Our cattle farming business was established in 2004 with six Santa Gertrudis 2X cows and a classified bull which were generously given to Doug by Michael Rankin of Hartwood Pastoral Company (Stud No. 827) when Doug left his employment to start his own farm.

Doug lived at Hartwood Station near Cobar, NSW working as a station hand for nine years, prior to us moving to Nottingham Park, near Ashford in NSW. Working along side Mike Rankin (and Gordan Bevan of GBL Stud), Doug obtained valuable experience in breeding Santa Gertrudis stud cattle. Previously, Doug also worked for a dairy farm on the south coast of NSW.

Shortly after moving to Nottingham Park, another ten cows were purchased from Mike, which together with the original six cows, formed a foundation herd of Santa Gertrudis females. Our entire herd has been bred from these hardy cattle from western NSW.

Our first bull Hartwood 781 (PS) (AI) was affectionately known as ‘Big Boy’. The son of Murgo Farrer (PS) and Hartwood 552 (P), Big Boy was a naturally quiet bull, being amenable to pats, scratches and even being sat upon. If the house yard gate was left open, you could be sure he would wander in for a visit!

We registered our stud in 2011. A full set of records enabled our herd to be inspected, with a significant proportion of our females being classified.

Along the way we have purchased sires from Waco, Yulgilbar, Hallcraig, Glenn Oaks, Welbatch, Diamond H and Tookey Creek studs.

Our focus is breeding dark poll bulls, which are naturally quite to handle whilst retaining plenty of Santa breed character. The majority of our female herd is polled, and we use only poll or poll scur sires.

DS Bradley & AJ MacKay uses the stud prefix DSB, derived from Doug’s initials. All our bulls are fire-branded ‘TDB‘.

Please feel free to contact Doug or Alison if you have any queries about our bulls.