Rain couldn’t come sooner for Buchan farmer

The 74 year-old said it has been mostly dry on his property for 20 months, after the rain cut off in July 2016.

“My sons Greg and Peter are going to take over and run it between them. I had planned to stop here and just keep an eye on things,” Mr Coates said.

“It would have happened by now if it wasn’t so dry. I don’t feel like handing things over in the current state it’s in.”

Mr Coates said if you work by the law of averages, the region is due for rain soon. “It can’t be doom and gloom forever,” he said.

But he has had to make significant operational decisions to deal with the lack of rainfall, including selling cattle earlier than normal.

“In January last year, I sold 30 cows and calves to lighten the load,” he said.

“I also sold cattle back in early October, that I would have carried through until now; I just panicked and thought they had to go.”

He said whatever you sell is never enough, as “any amount of cattle is too much at the moment”.

He said it is an ideal time to get an autumn break, but isn’t sure whether one will come in time.

If conditions remain the same, he said he will have to sell another 40 cows.

“If nothing’s happened in a month’s time, we’re going to have to make some serious decisions,” he said.

Mr Coates purchased his main property almost 50 years ago, and later bought an additional two properties in Buchan, and one in Bruthen, totalling just over 400 hectares.

He said the Bruthen property was purchased to drought-proof his operation.

But this idea came crumbling down in the middle of 1998, when up to 16 inches of rain was recorded over a 30-hour period, causing the “biggest flood ever”.

“We couldn’t run anything on it for two years, and it’s taken 20 years to get it to where it is now,” he said.

The year before this, Mr Coates was in an on-farm accident, where he got knocked over by a bull, causing 13 breaks in his rib cage.

“I was unlucky to get caught, but lucky to get out,” he said.

Following these incidents, he said he had to make some changes, including dropping cattle numbers.

“In recent years, we haven’t sold cattle as calves, we now send them to our Bruthen property, grow them out, and sell them at the fat markets,” he said.

“I just thought it would cut the workload down running less breeders and growing out cattle; it’s not necessarily any better financially, it just means we’re calving-down less.”

He said in recent years, he has also experimented with different breeds of cattle.

“I used to just run Herefords, but I wasn’t getting anything for the heifers,” he said.

“We’ve now incorporated Hereford Shorthorns and Angus, using Charolais and Angus bulls over them.”

He said he had also trialled Limousin bulls for about five years, but found Charolais bulls to be quieter.

He said even though the cattle market has shifted now and everything is selling better, the decision has worked wonders financially.