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 will 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 sitting down with
Rhett Robinson. Rhett, along with his father, run their family farm, Arana, a 500- acre property between Gulgong and Dunedoo. On the block, the Robinsons typically produce Sam sheep and cattle utilizing a native pasture base. As you'll hear, when Rhett's not on the farm, he works for Local Land Services as a senior biosecurity officer, which he has done for
the last 22 years. Over his impressive career in pest animal management, Rhett has seen the rise and fall of various pests. In this episode, Rhett shares with us all the tips and tricks he's picked up along the way, including a number of solutions to help combat the impact
of rabbits, pigs, wild dogs, and foxes. Local Land Services cropping advisor, Tim Bartimote sat down with Rhett over a cuppa to have this chat in our Dubbo LLS office.
Well, welcome back to the podcast, listeners. Today, I'm joined by Rhett Robinson, who actually works for LLS, but he's also a local producer with his family. How are you going today, Rhett?
Yeah, good, thanks Tim. How are you going?
Yeah, not too bad. Can you tell us a bit about your family farm, please?
Yeah, it's like an old family farm. It first started back in the selection days with my great- great- great- grandfather. So yeah, been there a fair while. It's between in the Tallawong area, which is between Gulgong and Dunedoo. About halfway. Yeah, been there a while. Typical family farm, it's gone up and down throughout the generation. So yeah, it is not very big at
the moment, but it's only 500 acres. But yes, it's a nice 500 acres and love getting over there and it means a lot to me, like the old family graveyard's on the place and all that stuff. So yeah, I like to feel pretty connected to the place really, well, I do feel connected to place. Yeah.
What do you produce on that block?
Yeah, it's way back in the early days there was a lot more emphasis on wheat back in my great- grandfather's and grandfather's day and typical farms in that area, it's more livestock based now. So yeah, sheep and cattle have been what we've been doing, but we actually got foot rot a couple of years ago and had the de- stock, so we've just been doing some adjustment stuff in the meantime until we get back to restocking.
Yeah, right. So is it more focused on native pastures, improved?
Yeah, native pastures with the sub- clover on the base, probably more sheep focused. We had Sam's ewes at the time and yeah, they're great old ewes, big strong things and have great lambs and yeah, very fertile too.
So you obviously work full- time at LLS as well, but how do you manage? You just run out there on the weekends?
Yeah, I'm over there most weekends, it's unusual for me to not be there on the weekend. Dad's getting quite old now and needs a bit of a help along the way, so I love going out there anyway. He doesn't have to ask me twice, doesn't have to ask me at all.
You just turn up.
Just turn up
Unannounced. Oh, you're back again, Rhett.
What are we doing today?
So you said it's been in the family quite a while. Do you know exactly how long?
Yeah, from family stories, I think it was about in 1860s, 1866 I think it was. But before then, my great- great- great grandfather was an overseer for one of the local squatters, the Rouses, is my understanding. So he was looking after their stock in that locality for a number of
years before he took up the selection block. Actually, when grandmother died, me and my wife bought that block, which was left to me aunties and the rest of it was left to dad. So that was great to get that, because that's where the family graveyard is on that selection block down along the creek and it's good.
So quite a lot of history there.
A lot of history.
And so can you walk us through a bit more about what the country's like?
Well, we've got two creeks which intersperse the place or divide the place go through the middle of the place. So it's mostly yellow box creek flats. There is some granite country out the other side, what we call the second creek, which is good grazing country. So nice mix of yellow box and that granite country. Good sheep country, real good sheep country.
So what's your approach now having dealt with foot rot? What's your approach now in terms of restocking?
Well, dad's slowed up a fair bit. He just wants to go a bit easier. So yeah, what he wants to do is just have adjustment stock for the next while, but when it's my turn later on down the track, we'll get back into the sheep, for sure. I love me sheep.
What do you love about them? Because I don't understand it.
How could you not love sheep? I've got a list maybe I don't do as much sheep work as other people, so I enjoy it while I do it and then it stops before it wears itself out. The enjoyment wears out. But yeah, I've always loved sheep from a young kid and I think, yeah, we've always had sheep and I know my great- grandfather was a big sheep man, so he liked the sheep. So it's in the blood,
I suppose, just from an early age. It's the thing I took a liking to and yeah, never stopped liking.
