Salt of the Earth Farm Stories
Welcome to "Salt of the Earth - Farm Stories". Host Darren Grigg invites you to step into the world of farmers from diverse backgrounds across Australia. Through intimate interviews, he delves into their farming practices, traditions, and the challenges they face in nurturing the land. From generations-old family farms to innovative sustainable practices, each episode offers a glimpse into the resilience, passion, and dedication of Australian farmers and explores the profound connection between people and the land. Be inspired by the stories of those who sow the seeds of the future.
Salt of the Earth Farm Stories
Ep 108: Peter Godbolt _ Part A
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Peter Godbolt is a Stud Stock Manager with Nutrien Ag Solutions, working with livestock breeders and producers right across Australia. Spending close to 100,000 kilometres a year on the road, he’s constantly travelling between cattle sales, properties, shows and industry events.
Growing up around Herefords, Pete says there’s no better place to grow up than on the farm — and his experience stretches across both the commercial and stud stock sectors of the livestock industry.
In Part A, we talk auctioneering stories, life on the land, the evolution of cattle genetics, meat quality, temperament, and the people that make the industry what it is. There’s plenty of insight, a few laughs, and some great stories from behind the microphone and behind the rails.
Pete is a fled stock manager with nutrient solutions, working with livestock breeders and producers right across the country.
SPEAKER_01I started at 8 o'clock on Thursday and finished my first day at 9 o'clock on Friday market.
SPEAKER_00He spent a huge amount of time on the road, about 100,000 kilometres a year, travelling to styles, properties, and livestock events. He grew up around Hereford and says there's no better place to grow up than on a farm. Pete has experienced right across the livestock industry, from commercial production through to stud breeding and genetics. Every single day a farmer gambles, they're gambling on it raining, they're gambling on the crop coming up. In this episode, we cover everything from auctioneering stories and life on the land, through to meat quality, temperament, genetics, and plenty of laughs along the way. Let's go. We're talking cattle, red or black. Oh, that's tough, very tough one. In your position it is, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my position it is. I would most probably say, because of my background being a uh coming back from a Hereford background, I'd have to say my heart lies with the red ones, but the black ones at the moment are the flavour of the month big time.
SPEAKER_00And I guess that could depend on what part of the country you're in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it does a little bit, and sort of changeover of generations and stuff like that. Um yeah, you've got a lot of old faithfuls that are still in the red ones, and a lot of Herefords and that sort of still up in the mountains, that around here, so they handle those conditions very, very well. So there's still a lot of them up in that area. But yeah, I do have a soft spot for the Herefords.
SPEAKER_00All right, well, it's a bit like tractors, you're red or you're green. Yeah, definitely. Mate, well, it's good to catch you today. You seem to be constantly on the road, so I'm lucky to to get you. Uh I suster you out a few months ago. I think you're up on the Queensland border. Then I checked in on you on the Monday, a few days later. You were had four days in Tassie. Then at the end of that week, you're in Western Victoria. I have no idea how you do it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is pretty tough to uh make sure you know where you're going and where you're at all the time, and uh so you don't miss someone's sale or lock something in with someone. And like you say, with the travel, you you just get in and you get that done, I suppose. I've been used to driving, so you just get in, you get it done. Yes, you do get tight at times, but you just got to stop and have a rest. Or company's very good in that aspect if like they do need to pull over and they're more than willing for you to stay overnight, and that uh they'd prefer you to do that than push through and try and get home or something silly. But yeah, like that particular week you're talking about, yeah. I was in northern New South Wales, pretty close to the Queensland border, come back down, went into Tasmania and then did a quick job in the Western districts before I come home and then got home, yeah, sort of midday Saturday. So yeah, that was a pretty big week. And we do have them, but then do have quite a week. So like this week I've been lucky to be pretty close to home all week um setting up for the Hereford National Show and Sales. So had a week at home, so they do counteract each other out.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. So how many Ks a year, can I ask?
SPEAKER_01Uh anywhere from 80,000 to 100,000 K's a year in my car. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Crazy. Um, mate, you've had a fascinating career or journey so far in the livestock industry. You grew up on your family's Hereford stud near Lancefield, Victoria. Yep. Can you tell us a little bit about your upbringing?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so uh my upbringing was dad managed the Hereford stud, I better clarify that too. We just actually didn't own it, but he managed the Hereford Stud there for 25 or six years. So he's worked in the Herefords all his life, and Pop was pretty well Hereford's short horns, a bit of dairy cattle in our background as well. But yeah, dad's always managed uh Hereford operations from just outside of Tamworth at Willow Tree, and then he actually managed a place just not far out the road from where I am now at Holbrook, Cup of Hereford started, and then we moved down to Lansfield and um Oh so where were you born then? So I was born in West Wylong. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah, born in West Wylong, what I would call now the paddock because the hospital's not there. When people ask me where I'm born, I'm just saying the paddock at West Wylong and it gets a bit of a laugh. But yeah, uh so yeah, West Wylong, and then went across the Willow Tree, then obviously Holbrook, Well by Margamer, and then down the Lansfield onto the Hereford Stud. And it was a great place to grow up. You're out of Melbourne, so you had all the sort of access to all the city sort of stuff. It's uh local footy was pretty competitive in basketball through that area when I grew up playing that, and uh yeah, on the farm was a great place to be growing up. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Any favourite memories as a as a child?
