Banksia Ridge is operated by Claire and Peter Coldrey and was established in 1997 as a mid-sized cattle operation located at Flaxley in the Adelaide Hills. We currently run a herd of 110 breeding females on two properties. On one property we have a Murray Grey stud herd with 50 registered breeding females and on the other, a commercial herd with 60 Murray Grey and Murray Grey cross females.

The stud originally grew from a commercial Gelbvieh operation, when a Murray Grey bull was bought from Treegoodwill Murray Grey stud in S.A. to help relieve some calving problems we were experiencing. With the Murray Grey bull, the calving problems disappeared, and the few cows we bought with the bull were incredibly easy to handle and flourished on our property. We bought more Murray Grey females from Boxvale stud and joined Group Breedplan in 1999. When we gained access to additional land, we decided to move all the cross bred animals to the new property and establish a Murray Grey stud on Banksia Ridge.

In 2001 and 2002 we bought around 30 registered females from most studs in South Australia and in the process introduced bloodlines from many intestate studs such as Monterey, Lerwick Park, The Glen, Woodburn and Ondiong.

In order to rapidly improve our herd we have artificially inseminated all females for the last three years.

We are active in the local Flaxley Landcare Group and have devoted a lot of their time to building fences and planting under-story plants to help preserve and improve the remnant vegetation on Banksia Ridge. They dams and water courses have been fenced to minimise land degradation and improve water quality.