So focusing on wool or meat sheep or combo?
Yeah, combo, whether we get back into Sam's or not, it's another thing, it's a bit hard to get good quality Sam rams in New South Wales now. Maybe we'll have a think at a time whether we'll do Merinos and maybe join a portion of them to a meat breed, maybe Suffolks or something like that, maybe.
In terms of, so 500 acres did you say in totality? Is there opportunity to expand in that space or is it tightly held, a lot of the eastern country?
Oh yeah, it's pretty tightly held, but I suppose over my lifetime, I've seen a few places have been sold, but it's few and far between. It's a long time in between properties getting sold. So some of my neighbours, they had been there for a little long as what we have nearly. So it is pretty tightly held and quite dear too.
What's it like? What would you say an acre kind of?
Oh, there's a place down at Birriwa sold, oh, I think they bought for 4, 000 an acre. Yeah, which is a lot.
For our part of the world.
Yeah, yeah. So anyway, I'm just fortunate, I count myself so lucky that I've got that to go back to when I retire and yeah, I'm really looking forward to going back.
Has it passed on to your girls as well?
The two youngest ones, they're pretty keen, which is good to see, but I was pretty worried with them growing up in Dubbo, whether they'd feel the same way about it that I feel, not growing up on there, but they seem pretty keen, so I hope that continues.
Watch this space, see what happens.
Yeah, that's it.
Rhett, you've been a staple I guess in Local Land Services since it started, but you've also obviously been part of the space before that. Can you walk us through your pest management career, how it kicked off?
Yeah. Well I started in 2002 with the Rural Lands Protection Board, Dubbo Rural Lands Protection Board at the time. So yeah, started back then and that turned into Livestock Health and Pest Authorities and that turned into LLS. So just basically started through that and from there, so what's that, nearly 22 years now or a bit more?
What was it like back then when you started?
Oh, it was really good. It's good now too. Don't worry. Yeah. But yeah, they were all (inaudible) , for me, they were a great organisation, really grow a lead with the board at the time, we had a great board to work with in Dubbo. All the directors were fantastic. But time's changed and it's different now, but there are good things now that we didn't have back
then as well. So with the pest levy money that we have come back to Local Land Services now, which we're using. So actually probably busier now in the pest animal front than we've ever been really just with the opportunities that we've had through LLS.
So what was your focus back then? What pests were... The same stuff as today or?
No, it has changed. Back then it was rabbits when I first started and foxes were probably the main thing. Pigs weren't the issue, anywhere near the issue is what they are now for sure. We did a lot more rabbit work back in those days. Every summer we'd be doing rabbit jobs here, there and everywhere. Whereas now if I do one or two a year, that's something. So that side of things
has eased off. The foxes have continued on and we've kept our programs going up. Lisa Thomas, at the time, and myself started back in the early 2000s and all those programs are still ongoing now, even with the organisational changes, which is good. So continue working on those. Wild dogs have crept into the area over the last 10 to 15 years.
So whereas when I started, wild dogs weren't even on the radar in the Central West, so that side of things change and as everybody knows, pig numbers have really exploded. It's funny, after the early 2000s drought, when that ended, people were saying then, " I've had pigs turn up," I've never had pigs and want to do a bit of baiting and control
work. The same thing happened after this last drought. Pig numbers have just spread and gone into areas where they haven't been before and increased in numbers as well. So pigs have definitely increased a heap compared to when I first started.
That's interesting. So I guess to kind of paint this big picture, from your 22 years of experiences working in pest management, what is the need, do you reckon? What importance does your role bring to the farming community or the greater community do you think?
Well, I suppose if you looked at the wild dog front, if we don't keep on top of the wild dog problem and if it goes the way it has gone in other areas to some of the stories that you hear, what's happened there, if the same thing happened here in Central West in such a strong sheep country, enterprise region,
it'd be devastating for me. Well, dogs are probably the one thing that can be a nail in the coffin of sheep enterprises and that's the last thing that I'd like to see, not only for farms but for the local community as well with Fletcher's here. If the sheep industry decreased here, it's going to make it harder for the whole rural economy. So I think it's really important that we try to support the industry that we're in.
