Deciding to sell their heifers in Colac’s January weaner sales seems to have been the right call for Murray and Anne Howard, Violet Banks, Beeac, since the season has remained very dry.
Their 227-hecare operation includes owned and leased land on which they’re running 135 cows and calves.
In 2008 they began the switch from F1 females for vealer production to running Angus cattle to sell weaners.
Mr Howard said they’d benefited from easier calving and enjoyed keeping female lines. They first bought 30 (and then another 10) Hazeldean cows from Cooma and said these long-time proven bloodlines had performed so well in terms of calving ease, mothering abilities, resilience to seasonal conditions that they had continued to buy more lots.
The initial Angus cows were spring calving cows and in the intervening eight years, the couple has grown the herd by retaining some heifers and slowly moved them to be an autumn calving herd which Mr Howard said suited the district.
They use Pathfinder bulls and calve down in late February/March to hopefully miss the hottest days and target the Colac weaner sale.
“We made the decision to target that sale but we didn’t count on it getting so dry with basically no rain from winter onward,” he said.
Two rainfall events within a week in late October to early November totalling about 60mm gave them paddock feed for a bit longer. Nonetheless, they had to wean earlier, before Christmas and over four to five weeks, fed quality oaten and wheaten hay and some home-produced silage. This year was the first time the Howards sold at the feature sale and it exceeded their expectations. Their top steers won best presented pen and draft included 47 steers, av weight 394kg, made an av $1212 and 66 heifers, 366kg, av $1121.
“The better cattle prices were a significant help. Until this year’s weaner sales, beef cattle prices had been static and had not kept up with increased costs. The weaner prices allowed us to buy in more feed,” he said.
“In a good season, we would have three-quarters of our hay needs but this year we’ve bought almost all of it, probably more than 300 bales of mostly cereal hay.”
Mr Howard said those dry conditions had persisted: “We’ve had plenty of dry years in the past 10-15 years but this time it started so early; it’s as if we’ve had six months of summer-like conditions including heatwaves. It’s virtually a dust bowl.”
The Howards count themselves lucky that they have water security – at a price. Their house block is on town water that they supply to their stock and the other part of the farm has good bores.
