This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have a good yarn about Ag life with producers who are having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements, making tough calls, and getting the job done. You'll get a laugh out of some of their stories and also pick up some know- how along the way. I'm your host Neroli Brennan. Today, we're catching up with Wal White. Wal manages The Mount, a mixed farming enterprise 20 km west
of Forbes. Wal crops around 840 hectares with another 800 hectares of grazing country. Its primary focus is the 4, 000 head cattle feedlot situated on the west slope of the Corridgery Range. In today's episode, Wal shares with us his experience working in feedlots and the cattle industry for nearly 15 years, including some insight from his time at
big cattle feedlots near Toowoomba. Wal explains their backgrounding process for cattle entering the feedlot and the day- to- day running of 4, 000 cattle, as well as the challenges that natural disasters present in that situation. You'll also hear Wal talk about the improvements that have been made in his time at The Mount and how he prioritizes infrastructure improvements.
Local Land Services mixed farming advisor, Rohan Leach, sat down with Wal for this chat after a farm visit ahead of an upcoming Lachlan PROGRAZE group workshop.
Good day, listeners. Today I'm with Wal White from The Mount Feedlot Wal. Welcome to the Seeds for Success podcast.
Thanks, Rohan. Good to be here.
Mate, can you just start off by giving me a rundown of your operation here at The Mount?
Yeah, so The Mount Feedlot, we're about 22Ks west of Forbes out towards Bedgerabong. It's called The Mount because as you go out that road there is one big gigantic hill that we sit on.
What is the name of this hill? Because for the listeners, I'm a bit of a local. I'm Wal's neighbor, actually. So is it the Corridgery Range?
We're on the Corridgery Range. South of us over the river, there's the Jemlong Range. Which a lot of people in the area would be familiar with Jemlong Station, which is essentially just west of that. So you've got the Jemlong Range to the south, Corridgery Range, and I believe above the Yarrabandai Road, it's the Yarrabandai Road at the gap there. It's called another range to the north.
The Gunning, maybe.
I think it is the Gunning Range. But we're on the Corridgery Range. Yes.
Geography aside. So you're on the Corridgery Range here, so that indicates some pretty sandy soils. Am I right?
Yes, you are. We did a bit of a drive around earlier in the day and yes, it's very sandy off the hill, moving down into more clay loamy soils on the flat. We border the Lachlan River to the south, so the front of our place during the flood was about 800 mil underwater. But it's all river flat country essentially, except off the hill. Yeah, you have to keep ground cover up there pretty well, otherwise it all washes away. But it's a good part of the world out here.
So some pretty different soil types there and obviously, a bit tricky to manage. It's probably good having that with obviously the floodplain down below and being able to push stock up into the hill when it does flood.
When I started here, I started in November 22 and that was pretty much peak flood. My first month was during those couple of big floods down this way, so trial by fire I suppose. And all the flat country, we had basically no cattle in the paddocks when I started because they had been in flood. And they were just clearing everything out as much as they could. They were trying to drop some numbers down in the feedlot as well,
to do some capital works and things. But there was a couple of weeks there where we couldn't get anything in or out. So it took a bit to figure out and manage. I was lucky then, I had a really good two IC in the stock team who had a lot of experience in everything here, plus my direct report who working from afar but still helped us out a fair bit with trying to move things around and all the things we had to do.
So looking at enterprise mix here, obviously you're a feedlot. Can you talk me through the feedlot a bit? And then we'll talk about the other enterprises on farm.
The history of the property is that it was owned it and Jemlong Station were one of the original properties from Twynam Pastoral. So Twynam built a feedlot here in 1970 something. I think it's about '75. So it's a pretty old yard. It's licensed to a 5, 000 head capacity, built to about four. And we've got 20- something pens. I think they hold about 200 head each, but quite an old sort of feedlot built up on the hill. So in terms of
water inundation, it doesn't really happen. But we tend to get more cut off from town to get food stuffs and things out here. So that's the challenge with that. But yeah, built to a 4, 000 head capacity, mainly custom feeding Angus cattle here. So we did have some Wagyu cattle when I started that we were feeding for about 400 days. We've since changed tact on that and we're in feeding 150 day Angus cattle now, so they're all destined for different export markets. But one run of cattle
is a lot easier to manage I can tell you. So the feedlot itself, depending on pen space and depending on the weeks, we take in 200 head, a full pen being either once a week or once every two weeks. And then the other end, they'll get trucked out after 150 days.
So we will definitely look more into that later in the podcast. But just the other enterprises and pasture types maybe on farm.