So your role provides a coordinated approach to dealing with pest management, as opposed to a couple of neighbours working together. You're trying to look at it region wide, how do we tackle these issues?
Yeah, definitely. So that larger scale stuff, trying to pull people together to work together in groups and do coordinated programs so we can have bigger impact on what we do. So really probably my job as much as anything is about working with people and pulling people together and getting everybody trying to pushing the same direction as much as we can.
So what does a typical week look like in the life of Rhett Robinson?
Well, just at the moment we're organising fox- baiting programs and dogs as well. But all those baiting groups that we work with, we have added the Dubbo office. We have 25 landholder groups based on localities in the area that we work with just to coordinate control. So in the early days we were focused on the foxes, but we're pretty much focused on any pest now with those groups. So
whatever's worrying them. So to the east of Dubbo, certainly dogs are in that mix and pigs as well across all the groups pretty much. So we are just organising those programs now, but those meetings, so where we get landholders together, we have landholder coordinators that get bait orders, so we make them up and take them out. So everybody's doing their control programs all at the same time so that they have the biggest impact. And we try to do those meetings with foxes and dogs where it's
going to have... Where we do the autumn round, the group baiting to really target foxes as an example during that dispersal period. So target them then and also follow that up in late winter to target them during their breeding time. So target those times when they're
most vulnerable to really keep overall numbers low. And with foxes as an example, just to continue it on, we did some spotlight counts a few years ago now, but the same thing would hold, where we compared where groups where they bait them in the autumn and winter and did spotlight counts transects. So you do a 10 kilometre transect and you do a count and we compared that to an area where they don't do coordinated baiting, and
the numbers of foxes were 80%... Well, it's more than 80% lower throughout the year where you're doing fox baiting twice a year. So it's pretty impressive if you can pull people together, do the timing correctly, you can have pretty
good results. And that flows on to increasing people's lambing percentages. Yeah, there was the Vertebrate Pest Research unit with the DPI, looked at group baiting in one of their research programs, and I think people in group baiting programs were making up to 20% more lambs than people that weren't part of those in other areas. So it definitely makes a difference, it produces hip-pocket, those programs, which I find very satisfying.
I bet. To know that you're contributing to an impact on a regional scale.
Yeah.
Because it sounds very strategic. You're obviously working out from the pest animal perspective, their mating habits and their life cycle, that sort of stuff, and particularly targeting key timings to achieve widespread control.
For sure.
Well I know you're one of the most popular guys in this office in terms of customers coming in.
People coming through.
" Is Rhett here? Can I talk to Rhett?"
Yeah, always love to see him. It's always good.
So we'll get down to the nitty- gritty, Rhett, of how do we approach control and some of these major pests. Well, I've heard stories anyway that in every fox's den, mate, there's the most wanted sign of you because you've been involved in a lot of controlling these various animals. So let's get into it and pick out from your expertise. Pigs. That's probably-
Pigs, yeah, the big issue.
How do we approach pigs or how do you approach pigs and what do you have for any producers who are listening?
Well, I suppose there's different levels to approach pigs. So there's the broader strategic levels which we probably could cover and also what you can do on your own properties, which contributes
to that. So I suppose on a broad level before getting down to property to property type stuff, individual property type stuff, look, if you've got pigs on your property, really should be trying to start working in with neighbours and it makes a huge difference to knocking pigs down. So you really need to be removing 70% of pigs in an area just to maintain them because they breed
so quick. So you've got to remove a heap each year or a minimum of 70%. So to do that you need to really work in with your neighbours, which will, if they're taking care of some of the pigs and you share the workload basically and you stop that immigration. So if you poison pigs on your place and two or three places down the track, those pigs could
swing back around on you and immigrate again. So if you can do that is one of the key things to do. Really stick with the effective controls, which baiting is the most effective way to reduce pig numbers. So yeah, once again-
So not shooting at it?