SPEAKER_01Uh well, Dad's boss was very, very, very good to us, uh me and my brother. Like he was very well tied up in the Western mining sort of stuff. So he he wasn't on farm a lot, and he always said to us when we first came down, he said, I'll buy you a Christmas present every year, as long as you don't burn the hay shed down. So we got a Christmas present every single year, bar one, and it wasn't mine or my brother's fault. They used to have a what we sort of half a machinery shed, half a uh a hay shed, and the electric fence unit used to be in there, and one day it shorted out, and there was a little bit of it what it wasn't even full of hay, there was only a little bit of hay on the ground, and it caught on fire, and it came the Christmas and come up to see dad at the end of the year, and us boys run out to get our Christmas present, and we didn't receive one. And uh obviously because the hay shed caught on fire, so he stuck to his words, but yeah, that was basically a big memory, and obviously rough. Yeah, it was all good. We we didn't expect a Christmas present from him, but it was good. Uh and uh just generally growing up on the farm, it can't there's no better place to be in my mind. I I know the city people say they couldn't live on a farm or vice versa, but yeah, I definitely couldn't live in the hustle and bustle all the time.
SPEAKER_00No, on the same. Mate, were you always interested in stock agents growing up?
SPEAKER_01Always had access to them, I suppose, with what we did on the farm. I didn't want to be a stock and station agent when I was going through school. I two things I or three things I either wanted to be was a chef, a baker, or an architect.
SPEAKER_00Far out, mate. You've uh drifted off a bit there with those wishes.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it does it doesn't help when you don't apply yourself at school and get the marks to be able to do something, especially the architect side of things. That's what I'm most probably when I was going through sort of year nine and ten, that's what I really wanted to be. Like when I did school-based placements and that it was uh I went with an architect for two weeks and I actually went with a builder for two weeks. So that's what I did. So trying something different. And mum and dad are always sort of pushed us to try different things and um everything. Like my brother, he's he was a butcher originally, and now he's a uh meat wholesaler. So I suppose you still enter in the agricultural sector, but in totally other space to where we grew up. But yeah, they always did push us to sort of try different things, and you've always got the farming agricultural background to fall back onto.
SPEAKER_00So any interesting part-time jobs when you're a kid?
SPEAKER_01You you say that mostly not. I didn't really have any part-time jobs, really. Um, I was one of those kids that didn't really like school that much. It didn't gel with me that well. Um, so I'd come home, get off the bus, ride my bike home, the K from where it was from the bus, stop to home, have a quick drink, throw my work clothes on, and I'd be over in the stud shed. The bulls would already be let out or just about to be let out. So you'd take them out to their pens and then you'd muck the shed out, and then you'd do a few other odd jobs with dad before he'd come home. So that was virtually every day after school, unless I had sport, unless I had to go to footy training or basketball. And even generally, I'd even try and sneak over there for half an hour before I had to go to sport. Obviously, when school holidays hit, we actually got paid to work on the farm during the school holidays, but all the sort of 45 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half after school, that was all free labour.
SPEAKER_00So I know. Familiar story. But um it was a struggle to do homework, wasn't it? Yeah, very much so.
SPEAKER_01I was I never really did it, I suppose. That was the key answer. Or if mum did happen to get you before you ran out of the house, well, you'd get snookered into the corner and sit down and do a bit of homework.
SPEAKER_00So well, your first job was that in livestock?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I I suppose, yeah, for from the day I could go with dad on the farm or whatever, I suppose. It wasn't a paid job, but like I remember days on the farm with dad out here at Cappa, like I'd go and mum wouldn't see me until the afternoon, and like I suppose another funny ask about funny stories. I went with dad one day and we were mustering cows, and I was on the bike sitting on the front of the two-wheeler with him, and um we were just going along behind a cow and she happened to kick and she kicked the front tire, and the bike fell over, and like because my leg was right on the um where the exhaust is, and it sort of fell on top of us. It took a while for dad to get it off us and like burnt my leg, but I didn't say a thing because I didn't want to have to go home. So um like I love being on the farm. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00So then this, you know, motivated you to pursue a career in commercial livestock, and then become a livestock agent instead of a breeder?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I always got a passion for the breeding side of it and like just watching data as I grew up and all that kind of stuff, like making breeding decisions and um what bulls to use for AI and what bulls to put out with cows naturally, sometimes your AI, and then put that bull back if you actually got the sire in your paddock. Sometimes your AI to that bull and then put a different bull with them, so you've got base bother uh bases covered, like um, because we used a few genetics from overseas and stuff like that. So playing that game, I do I do really like the breeding side of the things, and I suppose that's why I wanted to get back into the uh the stud stock part of the um agricultural and agency business. But I always did want to go and learn the commercial side of the um business before I started being a stud stock just person because I think there's a lot of a lot of things you learn in that commercial space that helps you later on doing what I'm doing now. Like if you just stepped straight into doing what I'm doing now, there's a lot of things that uh the way you see carb span and draft and that in the yards or lambs or whatever. You if you didn't sort of go and do that commercial side of that, you you you wouldn't have seen that space and you wouldn't be able to sort of help help your commercial clients that you're buying bulls or ramps for.
SPEAKER_00So tell us about some of the different jobs you've had. Did you start with landmark?