Yeah, so in terms of cattle, the paddocks and the feedlot are all dedicated to either lot feeding the cattle in the pens or backgrounding the cattle to be ready for the feedlot. So all the cattle that you and I saw, they're destined to come into the feedlot and they grow up on, we've got one paddock of native pastures.
But essentially, they're growing up on a loosened chicory, medic legume base, which we found really good for the sandy country on the hill because that's held that together really well. And we've got a few paddocks down on the flat that are down to that as well. And it works really well. It's just something that explodes away once you get a bit of rain. Really helps us because we tend to run
country pretty hard, so it's pretty good. And then cropping wise, essentially most things have grown for use in the feedlot.
So what area are you cropping?
About 800 hectares. So the whole property is about 1600. I think the hill's about 300. That's all scrubs, so you can't do much with that. But essentially, we've got about 1300 hectares of usable ground. 800 of that goes down to crop every year. So since I've been here, it's basically barley and canola mix whereby we've got some paddocks down near the houses and below the feedlot that get put down
for barley to be cut for silage. And we get some local contractors from out the Karuah side of town that come in and we'll do a chop on that. And then the rest of the country will be put down to barley or canola for grain, essentially. Last year, along with the grain, we bailed a heap of straw out the back of the header. I think we ended up with about 1400 bales off that, so off about not even half of the country that we had. So
we had a pretty good run there. So I don't know if we're going to bail anything this year, but we'll see. But that essentially, just gets all used back through the feedlot. As part of our ration, we feed, it's about 60% dry rolled barley that goes into the ration. So yeah, the more grain we can grow for ourselves the better.
And you don't use any fodder crops at all?
Only for hay. No fodder crops ourselves.
And no cattle are grazing on the crops?
No, not yet. We have toyed with the idea of putting some oats in to clean up some paddocks, but we haven't put that down yet. And we did have the agronomist out the other day to toy with a few ideas on that. But no, right now it's all just a loose and based pasture on the ground.
So you mentioned before that you do custom feeding within the feedlot.
Yes.
So who do you feed for?
We're feeding for a company over at Boorowa called KC Natural. They're buying the cattle in themselves, mostly coming from a few 100Ks away from the feedlot. We'll pull some cattle out of Victoria and usually during winter sale time, pull some out of South Australia, but essentially most of them coming from Wagga, Yass, Carcoar, Forbes, Dubbo sorts of areas. So they're buying all the cattle in and yeah, we're looking after their health, looking after all the inductions and the exits, and all
the toing and froing with that. And making sure they're fed every day.
Were you here when the Wagyu feeder job was on? Can you talk me through that a little bit and how things might've changed?
So they had a contract going with a mob down in Victoria who were custom feeding F1 Wagyu crosses, and they're about half split. They background them and grow them out down there and they'd bring them up here to be put straight onto feed. And they'd feed here for 400 days and then they'd head off to either Casino or Melbourne depending on what kills they had for that week. But they go down there, they do that. The Wagyu are really good. I fed Wagyu at a couple other yards that I've worked
at in the past. And Wagyu are really easy- care animals. Essentially, most feedlot cattle are. Once you get them over about 40 to 60 days on feed, the BRD is less of an issue.
So BRD for those that-
Bovine Respiratory Disease. If you're in the feedlot game, you'll know what I mean because it's the number one cost to lot feeders in the country. But essentially, it's like pneumonia. It's pretty much they get a cold. The animals live with the bacteria in their airways through their lives, but through different stresses of sale yards or trucking or inductions to feedlots and that sort of thing, their immune system gets a bit depleted and they can get a bit crook. But it
shows up like they've got a cold. Early BRDs are essentially, they get a bit dopey, and they just get a bit down and mopey. And you find the cattle themselves, they just hang their head a bit and get a bit dopey. And the worse they get, they get more snotty and they get more coughing, and it can get pretty rough. But that's where the backgrounding comes in, especially when you're
putting mobs of cattle together. You want to put them out there for probably at least minimum two weeks, but a good month's probably the best case you can do. And just to let them socialize and just chill out with each other and get used to each other, so that when they do come into the feedlot there's less chance of BRD hitting its strides.
And so you were saying that Wagyu's are less likely to cop that. So how long ago did the transition happen into the straight Angus?
I think February was the last mob of Waygs that went out.
February.
February this year, 2025.
All right, so it's just been an ongoing process.
Yeah, it's not long. When you have 400-day cattle, 365 days is a year. So they're essentially here for a year and a bit. They would come in a pen at a time, so when you whittle it down, you've got them sitting there for quite a while. But yeah, we had quite a few pens come October, November, but yeah, just essentially I think
every month it was like a pen that went. So it took a little bit of time to whittle them down, but the last of them left in Feb. And we've been whole and solely Angus ever since.
