellent results in that within 12 months they were able to double the carrying capacity of the station - now renamed Kyabra Station, as part of the Kyabra Pastoral Group.
The family culled the bottom third of their new flock and joined the remaining ewes to their own stud rams before embarking on a massive artificial insemination program that included both cervical and laparoscopic techniques, broadening their experience to include embryo transfer, which required the use of vets specially trained in this field.
Michael and Susan quickly learned the techniques behind artificial breeding and built their own export licenced artificial breeding centre and genetics laboratory on that property to begin an ambitious and scientific program incorporating Soft Rolling Skin genetics.
They were helped by industry consultant, Jim Watts, who founded the SRS genetic breeding system and SRS Wool, with the help of wool broking leader, Tony Wilson, from Itochu.
Mr Watts, along with Lytton-Hitchings family selected sheep for increased secondary and reduced primary follicle density, resulting in more of the cylindrical, bright, white, lustrous fibres of longer length and reduced diameter and fewer wax glands.
The work involved innumerable skin sample counts, in the lab under a microscope, and many days and weeks of visual classing and selection for the loose, supple, soft, rolling skin attributes, typical of these skin types, along with confirmation, frame size, fertility, mothering and milking ability, mulse-free hind quarters and tails, longevity and other desirable genetic traits the Lytton-Hitchins family were selecting for.
Within a few years the flock, now with reduced micron and superior growth, was being shorn every eight months, such was the volume of wool growth, and a requirement from their traditional Italian market for shorter superfine wools.
For pleasure and profit, in addition to the Kyabra Superfine Merino Stud, Michael and Susan, ventured into breeding stud Clydesdale Draught Horses and Brazilian Gyre Cattle while at Kyabra Station, Kentucky.
For two decades the family enterprise ran like clockwork but eventually the boys went their own way and their parents downsized in retirement before moving south again, to be closer to their original home - this time on 40 odd acres at Fitzroy Falls.
So strong was their desire to continue breeding livestock that Michael and Susan maintained their Australian Quarter Horse Stud they brought with them from Armidale and then after dispersing this stud in 2021 they bought Beaulands Aussie Red dairy cattle genetics and worked to progress this breed.
"Dad and Mum have always had a good eye and intuition for confirmation, fertility, conformity and temperament and always bred from the very best genetics they could buy at the time," reminisced their son Andrew. "They were great observers of both the land and livestock, and this is the end of a long and successful era of stud livestock breeding."