SPEAKER_01No, I didn't start with landmark. So um I actually started with Elders in about, I think it was uh 2005, is when I started with Elders as a trainee in Dubbo. I suppose my first day really opened my eyes up to the agricultural industry, um, especially agency business. Dubbo is a big selling centre, especially for cattle and uh and sheep. Back at those times, we used to have sheep sale on a Monday and sheep and lambs, um, well, sheep and lambs Monday, sheep and lambs on Thursday, and a cattle sale as well on Thursday. So my first day was Thursday morning. I turned up, met the um New South Wales livestock manager at the time, in the office, went down to the cattle yards at nine o'clock. Elders alone had 1,400 fat cattle on their own on the Thursday, and then we had a store sale on Friday with four and a half thousand cattle of our own. Oh, so I started at eight o'clock on Thursday and finished my first day at nine o'clock on Friday night. So at the time I didn't have anywhere to live in Dubai, so I was actually living with one of the insurance guys' parents that owned a motel up in another quarters of theirs in their actual house up the back of the um or top of the motel. And I went down for um breakfast on Saturday morning, and she's like, Did you come home on Thursday night? And I'm like, uh no, I actually didn't. So it works right through the night. Right through night on your first day. Yeah, on my first day, yeah. So first day from eight o'clock to sort of nine o'clock at night by the time we finished the paperwork. Yep.
SPEAKER_00Well, you weren't uh green to some hard work, mate. You'd been working pretty hard, you know, from day dot, really. Yep. And loved it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, always have. Like um getting your hands dirty is the best thing you can be doing, in my my eyes, and I know you say it at the end of all your podcasts, keep your hands dirty. And so, yeah, so but well, I suppose to keep filling you in. Before I actually started with Elders, went with dad to Dubbo's show, taking some bulls up there to the polar for the national, and fellow by Steve Haywood come down there, and um he asked me if I wanted to go and work for him at his feeding service, which was advanced feeding services in Queensland at Alora, so just out of Toowoomba. So I actually went up to work for him. Um, so he used to feed a lot of cattle for clients and uh break them in, take them to Brisbane Royal, Sydney Royal, all over the countryside. Um, but I went and helped him before Brisbane that year. We had 116 cattle in Brisbane. At home, it was virtually just me and him. There was a fellow that had come in once a week normally, and his dad had do a little bit around the place, but not too much because he actually broke his leg just before I got there, so he was just getting over that. So you're feeding all them, trying to break them in, get them quiet. Then we also had about there would have been 200 bulls on feed for a couple of bull sails that didn't have to be broken in, so you had to feed and keep them, make sure they were all where they were meant to be. So it was virtually like a feed lot, really, uh, but for for stud cattle. And it it was a very interesting time and lifelong friends with Steve Hayward, seen him the other day at Sydney Show, and yeah, yeah, like I learned a lot from Steve in that space.
SPEAKER_00And tell me about breaking in a bull.
SPEAKER_01Breaking in the bull, uh well, there's many different ways to do it, like you can use donkeys to do them, you can put a holder on them with a long rope and just let them go and walk on it for a few days and sort of get them a bit sore in the jaw before you actually try and tie them up to a post and get them quiet and get near them, or you can just be a bit of a rodeo clown and put a rope on them and let them out of the crush and try and get them to a rail and tie them up. So that's the way we mostly did it when I grew up with at at home. Um, just put a rope on them in the crush and let them out and get them to a rail. And there there is an odd one you can't get, but most of them are pretty good.
SPEAKER_00So your goal is to just quiten them down as much as possible.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, quiten them down as much as you can so you can actually you've got to earn their trust, like you've got to get inside their flight zone and take time. Like we'd tie them up for a day or two, and then we'd normally go and you'd just have a broom that you'd just get a broom and broom them over, so you didn't have to be too close to them in case they jumped on you or kicked you or whatever, and then if you could get them to the wash bay, that's normally the best thing because you've got a hose. It's just like having a hand on them, just wash them and yeah, do all that kind of stuff.
SPEAKER_00So and what's the donkey theory?
SPEAKER_01Uh it's a donkey, you just you put a uh collar around a donkey's neck, and then you get like a little short rope that a little bit longer than say a foot or so, and then you attach that to what you call a hackmore on a beast, which would be a holder with a chain underneath it, and then put them on the side of the donkey. And um, if the bull wanted to go that way, the donkey would pull that way and stop him and teach him that if donkey wants to go that way, bull's got to go that way, or heifer, whatever you've got on there. So, yeah.
SPEAKER_00This would be a a young bull, would it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, no, they they use them on all different sizes of them. You can put two-year-old bulls on them and stuff. Yeah, like donkeys are pretty strong animal, like as everyone knows, and they're very um they're very cunning. Like if they won't do what they want them to do, they'll turn around and they'll bite them, or if they they're not playing the game big time, they'll turn around and boot them in the guts. There's yeah, a lot of techniques. And even people these days, like I've seen it a few times, a lot of them use donkeys now in with the bulls leading into bull sales just to stop fights and that. So they find them better if you put the donkey in with the cattle when you wean them, and they stay with the same mob all the time because it gets dominance over them, and um, if they start fighting, the donkey will come in and bite them or kick them or yeah, whatever, and to stop them fighting.