What was the business decision behind getting out of the Waygs for?
It was all due to cashflow. So the Wagyu themselves, they're quite profitable, but they were quite expensive to be in for that long- term period.
A big chunk of money tied up in one animal for 400 days.
Yeah, 100%.
When you could probably do three trades on-
At least two 150-day cattle, two and a half. So yeah, you're right. And it freed up a bit of that cash to do some capital improvements, which we had in the process and have been working on ever since. So it just helped with that more than anything.
... Going into more depth into the feedlotting. So what age are the stock and what type of stock as in male, female. When are they coming on farm and how long are they staying in a backgrounding paddock?
So then generally coming in milk and two teeth, we usually bring them in. We do a draft when they arrive here, either side of 400 kilos. So anything that's over 400 is deemed ready to go straight onto feed. We've usually tried to keep a couple of lots out in the paddock in front of ourselves to come on feed. So generally, there's nothing coming here that goes straight onto
feed unless we're really tight. So we'll draft, so any of the heavies, we'll leave out in the paddock for probably a minimum of two weeks in terms of our induction schedule. So we'll try and have those couple of lots in front of ourselves anyway. And then the lighter end will go into a separate paddock. Usually, I'm trying to put them on our better feed because they're the ones that have to make the gains. So they're fed on the better pastures.
Are you still supplementary feeding those ones as well with bit of hay or grain?
Yeah, they do because of the loosened base. We will put straw out with them just to help them, especially when it does take off with a bit of rain. December was pretty rough on us as well. We had just with that pasture growth and the moisture that was around, we had a lot going on. So we have also, I have put bloat oil into the troughs when I need to and use bloat blocks where I need to. But supplementary feeding, we do when we have to. But if we've got pasture enough then we try and keep them
just on the pasture. And definitely, we've got all the ingredients up there to make a ration if we want to. But we try and use the pasture up as best we can first.
And then you mentioned before that the ration is about 60% rolled barley. What else is going into that?
So quite a few things. We're working with nutritionists up in Toowoomba who do quite a number of large feedlots both in Australia and the US. And so they have a lot of different ingredients that they like using. So along with the barley, we put in a molasses supplement that has various different vitamins and bits and pieces for the cattle. So we've got the molasses supplement. We also put a veggie oil in as well along with both hay and straw, which we buy from, usually locally. It's within a few
100Ks of the feedlot. The straw obviously is mostly our own, but we have bought straw from locally as well if we need to. We also use corn hominy, which is a byproduct of some corn processing that's done. That'll either come out of Darlington Point or Sydney, but essentially it's like corn powder. It's a real powdery stuff. We used to use reconstituted bread. So essentially, when bread's been on the shelf too long it woolies, it goes back to Tip Top or whoever does it. They grind it back up.
Or this company that was supplying it to us, grind it back up and it just makes a thick mealy stuff. It was quite good, but we switched over to corn hominy about 12 or 18 months ago. And because it's a dry product, I've actually found that the cattle tend to like eating it more. I've found, just by noticing. But on rain days the bunks tend to be a bit drier too. They're easy to clean out. The bread because it was quite moist, tended to go off a bit quicker, which needed your
bunk management to be really on point. But no, the hominy is really good. We also then use canola meal, which is essentially comes from a mob that they extract the oil out of canola basically. And it's just the husk and the stuff that's left. So it's quite powdery as well. It's a protein source. And then we grow silage on site, so we put a bit of silage in as well, which has been different crops. It's currently barley, but we
have used sorghum in the past. And way back when, I understand Twynam used to grow corn here and irrigate corn for silage too.
So hopefully, you're not giving any trade secrets away here, but what would your metabolizable energy and your proteins that you're looking at for your ideal ration there?
Protein, I would have to check up on through the ration. But I know the ME is about 12.5 or so, 12. 6 or something I think for the ration, which is pretty much what you're looking for those-
Pretty hot.
.... short to mid- fed rations.
And what sort of weight gain do you expect to see from the animals?
Out of these 150- day cattle you usually see of about 1.5 to 1. 7 within that, depending on the weight they're coming in and the type of cattle and that sort of thing. At the moment we've got mostly heifers, I'm going to say it's about 3/ 4s heifers to a 1/ 4 steers. But so your weight gains are generally a little bit lower in your heifers, but they're going to put more fat down. So it is a fairly hot ration, but a lot of
those short to mid- fed rations. And when I say that I mean the 70 to a 100- day woolies and teas or those export feeding programs, they're generally running a similar ration to what we are. And then you'll dial it back for longer- fed rations. The Wagyu ration had a similar amount of grain but different amounts of other things. And it was designed
for them to put on a kilo a day. But because they've got so many more days on, you're looking for a slow burn there with the Wagyu in terms of you want them to grow to a certain period within the feeding regime. But then put out of body fat on and then intramuscular fat towards the end.
