Bonian Stud was established in 1989 with the purchase of 3 French Pure heifers at the dispersal of the Killkerry Limousin Stud in Victoria.

These 3 heifers would leave a significant imprint on the Bonian Stud,  being used in an embryo transfer program to assist in building herd numbers quickly.

In those early days of the stud more emphasis was placed on muscle volume and shape than on functionality.

It soon became apparent that although we were producing some very nice terminal sires for the commercial vealer market we needed to look at improving certain attributes in order to maintain a self-replacing herd.  

Over the next several years, with welcomed advice from other stud breeders, several different AI bulls were used to provide us with a more diverse range of genetics from which to continue to build and develop the Bonian herd. 

The decision to join Breedplan was a significant turning point for the stud. It has been an excellent tool to aid in the continual selection of bloodlines.
I emphasise the word ‘aid’. As we would never select an animal to breed with solely by using Breedplan EBV figures, but we have used them to help decide between similar looking animals, and to highlight some of the ‘hidden’ traits like calving ease and a bull’s ability to produce daughters with good milk.

Over recent years, Bonian Stud has also moved away from the traditional French Pure bloodlines, initially acquiring 3 polled heifers in 2001 at the Lloyd’s Limousin dispersal. The docility of these heifers was an eye opener. These animals were a pleasure to handle in the yards and showed almost no stress. 

We subsequently went about searching for a docile, polled bull to purchase, one with all the maternal traits we were aiming for,  without compromising the carcase attributes of the breed.
 
Entering these search criteria into the Limousin Society’s website was easy and we soon had a list of about 30 young bulls to choose from across Australia.

After visiting several studs we eventually selected Timor Poll Wag, an early maturing, homozygous polled bull that we have used extensively over cows and heifers with very pleasing results. 

With the expansion of our stud through the purchase of a second property nearby, we have continued to increase our herd numbers & have continued to concentrate on producing animals that showed the traits that we have been able to develop through using bulls such as Wag. 

During this time, we returned to Timor Limousins to source some more double polled heifers as well as increasing the herds genetic base through the purchase of animals from Donna Valley Limousins and Ramornie Limousins.  Ramornie Explosion Y15, an exceptionally quiet young bull is another herd sire that has certainly placed his positive marks on our herd.

More recently we have added Mandayen Cookie Monster Z394 to our list of herd sires and we expect several of his calves to be born this spring. Another bull, Timor Poll Wattle, has impressed us so much with the vealers he has produced over our commercial cows that we have decided to use him over more of our Stud cows this year.

Bonian Limousin Stud has come a long way from the early days and have firmly established a herd that we are very proud of.  Meeting all of our requirements for docile, high quality cattle that have excellent maternal & carcass traits.