SPEAKER_00So I didn't know that. Yeah. Um, so at this point, uh you've moved across different locations. Dubbo, Gunada, Spinaway, and Lancefield was in there somewhere too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well that was all at the start. So I started at Lancefield, then went into Queensland to go to the feeding service at Laura, then finished there and come back and went to um Dubbo as a trainee. Went back and helped Steve at all those shows, like did uh Rockhampton beef with him. I've done three or four Brisbane shows with him while I was a trainee at Dubbo and Gunada. And then when I left Gunnar, still with Elders across to Binaway, um, I was there for close to three years. By the end of that, I was the branch manager at that time. Whereas Binaway? So Binaway is halfway between Gunadar and Dubbo, just a little it's only a little village just out of Kunabarabridge.
SPEAKER_00And was this with Landmark or with Elders, still with Elders, yep.
SPEAKER_01Elders did a fair bit of reshuffling and closed a lot of the little branches down. So Binaway was one of them to get closed, and I actually went back to Gunada for about six months and then yeah, got approached a couple of or two years before I actually come down here to work for landmark at that stage by Ray Atwell to get into the stud stock game.
SPEAKER_00And uh So down here we're talking Wadonga.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, down to Wadonga. He he sort of had two cracks at me to come down. I was loyal to elders because they gave me a start at the start, and in the end he obviously wore me down, and here we are, yeah, 16, 17 years later.
SPEAKER_00Right, so yeah, 2009 was it? You joined Landmark? Yeah, roughly about then from memory. As a stud stock agent.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, straight into the stud stock down here. Obviously, did all the commercial stuff through Dubbo, Gunadar, and Bin away, and then yeah, become a stud stock agent down here.
SPEAKER_00And now they're Nutrient AG solutions?
SPEAKER_01Yep, they have. They've had a few name changes between landmark and nutrient ag solutions, but we're here, that's where we are now.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's good, good company to work for. Fantastic. So, what was it about becoming a livestock agent that really appealed to you?
SPEAKER_01Uh I suppose when I didn't get the grades to be an architect, that sort of nailed the head of that one. Um I'm glad you're doing what you're doing. Yeah, which was fine. I did really enjoy the architectural side of it and still play around with a little bit of stuff like that at times when I'm on the road and stuff, just to fill in time. But I suppose had the background in the stud business and just wanted to try something different rather than sort of, well, my grandfather, my great grandfather and my father have always worked in that stud stud space. Right. I wanted to do something different, and that when I actually went and applied for the traineeship at um Elders at Dubbo, the the end goal was to end up where I am. So I suppose I achieved what I wanted to achieve. I did want to get back into the stud side of things and give back to the industry, I suppose, in a different space to where I was originally.
SPEAKER_00So, what's your position today?
SPEAKER_01Uh, my position today is the nutrient stud stock manager for the southern region. So that's Victoria, Tasmania, uh, the River Arena. So, yeah, pretty pretty wide area.
SPEAKER_00Hence the 100,000 kilometres.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, hence that. And um obviously get into South Australia a little bit, looking at bulls mainly for clients and northern New South Wales and Southern Queensland doing the same thing.
SPEAKER_00So you've had a foot in both worlds, uh, stud breeding and commercial livestock. Has that benefited your clients?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, I suppose you could say that. I suppose, like I said earlier, like uh just doing the commercial side of an agency job and moving into the stud side of things, I think that's huge because you actually understand the business from the ground up, not just walking into what people mostly, I'm not saying it's the pinnacle of our industry, but if we don't have the breeding stock, we don't have the commercial stock. So without the the seed stock industry, we don't have the commercial side of things. They can't they can't breed offspring if they don't have the breeding stock.
SPEAKER_00So from an outsider, I think it's perfect to have that upbringing and that knowledge behind you because that's what your clients are wanting to do.
SPEAKER_01Yep, yeah, definitely. And every client's got a different opinion of where they want to be or a different market that they're trying to hit, which is I suppose you could say our job's repetitive, but it's not because you're dealing with different people all the time and you're dealing with different people that are trying to have an end game of their clients that they want to they want to suit. So it keeps our um well, it keeps my job and my colleagues' jobs, it keeps it fresh at times so you don't get burnt out doing the same thing all the time. Yeah. It it is the same, but it's different. Are you sheep and cattle? I do do sheep and cattle, yeah. I suppose I'm growing up in a cattle background, so I'm mostly stronger in my cattle side of things. We've got specialists within the merino industry, within our business, which is I lean on a lot. I do a lot of auctioneering at those, but don't sort of have the knowledge I have on my cattle side if I do on the sheep. We do have people that are more suited to that, and I will direct my clients to go and talk to those guys if they want to sort of purchase merino ramps to get that real in-depth knowledge that they they hold over me.
SPEAKER_00The stud stock industry is quite unique in many ways. What are the most rewarding aspects of working with stud breeders compared to perhaps their commercial side?
