Australian Talk.

[townfarmer]

Wow Jilleroo you experienced the Ekka high life. That would have been an experience being up in the VIP area while us common folk slummed it in the stands. You deserve a bit of pampering with the tough year you guys are experiencing. The other thing I forgot to mention was the Charolais judging was a little odd with no Palgrove cattle participating.

Andrew

 

[jilleroo]

TF I certainly noticed the absence of Palgrove too. Their sale is not far off now. Was perusing the catalogue yesterday, the bulls are all shaved and shampooed as usual! No doubt it will hit the highspots, both the char and the ultrablacks.
Wasnt that champion angus bull huge!!

 

[wbvs58]

You must have had a telescope to see anything from up there Jilleroo but would have been a nice experience hobbknobbing with them all. You are just as entitled to the special treatment as the rest of them.
I have been doing a couple of loads to Inverell for bales of corn stubble. I can get 11 of these 500kg bales on the truck (8x4x3). It works out to about $12/bale in fuel to get them home. I think they eat about 2/3 of them before they tramp on the residual though they keep coming back. I will have to make up a feeder to go around them. I am going down again on Tuesday to pick up my third load. I don't care whether I use them or not, it is comforting to have them sitting there. Sept/October can be our toughest months here.
I have 21 calves on the ground now, the remaining 7 are going to be scattered over the end of August and Sept. I am very pleased with them, most areby the AI sires and look the part. I'll have to get cracking and upload some photos to photobucket, I just fid it a bit tedious though.
Ken

 

[townfarmer]

Jilleroo

That angus bull was a monster. I doubt it was possible to have packed and more onto his frame. Him being awarded CH was a bit controversial as he was sired by one of the judge's bulls. There was a bit of murmuring about that in the audience. I would have thought it was a conflict of interest to have a judge who had some of his genetics in the class.

Ken

Do those corn bales have much nutrition in them or are they more roughage and fill to complement the cotton seed?

Andrew

 

[Old_man_emu]

Diana would be more up on this sort of thing than I am but it would be interesting to say the least to have a judge looking over cattle with his own genetics in them. It could happen anywhere I guess.
I think they generally try to get judges that are from other breeds to avoid this kind of thing.
1300kg you say Andrew, I'm assuming he was from the over 36months class?

 

[townfarmer]

Hey OME he was in the 30 - 42 month old class and exhibited by Acacia angus stud. The judge made some interesting comments in relation to this bull about "how big is too big". He felt angus as a breed had chased low birthweight and marbling at the expense of growth and carcass.

Andrew

 

[wbvs58]

Andrew, I'm not sure of the nutrition. I have just been down again today for another load and I asked if he has had any testing done on it but hasn't. I know they can grow fairly well on standing corn stubble. This is cut off by the header about 6" high and after the grain is separated the rest is spat out the back in a windrow and then baled. There is the odd bit of grain with it. I have mainly got it as roughage, I have run out of the cottonseed now and feeding them the bulls 16% protein grain mix, when that runs out I'll get a load of the 14% cow mix, cottonseed too expensive. At the moment I think they are eating about 2/3 of it but they keep coming back to it but I rotate the paddocks so am not pushing them too hard. Where I am getting it the steers are on an oat crop and he puts this out and there is very little left on the ground I guess they are craving the drier roughage. I am going to make up a bit of a fence around it next week to stop them walking on it and piddling and sheeting on it which I am sure will enhance the utilisation of it.
The old weather bureau is certainly sticking their necks out at the moment with their rain forecast on the weekend. It will be interesting if they deliver, what they reckon would get some clover and the temperate grasses going so here is hoping.
Ken

 

[townfarmer]

Our place has some nice tinges of green after that last bit of rain. I was feeling optimistic for spring until I saw the dire forecast for rain over the next few months. Buyers at the palgrove bull sale must have been encouraged by the rain. 100% clearance of 130 bulls averaging over $7000. They're obviously doing something right.

Andrew

 

[Suzie Q]

We have greened up as well. It sure didn't take long. Let's hope there are no more frosts to kill it again.

Bounce Bounce Bounce. Hubby is talking about putting an arena in and the guy came out this morning to look at levelling the ground for us.

It is around 2 weeks since I rode the horses that day. We had a Holiday in Caloundra and I have been so busy that I have been working during the day and finishing the paperwork needed online by midnight several times.

Which finally ended up with me going to the wrong shop. I went to Springwood instead of Underwood. ARGH!!!

Never mind I have had some sleep and am back in the living and will double quadruple check everything in the future.

