It’s hard to ignore the GLP-1 conversation, Ozempic and Mounjaro. For the right person at the right time these are genuinely life changing medications.

In the US where direct to consumer marketing is permitted, they’re a pharmaceutical company’s advertising dream. Quick, visible effects that are easy to market and amplified by social media. With one in eight Americans having used a GLP-1 medication, the demand is clear.

The drugs may act as the catalyst, but they are not the whole program.

Without sustained changes in lifestyle and nutrition, initial progress can be fragile. When the medication ceases and appetite suppression fades, long-term success depends on the underlying system.

Beef production operates under the same principle.

There will always be something marketed as the lever for rapid acceleration, a supposed “herd-changing” sire or a selection shift heralded as transformational.

Change is of course necessary. We advocate for it…

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In a commercial environment where margins are tight, standing still is not a strategy and average is rarely good enough. But no single sire, no one-trait selection approach or a single year of selection will immediately fix a cow herd.

The weaning results of this year are not simply a reflection of the bulls purchased in the spring of 2025. They are the outcome of selection and management decisions made years, and generations, in advance.

Genetic progress in herds is cumulative, built through sustained purposeful, pressure on reproduction and a supportive management system.

At Copley Pastoral we are always pursuing change, but it’s the incremental variety that requires patience to see to fruition. This change does not lend itself to dramatic before and after videos, it holds and evolves across generations.

Our breeding objectives align with the key profit drivers of profitability in northern beef production. We know from the 2023 Australian Beef Report that a one percent lift in reproduction can translate to approximately 1.5kg per adult equivalent in additional production. These increments of change, applied consistently, have a major commercial impact at a whole-herd level.

Catalysts have their place. A change in seedstock supplier, a new method of analyse or measurement can accelerate and refine your goal when used with a clear breeding objective.

Yet it is the consistency and sustainability of your program that will compound the change and make it permanent.

This article is from OverHerd, our seasonal newsletter from Copley Pastoral.