No, no. I'll come to that. Aerial shooting plays a part. It can play a useful part of it, but it's not the answer to feral pig control in my experience with the shooting that we've been doing around Dubbo, really you need to be doing other controls around it.
So it's literally not the silver bullet.
It is not a silver bullet, but I wish it was, but it's not.
It's more of an integrated approach is what's required.
Yeah, that's right. And with pig numbers the way they are, an integrated approach... So DPI, I've seen some research that's been done there. They're baiting at pigs with 1080 has done well, can reduce numbers by up to 90%, trapping's about 70%, and I think they put aerial shooting about that 70% as well, which maybe in the Dubbo area, I think that might be a bit optimistic
from my experience. And the feedback that I'll get from producers afterwards, they're still seeing a lot of pigs. And for example, we did the shoot in an area west of Dubbo here earlier this year. They took out 400 pigs, they were concentrated along the creek lines and we followed that up with a baiting program and we're still issued a ton of 1080 pig grain after the shoot, which is enough to kill about 2000
pigs, to give you a bit of an idea. So it's not like they only needed two or 300 kilos, even though we did the shoot, we still had significant uptake of pig 1080 grain afterwards. So just to give you a bit of an idea.
So it's a significant contributor to control, aerial shooting, but it's far better if you can incorporate...
Yeah, it's far better. We're going to get bang for our buck. Yeah, we need to be following up with baiting or trapping where you can't do baiting. So the main things... Also, the timing of control. Now in winter's a good time to do it. Pigs are hungry with the cold so it's easy to get them on the grain. Summertime is another good strategic time for people to be doing
baiting together. They'll be normal hot summer, they'll be concentrated on water points in amongst any dams, in trees, in the scrub areas, or along those shady creeks. That's where they'll be and concentrates numbers at those points and you can really... If we targeted them then with a good baiting program you can have a significant reduction in numbers. So taking advantage of those times and probably thinking even
further forward. But the next drought is probably the time when we should really be putting the boot in the pig numbers and concentrating pig control then because during a drought, piglet survivability will be low anyway and pig numbers will be naturally decreasing. But if we can be also reducing numbers as much as we can with baiting and trapping, so when we come out of the next drought, pig numbers are even lower than
what they were coming out of this last one. That will make a big difference in two or three years down the track. Hopefully we shouldn't have the numbers that we have now. So the next drought's going to be a key time when
I think we should be really concentrating on it. I get it with farmers, they work flat out feeding stock and keeping the show going and under a lot of stress, but if we can make something good come out of the next drought, that'd be one thing we could do. If producers said, " Yeah, let's do this."
Kind of like a silver lining kind of thing.
Yeah, get something good out of it.
Yeah, that's interesting. I think that was it, 70% you've got to knock the population down to maintain the population over the long term. That's crazy.
And you've got to do that annually. The other thing too we are encouraging people to do when they're doing baiting on their own properties, getting down to the property level, is really increasing their free feeding time when they're doing a
baiting program. So rather than just put grain out for two or three days and have the pigs come in and then put the bait out, if you can free feed for a longer period, what you'll find is all those other mobs that are cutting through that part of your property have times to come off the neighbours or swing around and find where
you are free feeding as well. So instead of poisoning one mob at a time, if you can free fee for, well the ideal time's 10 to 14 days at any given time, and you'll get multiple mobs feeding that one feeding point and so you can have a big clean out of all the mobs that are cutting through. So that will make a big difference too if we
get people doing that. And also with people doing their baiting programs too, it's important to know how much the pigs are eating so we don't underdose them. So pre feeding is important for that. And also cleaning up any 1080 grain after they've done their program is really important as well.
Is that the thing about the bad curry kind of idea?
Yeah. After you do a baiting program, if you go and clean it up and you leave two or three kilos scattered in the baiting site there, that is hard to pick up. The pigs will pick it up, but it's enough to make them sick and make them bait
shy and then we'll never get them to eat bait again. So it's really important to be particular either feeding in a trench where you can go and bury the bait so where the pigs can't get at it or feeding in some troughing like C- section or whatever so you can clean up the bait site afterwards and so we don't have another mob coming along potentially later on and cleaning up half a kilo of grain and getting sick and...
