Ideally cattle traders are looking to make a margin buying and selling in the same market but that's a difficult proposition to achieve in the current cattle market.
Backgrounder, Glen Ward, said that like everyone in the business - the "buy in" price dictated the type of cattle purchased and the overall success of the operation.
Mr Grant and wife Janet and son Angus run an operation, Landscape Partnership, across two properties.
Management is a collaborative approach to all aspects of the operations.
The properties comprise Landscape of 182 hectares at Tallarook and the 320ha Glenburn Station at Glenburn, bought 18 months ago.
At the time the property was running a breeding operation but found that the 1000 millimetre rainfall pattern did not suit having cattle there all-year-round.
The solution was to use it as a backgrounding property with a group of cattle bought in early January for offloading by June and a group bought around the end of August and gone by Christmas.
He said they had changed the pasture types from annual species to more permanent pastures to suit an operation that turned off 1200 to 1300 head across two stages - autumn and spring - over the two properties.
In the current environment he needed to be flexible with plans of what stock to buy and marketing plans at the other end, he said.
"We'll probably have to lift our sights when buying - ether cents a kilo or per head - and lower our sights as to what we expect as a differential going out," he said.
"In a market such as this it is hard work, but it can be done. The difference is that you have more money outlaid."
Mr Ward said they set a cents a kilo range for buying "that we feel is a reasonable level at which we can operate" and which factors in transport costs.
"Everyone has had to lift their sites," he said.
"We do change directions many times. We opportunity buy. Steers were difficult to buy after winter because of the pricing, so we bought a lot of PTIC cows early on to fill that gap and they have calved down and would be moved on," he said.
"We mixed that in with around 400 steers. We try to bring the steers in at between 350 and 400 kilograms and aiming for selling at 480 to 500kg.
"We deliver to the feedlot that best suits the breed of cattle we have and the weight range at the time.
"If we find cattle that are a reasonable rate [price] we can carry them through to a kill weight of more than 600kg."
Looking ahead with the season "in front of us", there were steers doing two kilograms a day and those that could run to 600kg pre Christmas, "we could target them into a kill".
Wet conditions at Glenburn Station meant the spring and summer were looking "enormous", giving a lot of flexibility.
Mr Ward said the cattle were quarantined for the first few days and to settle in, before being drenched and drafted into weight lots.
"In the case of a large group of Hereford steers we bought, they remained in that group because they would go to a different feedlot," he said.
"We do a fair bit of work with AuctionsPlus - in and out," he said.
Mr Ward said they tried to keep cattle handling to a minimum - "we like to leave them to do what they do in the paddock", he said.