SPEAKER_01They're very similar in my mind. The end goal is to get as much money for your client as you can, whether they're commercial or their stud. So the more, the more money that your client, if they're commercial or their stud, the more money they earn, the more money I earn for my business, keep keep my boss happy. So the end goal is obviously to to get stock for them or that are gonna suit their climate conditions and their country and be able to put on weight. Because the end the end goal is whether it's cattle or sheep in the meat side of things, you're trying to get as many kilos as quick as you can with the best outcome you can and use their um utilization of their whether they feed cattle grain or they feed them grass or they're on crops or whatever. So you need to know what their end goal is to be able to, especially in the job I do now, if you are buying bulls or rams for clients like that, you need to know what their goal is and how they're gonna produce their product. So whether it's off grass or whether it's off grain, or whether they want to sell a veal or they want to sell a heavy lamb or a coal sort of woolies with a sort of weight lamb, or you want to grow a bullock right out to sort of seven, eight hundred kilos. So you there's no good buying them a bull low growth when you're trying to hit a seven, eight hundred kilo light body.
SPEAKER_00All right, so selecting genetics, this is quite important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is, um, very much so. Genetics and there's lots of tools you can use now, but we'll talk about the genetics because that's what you asked about. But genetics play a big part. Obviously, you've got to keep your breeding pool as less, I suppose, inbred as you can. So you've got to be using different genetics, and that's I suppose where where I work within the stud stock industry, they've got to be in front of the commercial producer, they've got to be trying new things and they've got to be giving the commercial producer rams or bulls that they can buy by different sizes and genetics and stuff like that, but then still try and stick to the thing. They just can't go out and go, Rideo, this year I'm gonna I need six sizes, I'm gonna use six different ones to what I've used before because you don't know what you're gonna get. I always talk to my clients and say, Rideo, we're using six bulls within our program. How about we use Two that are very proven, two that we are liking what they're doing, but we're maybe haven't seen daughters in production yet, milking or whatever, and trial two new ones. So you're guaranteed that you're gonna get a product with two bulls, you're sort of three-quarters of the way there with the others because you know that you know the females look good, you know the bulls look good, your clients took to them at the first bull sale, but we just sort of haven't had that full sort of six to nine months of your females in production to know that they're gonna perform at that side. So you're virtually all the way there with those two, and then you're trialing two new ones, and if you've got a 50-50 chance at them working or not, so you're you're covering yourself that you don't go in two years' time when all these progeny are hitting a um bull sale, or in 12 to 18 months' time if they're hitting a RAM sale and going, Oh, we've stuffed up here, we don't have the product for our clients. So you've got to use stuff you know, and you've got to be willing to step outside of the box and try something new and different.
SPEAKER_00So there's still that little bit of a gamble.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're definitely like well, talk about it all the time. Farmers are the biggest gamblers I know, and like you talk to a lot of the city folk that don't realise, but I I say every single day a farmer gambles. They're gambling on it raining, they're gambling on the crop coming up, they're gambling on especially if they're a trader, have I brought too many? Am I gonna have enough feed? Uh, is the market gonna be okay when I get back out the other side? And I say you go to the casino, you put $100 on the table, you know whether you win or lose by the time that's gone. I said a farmer invests $100 today, he doesn't normally know until six to twelve months' time whether he's gonna get that hundred dollars back. So they're bigger gamblers than you are just putting it on the table because you know tomorrow, well, I can try and get that hundred back. And I'm not saying the farmers aren't trying to get their hundred back through that six to twelve or eighteen months time, but you know the outcome a lot quicker.
SPEAKER_00But they'll go and they'll go and gamble on something uh at with no control of that end price.
SPEAKER_01Yep, definitely. Most definitely. Yeah, I I mostly feel, and my father-in-law is pretty big on this, he's been a meat buyer all his life, and his biggest thing is, and I suppose learnt this off him, is that buy and try and buy and sell in the same market or as close to the same market as you can if you're a trader, um, because we trade a lot of stock with him. So if you sell, say this week, try and buy within the next month, because at least then you've sold and you've brought in the same market. Yeah. So they sort of virtually they cancel each other out, yeah. And then you go down the down the train as you go. And then you hope when you decide to retire or you sell your farm or get out, that when you sell that last lot of stock, it's in a good market. I suppose you pray that the first lot of stock you brought was in a average market.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. Is there anything people often overlook in a good animal?
SPEAKER_01I'd say yes and yes and no to this. It depends on what they can sacrifice, what they can live with, and what they can't. So if they need to improve carcass quality in their cattle, they're gonna look at carcass traits more in an animal when they visually look at them, or on breeding values and knowledge of pedigrees. If they're trying to improve milk and fertility in their herd, they're gonna focus on that. So they might be able to say, so they if they they're after something that's carcass and their fertility is okay, they might say, Oh, that the milk's a little bit low in the pedigree or the scrotal size or something. Yes, we can handle that because we're strong within our herd, but because the gain we're gonna get from the carcass quality is so much more. So they will overlook things to improve others, but the general census mainly is to get as balanced as you can right across the board in type and breeding values and pedigrees.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay. Um, so a couple of questions on sheep. Yep. Is it rams you're selling mainly and buying?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, mainly ramps. Um we do do a few dispersal sales and um the likes of that. And then there's a we sell a few ewes at the um Australian Dorset Championshi uh sorry, we don't sell the use at the Shreyan Dorset Championships. We sell them at the Elite Show and sale in Benigo. But mostly I'd say that in the sheep space, 98% of the time we'd be selling rams.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. What are some of the most important traits you focus on when selecting breeding stock, particularly for the southeast region with rams?