Yeah, that's interesting. So essentially, all 4, 000 head are basically on the same ration just at varying amounts depending on their induction rate or time in the size.
And we've got a nutritionist who is actually an American and he goes off an American system. So we use a two- ration system. We've got a starter and a finisher. A lot of feedlots work on a three or four- ration system where they're stepping up from one to the next. But our rations are pretty much starter and finisher and you shared it in for the first 15 to 20 days. And then they're on finisher ration for pretty
much the rest of the time. Our main job is to just try and keep everything as consistent as we can in terms of grain milling, grain quality coming in, commodity quality coming in, and mixing percentages and where your variances are and stuff. Everything in feedlotting is trying to get to that magic zero of perfect. It's a never- ending thing that you're trying to chase, but that's the only way to get the production out of what you need.
And so you've been in the role since obviously, November 22 I think you said. So are you getting better at it, mate? Is it improving? Are things tracking the right way?
Oh look, I'd like to think so. I've done other feedlot roles in other places. I actually had a bit of a break before this. I was a sales rep for a cattle tag company for about five years, but still connected to feedlots doing that. So you still get to see a bit of what they did. But look, I'd like to think so. It's my first full management role for feedlotting. There's a bit more to it than I guess you originally think there will be. Look, I think the experience
I've had in other yards has definitely helped. I had a management traineeship with a corporate up in Queensland for a couple of years, which really set me up. That was really good experience for me. My father's a stock agent and has been very connected in that side of things forever. He worked for elders for a number of years and when elders bought Killara Feedlot back in the late '90s, he was buying the cattle there for a few years. So
he's had a fair bit of affinity with feedlots. And he and another partner owned a feedlot at Dubbo for about 10 years that they sold recently. So there's been a bit of a connection to it. But I'll tell you what, every day's a school day. You're always learning something. And I'm just lucky here. I've got a great team in terms of stuff that, I don't know, just maintenance things and different ways of building things or changing things, or bits and pieces like that.
So you learn to lean on who knows what I'll tell you.
That's it. You can't be an expert in everything. And I have found, particularly the people that know what they're doing with a cattle's gut, might not know what the guts of a tractor look like. So those are two very different aspects.
Yeah, 100%. But it's always good to teach the guys too. I've got maintenance guys that knew one end of a cow from another when they got here. But certainly learning a lot more in terms of nutrition and animal health and that sort of stuff. I think we've got about seven or eight employees or something up here. But for a small team, what we've got here, I do find having everyone have as much of an idea about everything as they can helps too, to spread that load a bit and spread
that knowledge base. And someone might pick up on something that everyone else had just ruled out as that's just the way things are. So every day's a school day really.
What do you enjoy most about it, mate?
Look, we're in a really nice part of the world and you'll probably attest to this being down the road. But when we came out here we went, " Oh geez, this is a pretty good little spot." But I'm enjoying the challenge. The feedlot itself, being an old yard, there's a lot of things that I want to say fairly run down. But I suppose, just need a bit of TLC.
That's very diplomatic.
Oh, yeah. It's an old yard and they've had some challenges over the time. During the flood years, they had about three wet years and the clay here under the pens tends to bog up pretty quickly when it gets wet. So there's been a lot of dirt put back in to build pen floors back up. We've put new front rails across the bunks for about 2/ 3s of the feedlot so far. They had a shade project in the works that we've done a full row and about a third of the
second one. They had two planned. And we're mostly through that. And next spring, we'll finish that off. We've got a silo back operational. The silos here have had some issues over the years and we've got one back operational. We ran for nearly two years with no silos. Just bringing truckloads of grain in every couple of days. And I'll tell you what, the local producers that are around here that helped us out with that are just fantastic, because
that was something that no one really expected. And no one really knew how to do, but we figured it out and got through it. So we're making a bit of progress on some stuff. And the feedlots. It's working out. It should now. We've got a new loading ramp that we just started using on the weekend off the commodity shed, which is a fully concreted setup. And if you came up here and had a look, it's a good little feedlot. Look, it's old and it's a bit tired in places, but it works.
So you've just mentioned a lot of the capital investment that's going on there. So how do you assign priority to what project needs attention?
