An Optimist(e)ic April
I hope you all enjoy this first edition of the farm operations month in review, starting with April. At the end of each month I’ll aim to provide a snapshot of key operational outcomes, future aspirations and a commentary on seasonal and market conditions. Through offering insights into our diverse mixed farming operations, I hope valued interest and wider curiosity emerges as you join me on this farming learning journey that I’m only just beginning.
In early April I made the big decision to return home to the family business, drawing the curtain on the most incredible two years spent within corporate ag, learning the ropes of northern cattle station operations from one of Australia’s largest beef producers. Much of this month has been spent reacquainting myself with the lay of the land, assessing where things sit and forward planning.
On the seasonal front, dry conditions are really starting to take hold with a significant rainfall deficit across the last 6 months with no rain in April being the exclamation mark. Our Mudgee block is faring ok after a decent rain event in February which provided some respite and proactive management back then, shifting cattle around and selling young steers much earlier than usual while prices were strong. Coolah is the driest I’ve seen it with all but one dam bone dry but the Hereford cows are holding condition in trying times, demonstrating one of the key reasons we chose the breed. There’s been a lot of ruminating and decision making going into how we’ll manage our way through this next 6, 12 or more months of dry conditions. We’ve been proactive so far, weaning stock earlier to maintain female condition and selling animals younger than usual to retain our core breeding stock but no doubt there’ll be further decisions and action to take. It has been a warm April with cloudless skies and no frost as of yet which when it comes will give us the signal to move the sheep into the vineyard and begin pruning.
On the sheep front, we weaned a nice line of ewe lambs which have been retained as future breeders, continuing our flock rebuild after an aggressive destock in 2019 that left us with just 11 breeding ewes. After a challenging recovery, the scars of 2019 still linger so we’d like to retain our breeding ewes. To help achieve sustainable retention of our breeding ewes we sold our young light wether lambs that were only 6 months old, much younger than the 10-12 months we’ve typically grown them out too. While prices for these lambs had dropped off from what we’d hoped, they were still strong for the class of stock and not unexpected with the big yarding at the saleyard and allows us to focus on the ewes due to start lambing in late June.
Other items of business included extensive firewood collection with much of it satisfactorily coming from trees we’ve planted over the years, general tidying up, a few bonfires, daily livestock management (water checks, lick supplementation and paddock rotations), weed management, establishment of a small greenhouse stocked with various herbs and experimental orange cuttings, and a final, productive honey harvest from our first beehive which sadly succumbed to a Wax Moth infestation.
It has been a wonderful month, setting the foundations and easing myself back into the profession and place I love, one that I hope will be with me for the rest of my life. As reinforced this month, farming can be a tough game where you must ride the highs and lows. It’s the small moments everyday that make it all worthwhile though, the nice line of young stock generations in the making, resting beneath the shade cast by a maturing tree planted years ago as a tubestock barely shin high or observing the land while reflecting on all the changes over my lifetime.
