Victorian, Cattle Producer, Feedlotter, Horse Breeder Jenny Bird writes.
Our operation is relatively small..we trade about 4000 steers into feedlots. So we buy in, grow out and send. Wodonga Sale yards on the Victorian / NSW Border (pictured below) is where we source most of our cattle.
Regular sales are Tuesday fat market plus store sale, special sales are held on other days of the week. These special sales require cattle to be yarded the day before and the sales start at 10:30 am. We have arrangements to get cattle out of the pens to dirt yards quickly and then home to paddocks 10 and 15 and 25 k away as the cement footing and radiant heat cook the feet of cattle and cause no end of veterinary work for us.
This is our main processing set of yards on the Bungowannah property under construction. The roof is going on over the yards ($22,000 alone) with lights so we can process cattle when they come in at midnight and get them out into paddocks asap to avoid health issues from standing round on concrete at sale yards and hours of trucking.
Best invention ever a roof over the working area. The power hose is essential to keep the area clean as the cattle are very loose in spring. The heat of the day in open yards in summer is intolerable so we start at dawn and try to knock off by midday……not that it ever works that way!!!!
In the feed on steer job you need to process cattle when they want them so good yards and facilities have become essential….but all are expensive.
The scanning equipment and recording gear we can take to other yards and use portable scales. Above is the sort of crush set up we have in all yards……this one hasn’t got the head grab on it yet. You can’t read buttons manually with out one! All scales need to be programed to the recording box…..if not they can give a false reading of up to 4 kg per 100 kg…..very critical when you are targeting a grid system of price for different feedlots.
We invested in $20,000 worth of crushes and scanner/recording equipment to ease the back pain of having to manually read all cattle on purchased and out the gate so we could check NLIS status of them on the data base to avoid ‘discounts’ at the feedlot entry point.
Above is Bill Weidner, who has been in the cattle business for many years, with some bullocks ready to go to Queensland at the Bonegilla property. Bill and I run his brother’s Estate. AJ Weidner was a very well known commission buyer for 60 odd years. Since Bill had a horse flip on him and break his leg, followed by a horse flinging him into a float and breaking a hip he does very little on a horse now…..but he has a buster off the Ag bike on a regular basis….the brakes on a horse were pretty reliable! At 79 he doesn’t repair as well as he used to!
Manually reading tags is essential on purchase entry as it identifies those cattle who don’t scan; don’t carry buttons at all on arrival; don’t carry a button that matches the NVD; aren’t in fact what they were sold as ie Vendor Bred but second hand, or Vendor Bred but the NVD relates to a different property so they come up on the data base as NOT LIFE TIME TRACEABLE.
The other issue is that when the data is entered on the keyboard, fields don’t hold that data and hours of filling in ‘gaps’ is done off the long hand recording we still have to do.
Nothing beats the written format….except when the dog pi**es on the sheets and you have used a texta pen!!!
“In my spare time I stand 4 Morgan stallions …live service and chilled shipment and breed Pure and Part bred Morgan horses. This mare I originally sold to NZ as a filly but then repurchased when the opportunity arose. I have sold several horses to NZ and every State and Territory in Australia. I have just sold a yearling filly to England….a first.
So when we have a problem on intake we ring the agent and request the correct NVD applicable to the cattle and a roll back of the data entry is done to make the cattle Life Time traceable. Otherwise, we deduct $100 off every incorrect beast purchased.
It is amazing how agents don’t put up a fight!!! It is easier to wear the discount than fix the problem for most……..as they are not computer literate themselves or it occurs so often they would have no time to address their own bottom line profit sheet if they had to fix every “problem” beast!!!
At the price of feed on steers we can’t afford to run 20% non lifetime traceable cattle to punt back into the domestic market!!!…..where Life time traceability doesn’t matter.
Marvelous Encore (pictured) is a Morgan stallion I imported from Arizona in 1994. He arrived mid winter - July 4th in a summer coat but he soon learnt to grow a winter coat.
The filly I sent to England in January went out in 40 degree heat and arrived in -8 with wind chill factor and it snowed the next day. She is growing a winter coat now as she tears off her rugs. It takes horses over 12 months to adjust to the climate change.
I have imported many horses from America, NZ and England as well as frozen semen. The drought and EI has minimised my program but I still have about 25 horses…..but don’t tell Bill!!!”
If only purchasers and breeders and stock owners of cattle would check their data base to see the mess they have on it. Most would recognize that the numbers they are supposed to have in the paddock according to the data base has no relationship to the data they have submitted to the Tax man!!!
Wouldn’t the Tax Office have a field day if they had a look at the data base of most cockies!!!!???? If you aren’t computer literate then ask your Agent to down load a copy of all the cattle you have recorded on your data base. You will be in for a BIG surprise!!! Remember the new buttons in the shed as yet unused are on there too…before you have a heart attack!!!
I headed up a syndicate to import frozen semen from a Palomino Morgan stallion and market that semen as well. Below is a photo of Palomino M0rgan Stallion - PT Cruiser.
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