Well, when I got here, they had a lot of plans for different things that needed doing because yeah, they'd had a few rough years of just ... With the wet, it made the feedlot wet. But with the road being flooded, you couldn't get contractors out. People wouldn't come out, you couldn't get supplies out. They really battled for a bit. So when we started, a lot of the pens were pretty tight, in- the- pen services. So the first year, because the end of '22 ... After
the floods, it dried out for a bit. We were able to get in with dry pens and just get in and just put dirt back into pens. That was the number one is just getting pens back to operational status. It was essentially, we just had to go around and go, " Okay, what needs doing and what can we do the quickest? And what can we essentially, get up and running so that we can just make our life a little bit easier?"
And we did that. Of the four rows of pens that we've got, one of those, we pulled the bunk out. We've got plans to redo the bunk. The other one we've been lately working in putting back dirt into those pens to build the floors up. But we essentially, for the last couple of years we've been running off two of the pens, running about half full. So they've been getting a lot of attention just getting them back up to spec, but they're pretty good now. And with the
shade over them and things that certainly helped. The shade was, I want to say end of '23, we really cracked into that and gave that a bit of a go. That was just to basically, with Angus cattle, getting them cooler pretty much. Funnily enough, Wagyu really don't mind the heat at all. The Wagyu will just sit out there in the sun when it's 40 degrees and go, "Oh, this is great." And the Angus are just sitting there going, " Wow, this is really hot." So it was essentially, just to finish that
off because they'd started it. The towers for the shade had been built, but they just hadn't had the cables and the shade sections put up over them. So we've started doing that and we've had to figure a lot of the stuff out as we've gone. Because with me coming on, a lot of these projects were started with previous management. And so there's been a little bit of knowledge lost there and different things. But between myself and a few of the maintenance guys who again just know their stuff and are
fantastic for figuring these things out. We've got to figure it out. The silos was one that we had some trouble getting concrete contractors to help sort out the bases for them. Because we were taking them from a conical silo base, down in the ground that it cracked and let moisture in and stuff over time, to a flat silo. So we found a mob in Bathurst who we'd been working with who've now gotten the bases done for us.
But that held us up for a little bit. But now that had been done, we're really moving on that.
So it's a bit of a balance between what's really important and what's practical in terms of getting contractors or staff or materials and that sort of thing? And the folding stuff as well.
Well, and working that around your day to day too. Earlier on it was okay because with the Wagyu we're only having a pen of 120 coming in a month. But with the Angus, you've got a lot more cattle coming in and out. So the day-to- day takes a lot more in terms of cattle movements and all the toing and froing around all of that. Yeah, that was probably the biggest challenge was working in the projects around what else you had to do for the day and just
getting the place happening. But we're starting to get there. And when I started, there was just this mountain of things that needed doing, but now that we've gotten things off the list, it's made it easier because then you can just focus on the other ones that you've got in front of you. The other one, which actually which you saw today was our new office that hadn't been built.
That was just a shed when I got here. And we had a builder come in and do the internal fit out, but that was just another one that took time.
So mate, just for my final question, I like to ask what is the big issue in Australian ag at the moment?
I've heard a lot of people on this podcast say this and I'm definitely in this boat, but I reckon labor is a big one. The corporate company I work for up in Queensland and I hear a lot of feedlots up in the Darling Downs especially, are hiring a lot of 457 workers on the 457 visas and a lot from the Philippines. I worked in a team up at a feedlot at Emerald, and the whole feeding team was Filipino guys, and they were just the most phenomenal guys.
Just got out of bed every day, loved life, just went and shoveled bunks, and just absolutely loved it.
There's probably a lot of able people here in Forbes and within 50Ks, but probably just not the inclination or capacity to work continually at a feedlot or hard work.
Yeah, and it's not even the want of work. And I'm probably one of those bosses, I'm not extremely ... I'm not going to jump down your throat and you need to do all this. I'd prefer to have people around me that are happy to think for themselves a bit and go, " Okay, I need to do this, this and this now." Can go off and do it. And I help with the guidance of that. But a lot of people just don't want to think, is that too harsh to say? I don't know. But there's a lot of people that
want to be told what to do. And I feel like with businesses, regardless if it's a feedlot or the LLS or where I worked in a corporate business, and I was as a rep for it. Businesses are becoming way more complicated these days I feel. And I think gone are the days where you can just be told to go and shovel something and you do it. It's a hard one.
It sounds like the kids have just rolled up, so we'll probably hold it there for today.
Yeah, no worries.
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really helps other farmers find the show. I'm your host, Neroli Brennan, and I'll chat to you next time.