From Australia with Love: The Murray Grey, the Breed Born by Mistake

In the early 1900s, on a farm on the upper Murray River in Australia, a roan Shorthorn cow was put to black Angus bulls year after year. Every calf she gave came out grey. The owner was embarrassed by them. His wife told him to keep them. Sixty years later, cattle bred from those calves were the most expensive in Australia. This is how a mistake became a breed, how that breed nearly lost itself, and why its grey coat may matter more in the next hundred years than it did in the last. This film covers: Thologolong, the farm on the Murray where the first grey calves were born; Helen Sutherland, who kept eight grey cows through a dispersal sale and a drought; the Gadd brothers of Walwa, the £10 bull they turned down, and the one they took; how the breed got its name in 1959, and its first herd book in 1962; the boom: first, second and third at London's Smithfield Show, and bulls that sold for $150,000; how the Murray Grey went to New Zealand, Britain, America, Paraguay and Canada; the fall: investors, disease, chasing size and chasing the feedlot; three registries, one breed; why it still wins on the hook; the heat study: 38.4°C against 43.4°C on the hottest days; why it matters to know who raised your beef. Read the full story: steaktrade.com/journal CHAPTERS 0:00 A mistake becomes a breed 1:10 The wrong colour 3:06 Helen 4:32 The man from Walwa 6:00 A name and a herd book 7:18 The boom 9:06 Around the world 10:43 The fall 12:14 Three herd books 13:35 Still winning on the hook 15:07 The grey coat 16:14 Know who raised it SteakTrade is a marketplace where independent ranchers sell their beef straight to the families who eat it. Know who raised your beef. Subscribe for a new film about beef and the people who raise it. — Notes: The old accounts disagree on details of the first calves: 12 or 13 of them, in 1905 or about ten years later. The film gives both. The Prime Minister's office bull and the gift to China are one breeder's account, and are told as such. "About half a million dollars in today's money" is one breed history's estimate. The heat figures are body surface temperatures on the hottest days of a summer feedlot study (574 steers, 2002–03). The film is drawn. Nobody named in it is pictured. Sources: Murray Grey Beef Cattle Society; Murray Grey Association Australia; Murray Grey Australia Breeders Association; Beef Central (2011, 2024); NSW DPI; Oklahoma State University Breeds of Livestock; Gaughan & Sakaguchi, Animal Production in Australia 25 (2004); BREEDPLAN, University of New England (2025); American Murray Grey Association (2025); DTN/Progressive Farmer (2018); Farm Weekly (2024); FAO DAD-IS; Wikipedia. #MurrayGrey #Cattle #Australia #BeefCattle #CattleBreeds #AustralianHistory #Ranching #GrassFedBeef #Angus #Shorthorn #MurrayRiver #Beef #FarmHistory #Agriculture #KnowWhoRaisedYourBeef