SPEAKER_01Yep. So like I said, I if it's a merino, I sort of outsource this to someone that's uh got a bit more knowledge to me, but I'll sort of put put what we we put in the place. The the biggest change in the merino industry in the last few years has been trying to go to a dual purpose animal. So cut as much quality wool as you can and get as much carcass and weight as you can into your to your stocks. So um, and we talk about the mulesing side of it as well. Getting them as bare breached as you can at the moment without losing wool cut. So I suppose for the south-east it depends. The southeast has got a pretty big variety of sort of country with it. You've got the high country, you've got what we call the north-central part of Victoria, which has got a good rainfall and pretty good country, and then you've got your western country going out to sort of Kerrang and out west of there. So you we've got a varied sort of location of where we can send stock to, and like Gippsland and the Western districts. Like they've all got their pros and cons to what you need. Like if you go west, you need something that's gonna handle dryer conditions. If they're a merino, they need to be able to keep the dust and fibers and strong at with with minimal sort of input of rain and stuff into the ground to get the um pasture for them to eat. And then if you come into like Gippsland and stuff where it's a higher rainfall, you need a ram that's gonna produce your progy that are gonna be able to withstand the high rainfall and not let their moisture in and yeah, get your rod into your wool. So I suppose the biggest thing with all that is you've got to have all that in mind, and then you've got to have stock that are able to walk because and have a good structure because we have big country that they need to travel within Australia, not so much down in our pockets, they're sort of littler farms, but you go north and stuff, you're buying for clients up north, and that they need to be able to survive, they need to be able to walk, so they've got to be sound.
SPEAKER_00And that's when they're gonna use up a lot of energy and not put on as much weight, perhaps too, when they're walking more.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, definitely. And especially if structure's not right, because if they're if they've got bad feet or they're not structurally sound in their leg structure, like it it takes a lot more effort for them to get around and they could be in pain, so they they sit under the trees, they don't breed for you, they don't they don't go and graze, so not putting them weight.
SPEAKER_00Is there a shift to more meat sheep over wool?
SPEAKER_01I'd say yes and no to this answer. I know that doesn't really answer you, but I'll try and elaborate on that. I've got clients that are digging in hard into the merino space because they see a lot of people getting out and they see that there's going to be a time when that market's gonna turn. People are getting rid of shearing sheds, they're getting rid of everything because they can't get shearers to come in at the moment, they're getting rid of their merinos, so they're digging in hard. So I'd say there's a sort of a 45% of most believe my merino clients are going harder, and then you get the ones that are sort of just staying where they are, and then you get the sort of 25-30% off the bottom end that are dropping off, and maybe either go putting more terminals over their older use and breeding more fat lambs, or you're actually getting a lot more, like you've seen them a lot more now, like they're sort of they've come right in from out west, like there's your dorpers and your Aussie Whites and stuff like that, are now right into sort of hay virtually now, and like you have them right in in what we call the inside country too, the better country, but a lot of merinos through that hay area have sort of changed over to a Dorper, and it's mainly been driven by obviously the price of wool hasn't been that great over the last few years, but also trying to get shearers and manual labour just to to crutch, to drench, to you know, chase flies and all those kind of things. It's getting harder and harder.
SPEAKER_00Are they the is the Dorper the main meat sheep?
SPEAKER_01Oh no, I wouldn't say that. The Dorpers and Aussie Whites who got their place, and the many other shedding breeds that have sort of come, they're they're the first sort of Dorpers were first, and then the Aussie Whites, and there's been a lot of others sort of been made or created since then. They handle that western country really well. Like they don't need they don't need a lot of pasture to be able to survive and put on weight. But then we've even got clients out west now that are putting Dorpers in the feedlots, and the gain and the reward they've been getting from them is huge. Really, yeah, yeah, they're they've sort of added another aspect to the Dorper out there. So if it does get really dry, they just bring them in and put them in feedlots and they survive.
SPEAKER_00So when you say feedlots, is it more like containment feeding? Uh smaller pens.
SPEAKER_01With your lambs, with your lambs mostly into a proper, virtually set up feedlot now. Okay. Um not not like you'd see TFI or whatever feedlot that you see around, but they've all got their own little whether they're little pens and sort of it I suppose you could call it a containment pen, but it's not. They're that's they're in there and they're never gonna they're never gonna leave until they go for slaughter. So we're I class and containment penners, that's where you put your breeding stock into. You feed them through a tough time and let them out again.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So with cattle, is it bulls you're mainly focusing on?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it'd be the same again. Like we do do a lot of female sales. Um, they're mainly just dispersals or reductions, or someone might come and pick sort of 10 or 15 or 20 real good young heifers to sell. So we do do the female side of things, but I'd say 90% of the business would be selling bulls.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I mean, what do I do? And do you prioritize traits like growth rate, temperament, and meat quality?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely do. And like I say, it uh it comes down to what your client's looking for at the time. You could sort of put in there a big push at the moment, and and I'm a believer, but not a believer, because I think we're getting too far down this drain, but uh low birth weight and ease of carving. Yeah. Where I say they should focus more on carving ease and ease of carving and short gestation rather than a low birth weight. I'm not saying you want to use a bull that's got a huge or extreme birth weight, but if you're using bulls that have got a moderate birth weight, say breed average is 4.5, you can use bulls that are 4.5 over heifers if they're short gestation, good carving ease, and got a very good structural front end. You'll have no troubles carving them down. You're gonna get more kilos when they're born, so you're not chasing those kilos later on in life.
