Top Santa Gertrudis breeder's endless search for perfection

Having farmed Santa Gertrudis cattle for nearly half a century, Amy Williams is sought after for her professional advice, and many farmers credit her for their success. Moreover, her stud has continued to produce award winning animals year after year, proving that her expertise and passion are undiminished. Lindi Botha reports.

- Lindi Botha

The walls of Amy Williams’s office on Scotston farm in Mpumalanga are adorned with photographs of prize-winning animals, testimony to their owner’s 45-plus years of cattle-breeding skills. And the accolades, it seems, are not stopping any time soon. This year, her bull DJW 17 029 was nominated for an Agricultural Research Council Platinum Bull award.

Hailing from Scotland, and with a family heritage of cattle farming going back 800 years, Williams married a South African and found herself on a farm in Barberton in the early 1970s. While her husband continued tobacco farming, she took up cattle breeding, starting with Brahman crosses.

“My husband’s father was talked into buying a Santa Gertrudis bull. When we weaned the calves, the weights were better from the Santa Gertrudis side. I started adding a few to the herd and bought some registered female animals, and then registered as a Santa Gertrudis breeder in 1975,” she says.

Today, the Williams Santa Gertrudis stud prides itself on breeding functionally efficient animals with good beef qualities. The stud comprises 125 breeding cows, with the full herd being between 280 and 340 head, depending on the time of year. With just 950ha of grazing, Williams says that there is little room for expansion.