With no rain in sight, CQ graziers sell off weaners
Brahmans and droughtmaster calves go to Central Queensland Livestock Exchange
Rockhampton
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JOHN Wall has been running cattle on Plum Tree station near Raglan for "30-odd years” but he never stops learning about best practice farming.
He encourages people on the land to liaise with organisations such as Capricornia Catchments and the Fitzroy Basin Association to keep up with current research.
"You've got to look after the country or it will get worse next year, if you let everything get down to bedrock,” he said.
Mr Wall is a member of the FBA's Stocktake Scheme, which sends facilitators out to network with landowners and other rural residents.
"If you sit through these seminars and ask questions, you can take home the knowledge that works for you and throw the rest away,” he said.
"What works for me might not work in Moura, it might not work out in the Central Highlands.”
Mr Wall said keeping up with best practice has definitely helped him in making good decisions about dealing with erosion.
He recently met with Peter Andrews, whose natural sequence farming initiatives were considered controversial when he first came to public attention in the 1970s.
Andrews has since received an Order of Australia for his work in restoring waterways and growing plants.
"What he learned in the Hunter Valley, though, doesn't really apply to all the rubber vine and lantana up here,” Mr Wall said.
He visited the Central Queensland Livestock Exchange in Gracemere yesterday to sell a truckload of red brahman weaners.
"It's so dry out west, we need to start thinning the herds out. If you've got no grass, you've got to sell; it's as easy as that,” he said.
At the same sales, farmer Andrew Bulger's advice was, "enjoy what you're doing in life”. However due to ongoing disastrous droughts in rural Queensland, Mr Bulger has been forced to sell cattle to feedlots and other property owners up to four hours away.
Driving in from his property halfway between Alpha and Emerald, he opted to sell his surviving mickey droughtmaster cross santa brahman calves to breeders at the CQLX.
"There is more grass on this cement than there is in the paddocks,” he said.
"The Rockhampton market is much better when compared to the likes of Emerald.”
Mr Bulger has had to pay up to $105,000 for round bales without the help of the government, in addition to extreme grain costs.
"My wife and I had bought the station in 2002 off my parents, and they bought it off their parents,” he said.
"They bought it off their parents and so on, going back to 1900.”
With another small property east of Emerald and 2,400 ha near Lakeland, Mr Bulger and other farmers out west are hoping for an end to the extreme drought, which sees them selling off this season's weaners.
Lyla Schmidt is on work experience at The Morning Bulletin from Moura State High School.
Originally published as With no rain in sight, CQ graziers sell off weaners
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