SPEAKER_00And temperament's important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, temperament's huge because cattle cattle won't put on as much weight if they've got a bit of flight in them, but they're harder to handle. OHS risk. Temperament's a big thing in our industry and it does get overlooked a bit sometimes. Like people say they're good and they're quality, but at the time you they're mad or got a bit of temperament in them, they're they're harder to handle, they're harder to get get weighed on.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So to sum that up, am I correct in saying structural soundness, fertility, and breeding objectives that align with your herd goals, including traits like carving ease, growth rate, carcass quality, and temperament? Is that a decent sort of summary?
SPEAKER_01You've done it very well. We'll have to give you a job down. Um yeah, it like I said earlier, it depends on where they're trying to go and what they're trying to change within their breeding profile. That's um you can give a little bit to gain more on the other end. So if you've got high carcass quality and good low birth weights and stuff like that in your cattle, but you're you aren't getting this or or your or your sheep and you're not getting um you're not getting your returns in um you're getting too many empty cows at the end of the day, or they don't quite milk well enough and all that sort of thing, you could sort of forego a little bit of carcass quality and maybe a little bit of carving yeast to gain in that area, go somewhere different that you've never been to before that's very strong in that area, or maybe focus on a bit of estimated breeding values or ASBVs in your sheep to sort of get a bit of background and knowledge of whether they're strong or weak in that area.
SPEAKER_00So, what are some of the biggest challenges for breeding cattle, such as uh market demand or genetic diversity?
SPEAKER_01Yep. So to put it back into a commercial space, I suppose at the at the moment, as we said, your first question off the top of the day, do you like red or black or what we could say uh an Angus or other breeds? The Angus are kings at the moment, I suppose, within our space. They're they've they've marketed really well. They they've got a lot of uh areas within the industry covered, like they did their McDonald's stuff with their cow cows and stuff like that, to be able to solidify that market and get a better game for their for their uh product into that market as well. They've got their their high meat brands that they they produce out there, they're very good and very well sought after into the feedlots. But then you look into some of the other breeds, like you get into European breeds, you get that extra yield, you get that extra carcass out of them, but maybe not quite the eating quality you might get out of a British bred animal. And then if you go right into the north, like if you send Herefords and blacks right into the top end, they're not going to survive. Then that's where your sort of Bosindicus cattle come into their own. They handle that country so well they can walk, they can survive unless water and like such as the Brahmins or yeah, Brahmins and your drought masters and your Sanders, and there's multiples now. You even got your ultra blacks and stuff now, so they're so they'll be sort of a Brahmin, Brangus, uh, Angus cross. They're black skin coloured, but with a high sort of Bosindicus content, but then still the you're getting your carcass quality and that out of your uh your Angus and your British bread content and that. Yeah, and then like there's Braford's and which was particularly virtually just the Hereford Brahminy sort of cross as well. Yeah. So they've they've played a lot in that space in the north to try and get black skinned cattle that are gonna handle the northern conditions.
SPEAKER_00Fascinating. I've recently watched someone buy a bull online and I couldn't believe the detail that's available to look at. EMAs, EBVs, what's this all about?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I suppose the tools that people have got these days, and it's changed, I suppose, through the pandemic and stuff that we had that people couldn't go to sales as easily, they weren't allowed to move around as much. So that online platform of buying cattle or sheep on the online platform, it became huge. The likes of Auctions Plus and stuff, like they were they were put under a lot of pressure in that time and they handled it very well, and they've kept a lot of those clients on the online platforms as well. But I suppose that's when people had to learn to be able to watch videos and get as much detail as they could, go through the bulls and short shortlist them or Rams and shortlist them and then ring someone they trusted to actually look at the stock for them or ring the breeders. And it it was a stressful time for us as well through that time because like you are fielding phone calls left, right, and center for people you've may have never even met before, and you're trying to get a brief history of what they want to do and where they want to end up and try and find the right product for them. And you'd buy them bulls and you'd send them and you'd go, right, yeah, I know they've left today, they're gonna be at the old mate's place tomorrow or the next day, and you'd see his number pop on your phone and you'd sort of your heart would jump out of your skin for a little minute, and you'd be like, Oh, I hope he likes them. And there is bulls I've sent to clients in that instance that maybe didn't quite suit them, but they were still happy, but they're like, It's maybe this or this would have been better, and then there's clients that are like, Oh, these are way better than I thought it was gonna get. So you got both ends of the coin in that, but and it was always gonna happen, and they knew it was gonna happen. They were you were gonna they were gonna get stock that they maybe mightn't have purchased themselves, but they had to have them, so that's the only way they could do it.