I left Sim with a round bale and he ate it. Ooopsss Overfed and underworked. So he has done a bit of fast work with the side reins on and I would not be surprised if he didn't hurt his mouth in the mean time. This morning he didn't want to canter on the lunge so I will give him some time to recover, but at least he didn't do anything untoward today, which he did the other days.

Twiggy was so good this morning I got on her again - she was not left with a round bale!!!

We have bred our first purebred Bazadais bull. He looks so tiny at the moment.

 

[jilleroo]

Coooo-eeee! Where is everyone? Same place as I've been - busy. Nothing good to report here, no miracles have happened, no rain has fallen, no wonderful agistment has been offered to us...
The cows on the northern country are out of grass but still look good for the time being. Son is putting out M8U and CS to some but the bulk of the herd is poking along without. This will all change shortly. The agistment cows are out of grass too. Desperately trying to rehome them somewhere without any luck. There's not much country around to buy or lease with grass.
I've been in Brisbane with my mum who's had pneumonia again. After one particularly scary night, she rallied again and celebrated her 86th birthday in fine style on Friday. I also attended a niece's wedding - she is executive chef at the Lighthouse Restaurant on Cleveland Pt and that's where the reception was....as much scrumptious seafood as we could eat, a real treat!
Since being home from there I've had two grandkids here for the week and also other visitors for the full week - very tiring. Now I'm getting stuck into the office work (which is why I'm on here!!!!) Tomorrow I take the new laptop in to have the accountants load a new programme and transfer across our data so I can start getting this quarter up to date ready for the next BAS. You can bet that won't go smoothly!
I've got quite a few early-weaned calves on hand and they're scouring despite being on calf crumble containing rumensin etc. Very disappointing. There was one heifer to calve, a nice big heifer with a good udder. She calved fine but then walked off and left it. Despite being yarded for a week and putting the calf on in the crush, the calf is now on the bucket. No good news stories anywhere here! Except maybe that the little pony mare has finally started to come good from her shoulder lameness. She can get about much better now.
At least prices have lifted - we sold a line of little steers to AA Company for top money (so there is a bit of good news after all...) and, on delivery, they were extremely happy with their quality and quietness. We've also had contact from the Philipino
crew who bought the heifers from us a couple of years ago. They want us to supply 1000 PTIC heifers next year, name our price...and we won't have any!!!

 

[wbvs58]

Yeh things just seem to get busier and busier Jilleroo. All the cows have calved now apart from one straggler, got some ripper calves, heaps of bull calves to select about 10 to keep on. I have done the first round of AI on the heifers and they are due back in next Saturday. I pulled the cidrs on the first calvers today and will pull them on the first group of cows on Tuesday and put another lot in. We have got pretty dry again though I think there is still a bit of moisture down a bit, just need to join it up. I am rotating the cows very rapidly through the paddocks just to clip the small bit of growth there. I am still feeding them a bit of grain and I think I have just arrested the weight loss which is what I need to have a chance to get them back in calf.
I sold my last bull today via Gumtree, not much money but he is gone and I just have my 8 yearling bulls to look after now. We always think next years are going to be better and that is what sucks you in.
I always reckon Sept and Oct are our toughest months. If we got an early storm we would get a pretty good response but you have to be very lucky it's usually not until late Oct.
I made a good contact with the people that bought my bull, very nice people and they grow and sell grain and will have stubbles and straw available from time to time and not too far away.
I got my calf registrations in last week so I'll start getting hair samples from any that are potential carriers of genetic defects. I plan to get rid of most of my carriers when they rear these calves so any calves that show up +ve the cow and calf can go sooner rather than later.
Ken

 

[Suzie Q]

Things have greened up here again. Hubby has taken a couple of days off work to plough.

I was riding both horses, but spent a week with my Mum in Brisbane as well.

We took her to the Dressage Festival in Caboolture and really enjoyed it.

Hopefully we will be able to make some hay soon.

 

[Havinago]

Hi everyone, yep busy. I hear prices have soared?? I havent been on here for ages but I heard yesterday theyve lifted by about immensely up our way. We sold 75 % of our holding when prices were down so hard to have a win!

 

[wbvs58]

The loss is quickly in the past. I bet you feel in a much more relaxed and comfortable position now Havinago and hopefully you will be able to cash in on those better prices down the track and with fewer cattle, much more feed and much more weight put on = more dollars.
Ken

 

[townfarmer]

Prices had to go up eventually. Hopefully they'll keep trending up. I was down at the property for a week doing some fencing and also attempting some AI on some heifers. After selling most of our pure highland cows I had all these random people pulling up wanting to buy highland cattle for pasture ornaments. We had them for 10 years and never had any enquiries. As soon as we sell them everyone wants to buy them. Grass seems to be growing in super slow motion. All the light frosts aren't helping.

