Producer says he wishes he bought more cattle at Yarram Park dispersal
Dean Wheaton is juggling the demands of harvest and a commercial cow herd but after snapping up quality genetics last week his only regret was not buying more.
The chance to buy Hereford genetics from a stud like Yarram Park doesn’t come along very often.
For commercial cattle breeder and lot feeder Dean Wheaton from Wheaton Farms, north west of Nhill and Telopea Downs, it was an opportunity too good to pass up.
The Wheaton family bought six Herefords at the Yarram Park dispersal at Willaura last week, where 408 of the 500 Herefords sold.
In the female section of the sale, 52 cow and calf units averaged $4144 while 69 PTIC heifers sold to a top of $11,000 and averaged $4130.
But with harvest pressure bearing down on the mixed farmer, Mr Wheaton said in hindsight, he should have purchased some of the PTIC heifers carrying Poll Hereford genetics.
“Hindsight is wonderful, I should have bought them, but probably had harvest on my mind too,” he said.
“It was never going to be an exceptionally dear sale – Angus seems to be the colour that rules the world now – but the prices were still above commercial value”.
The Wheatons have 400 commercial Hereford cows and join a further 100 heifers.
“We have been AI-ing for 15 years and only use the best bulls, we sell to Coles, lot feeding,” he said.
“We bought another farm and in future will run a further 200 (cows) on that.”
The Wheatons’ cropping country north west of Nhill was spared from major damage from the rain that hit much of the south east of Australia over the weekend, much to their relief.
“We only had 2mm, we were supposed to get 25mm, so we are back into it today and will try to get as much off now because there is another 8mm forecast tonight,” Mr Wheaton said.
“We had good summer rain and that got us through – we aren’t having a bumper harvest but it is probably going to end up above average for us.”
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