SPEAKER_00So yeah, during that pandemic too, I remember at a couple of auctions, not saying exactly might have been you at, but you had to huddle in under a little marquee during a rainy day, and you know, it was challenging times, like you weren't meant to be close, but you had to get this job done.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, definitely. We've we've had both of them. We've had them where you've sort of there's been hardly anyone there, and you've still got to conduct an auction. So there's only the people that are local that could get there and were able to travel, and it's especially along the river here at like the Aubrey, the Murray, it was pretty hard to get back and forwards across. And I suppose I was lucky in the industry I worked in, we were allowed to go across. It was a nightmare trying to get stuff to be able to get back and forwards and getting checked from this and getting checked for that, and but that's what we dealt with that. And yeah, you say, like you say, we were in sometimes you we maybe did break a few rules and were a little bit tight, and we had people in the crowd that were maybe a little bit tight, but there was no other way you could do them. And then the flip side of that, I remember doing a sale in the pandemic over at um Gillanaby, so up in the up in the hills on the other side of um go over Omeo and keep going over towards Orbst into the hills, and we normally sell undercover in there, and it's a little tight space, and they had a big crowd because they have a really good like local following and they could all travel, but you still were meant to be uh 1.5 metres apart, and we're like, what do we do? And they decided we'd have it outside, and so we're outside and it was bitterly cold, like it was very, very close to snow. And I remember there at times it was coming in sideways, and like I looked down at my hands, my hands are blue, and everyone in the crowd there, and at one minute I looked down to the side of which we just made a rostrum out of hay, and there was a elderly lady that was in the crowd, and like I she was down in underneath next to the rostrum trying to get out of the wind in the rain, like just the and but they they had to deal with it, we had to deal with it outside. Like I virtually threw my catalogue away at the end because you couldn't turn the pages, it was wet. Like so, yeah, just you just hope they they knew what they were buying and you you knew enough about what you were selling, so yeah, and you were the auctioneer that day. Yeah, yeah, me and another fellow sold that day as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, but so going back a step, EMA, eye muscle area, yep. What's that about?
SPEAKER_01So your eye muscle area is ultrasound scanned in like in your breeding stock. So to get EBVs, which I'm supposed we'll lead into after this, but uh EMA, you've got to scan for EMA, which is your eye muscle area, how big your the eye of your your meat is. Um so it's measured on an ultrasound. And then if your cattle are slaughtered, they measure that also at the abators as well for carcass competitions and stuff. Um they don't it you don't get paid on how big your EMA is, but obviously EMA is more meat, so more meat, more weight, more dollars.
SPEAKER_00But it's data that we can look back on, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it is definitely data you can look back on, you can know which which progeny, which bulls are throwing bigger EMAs, more meat into their stock. So it's it is definitely a tool, but they measure at the same time as they do that. They'll measure for fat depth on the P8 and the rump site, so as well, and then which has come into the for lately in the last sort of 15 years, I suppose, is intramuscular fat IMF. It's they can they'll scan for that ultrasound as well and submit all that data into to Brie Plan, and then they submit you out what their prediction is and estimate of what the project are going to be out of this bull. So if me and you have farms close together, we use the same size via AI, they will actually link our herds together and cross-reference your EMAs to mine to give data as well, taking in consideration that we're in the same clientele, so and roughly run our uh operations the same. They can actually nearly group ours together and improve mine and yours data, but then someone in northern New South Wales might also use this bull as well. They do get linked to ours because their conditions and that they might be in drought and we might be in a ripping season and different terrain and so forth. So they take all that into consideration within their algorithm of getting new um EBVs, but it's it's a big thing within our industry, and I suppose now with genomics coming into it, and we can talk about that a little bit later on if you want. Like a few people are maybe dropping off the raw scanning and data taking and just relying on genomics a little bit.
SPEAKER_00But can you explain genomics?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can. So genomics is you can take a hair sample out of so you just pull a tail hair or an ear notch out of an animal and submit it to the lab, and they'll run it through multiple tests that they do of lining up um chromosomes and stuff for EMA, IMF, fats, growth data, fertility, birth weight, so they check it all, they can check all that against their progeny.
SPEAKER_00So is it like their DNA?
SPEAKER_01Yep, so it's their DNA. Right. And they'll give you pre-plant values just off a genomic sample. But to get stronger EBVs, you veer you need raw data and genomics, you need both to put into the pool to get what you want. So the dairy space has been doing genomics for years and years and years, and not every dairy farm can, but a lot of dairy farms can take samples from cows every single day, morning and night. Really? So they especially now with the robotics, yeah, like they can take that, they can measure how many litres they had, how what the fat content is, and all that kind of stuff, and they can submit that every day, twice a day if they want to. Where stock you weigh them at birth weight, you weigh them at 200 days, 400 days, 600 days if you want to. They're your sort of growth data that you get through, and then obviously when you do your 200-day weight, they actually calculate that into how much milk mum was putting into calf as well. So you get your milking data from that, and then you scan your cattle. You've got to scan them between a certain age, and then that'll go in as well. So to put the two together is what they need, and then the genomic pool will start to grow, and they'll they'll get more markers that they can test from, and it'll get bigger and bigger, and it'll get stronger and stronger in accuracy. So I suppose at the moment, you talk to some people at the moment with genomics and stuff, they're like it's like throwing a bucket of water at the wall and it'll go everywhere and it'll fall down because the the strength isn't there at the moment, but I see it as a good tool to use, and it's going to strengthen it over time.
SPEAKER_00Well, that was part A with Peter Godwold. In part B, we get right into the pressure and adrenaline of sale day, where Pete can be selling up to three million dollars worth of stock in a single day. We talk technology into stock paying relationships across the country, life on the road, and even some optimeering technology, including the difference between a fast and flow cadet.