Andrew

 

[Havinago]

Hi Ken,
thanks for the reply & yes you are correct in saying we are in a more relaxed state about it now. Will never overstock again grass = money (fat cattle). We are understocked atm but the grass still cant get in front of them. Will try and fatten these last fellas out and sell to the meatworks has been suggested. Then spell for 3 months and start fresh again. Lesson learnt!

 

[Suzie Q]

 

[Suzie Q]

We have bred another full bred Bazadais bull. He has a circle on his tummy near his stifle (If cattle have stifles?) and I don't think that is really allowed. At least we will know who he is and who his mum is.

Last week we went to an Equine carboot sale. We picked up an old style mounted County Dressage saddle in really good condition for $50.00 I picked up leather riding boots for $10.00, we bought Sim a shaped girth for $10.00 and twiggy an elasticised wintec girth for $5.00. I bought every pair of leather riding gloves I saw that fitted me from $2.00 to $12.00 and we picked up a couple of dressage books for $2.00. Hubby got a brand new double leather lunging cavesson for $20.00 and 5 or $10.00 for brand new leather side reins. Fly veils for $5.00 and THEN I found brand new Thomas Cook (I think) sticky bum jodhpurs for $25.00. I gave up and went and got more money.

You can see the new riding boots, gloves and jodhies in these 2 photos and the saddle is on Sim. It fits him and me perfectly. :excited:

Here I am on Sim.

and here I am on Twiggy. Hubby said I looked more nervous than Twiggy did!!

I have decided that I should be intelligent enough to not lose gloves. I love the gloves I am wearing they are so soft and 100% leather. They have holes where your knuckles are and the whole of the back of the hand is open. It is still a month out from Summer and we have been riding at 4 and 5 o'clock in the morning as it is too hot afterwards.

They have a clip that secures them around your wrist. So I am able to clip them through each other and to the chinstrap of the helmet. I hope that means I keep the gloves and not that I will lose both gloves and the helmet!! :rofl:

 

[jilleroo]

Nice photos Suzie, your dressage arena looks very good.
Nothing good to report out here of course. Very hot and very dry. Time to make some more tough decisions. We all hoped if we could just get through to Oct/Nov there'd be some good storms start kicking around. The latest BOM three month outlook is dismal to say the very least. People are killing themselves out here....I do wish they wouldnt....it upsets the rest of us natives.
A neighbour one property away got up on Monday morning and went out and shot himself....lovely bloke, lovely family, no warning to anyone. Not only men doing it either. People are losing hope, they can't see a way forward.
Meanwhile, we've still got the feed trucks rolling in, from NSW and the Atherton Tablelands. We had a Riverina rep from Warwick here yesterday - what a character, he gave us a great laugh as well as being full of interesting facts and figures. We're sourcing lick and cow pellets from them. Barley hay, barley straw, rhodes grass, mitchell grass hay, oaten hay, you name it, we've got it.
We put one lot of cows into the desert uplands between Blackall and Jericho a couple of weeks ago. This is not the sort of country we would normally inhabit but that's desperation for you. Soft spinifex country, bauhinia etc. We went up to check them a few days later and they were all chewing their cuds on the water, not interested in the blocks we brought so that was good anyway.
Cowboy Ken has gone back to Warwick to take his new roadbike for a service in Brisbane and is then taking it for a spin to Victoria and up to Mareeba before coming back here in his car in a couple of weeks! He's a goer....

 

[wbvs58]

Yeh Jilleroo things are not too flash here either, no storms to speak of yet we had 7.5mm on Wed and it was completely gone by mid morning Thurs. I have just got back from Brisbane and I am considering going back to feeding them some grain hoping that they will pick up some roughage over the place. They are looking pretty ordinary and I can't see how they can be going back in calf. A lot of people aren't putting their bulls in this year.
I know which calves I am keeping now so that I plan to sell the rest as cow/calves but I would like to wait until we get a couple of reasonable storms to give a bit of optimism to some buyers. The prices have been pretty good but I get the feeling that they will be diving a bit everyday now that we don't get rain. I am going down to Tenterfield tomorrow and sus out what is required to take them over the border for selling there, I am a bit peed off with my useless agent here he just won't make any suggestions of what to do, just happy his %age and not stick his neck out.
Ken