Eighty-year-old farmer Carol Cashin kept a keen eye on the cattle trade at Leongatha on Friday as she prepared to sell her own bullocks at the next sale.
Ms Cashin, Pound Creek, Inverloch, lost her late husband Harry several years ago and said she keeps a few cattle still for the 'love of it' on 6.5 acres around her house.
"They're beautiful, they're nice and they're shiny," she said of the finished Angus bullocks she will sell at Leongatha's next sale.
She said the couple used to run "a lot of cattle up in the snowy mountains" but that she now feeds the few pets to keep herself busy.
"I just put these little fellas in and started feeding them," she said.
"All I do now is go 'toot toot' and they might be down the road but they hear the car and up they come."
Ms Cashin said she is feeding the bullocks, some of which are over 700 kilograms, on vegetables and grain.
While she was advised to hold off selling her stock until the middle of April, she said she needs to sell now before her feed and water runs out.
"The beef prices are coming up but I haven't got enough water or feed for them to hold them that long," she said.
"I just said to book them in for next week."
The octogenarian said she needed to get a good price for her cattle just to break even.
"The problem is, I bought in at the top of the market, $2,200 for the biggest ones, and I'm going to be lucky to get $2,200 for them now," she said.
"When you buy at the top you've got to try and sell at the top but it doesn't always work that way."
Ms Cashin, who had been around cattle all her life, said the beef sector had become more and more challenging, particularly for young farmers.
However, she hoped that one of her grandsons might continue with her love of cattle in years to come.