Just totally going off it. And so they learn not to touch that stuff.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to teach them twice.
Yeah, right.
So yeah, we've had landowners come in with examples where they do the free feed, come and get the bait and they put it out, and the mob turns up and they walk away. So, when they've had cameras on it and they see what's going on. That's really important too when you're doing your programs.
If we move on from pigs, dogs?
Dogs, yeah, well they are probably the hardest of all the pest animals to deal with and one of those ones where integrated control is just you got to do it. Can't rely on baiting alone, trapping alone or all that stuff. So you've really got to integrate the controls as much as we can. So once again, we have quite a few groups or pest animal groups that do concentrate on wild
dogs as well, so them doing ground baiting. We had been doing a district- wide aerial baiting program regularly over the last six, seven years, something like that where we're doing baiting all the rough country, inaccessible country east of Dubbo, basically from the Mendooran, Gilgandra area back through to (inaudible) area and back around Dunedoo, around Burrendong, Dam, down to Euchareena. So that aerial baiting program for me has been a big boost to increasing the coverage of baiting
across the region. Before we started, we had 16 reports in that year of wild dogs in that area, but since we started aerial baiting, for this year, we've only had six in those areas where we've been doing aerial baiting. So it has dropped back the number report. Yeah, I think it's just got the critical mass of baits going out has got it to the point where we can stabilise it. Touch wood, don't want to count me laurels,
but that's been a key part of it. And National Parks and State Forests and crown lands have been part of that and the Aboriginal Land Council with their country as well. So it's been a good coordinated cross tenure approach with landholders as well and all these other agencies as well, that program.
So that's essentially just to describe what's going on, you're going up in your helicopter and you've got treated baits and you're throwing them out the helicopter window.
Basically with the people that participate in the aerial baiting, we map it out where exactly where the baits are to go. So that's all mapped out and the helicopter has an iPad in real time where they can follow those lines and they drop them out, and the baits are within 20 metres of either side of that line. So it is not flicking them out everywhere. So it is
targeted. So yeah, we really target those ridge lines and gullies and wildlife movement corridors that dogs use as well. So try and get the landholders to identify where they are and target those in those inaccessible areas to increase the coverage.
And it's more a problem on the eastern side of the region?
Predominantly in the Great Dividing Range, there's a lot of dogs there, and to the east of us. And we have been sending DNA samples away to the PRU, the Pest Research Unit, and they're looking at the genetic relatedness and where they've picked it up. For example, there was some dogs at Fremantle, north of
Orange related to dogs that were shot at Goolma. So they're looking at where dogs are moving and spreading from, but I think it's predominantly from that eastern side migration
When we're talking dogs, just for someone who might listen to this from some other place, they travel a long way and they're just like bit of... They're a true mutt in the sense of they're just a mix of breeds.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're all cross-breds, with the DNA side of things ranged 25% like dingo genetics through to 75%. So it's in that range. There was I think a couple of dogs actually in that Nyngan-Warren area. I think they were pretty pure actually. They were up in the nineties.
Pure dingo?
Yeah, so I'm guessing that they might've more likely come from Western New South Wales and migrated in. So these dogs, when they get it in their mind to move, they can really travel hundreds of miles. The GPS collars collared some dogs in Queensland and if I remember the story right, this dog had moved like 500 kilometres from Charleville to Collarenebri or somewhere up
in northern New South Wales there and it was like 500 kilometres. So for dogs to come from the Great Dividing Range and make it to this Dubbo area is really-
Just an afternoon stroll.
Yeah, we've been lucky. Most of the dogs that we've been getting have been male dogs because numbers can really start skyrocketing if we're getting breeding dogs in here as well.
Because there's a fair bit of work in terms of monitoring them, isn't there? In terms of you get cameras set up by producers to try and catch these dogs
Yeah, yeah, and to target these dogs you need to know where they're traveling. Particularly when it comes to the trapping, you need to know what paths they're using in the landscape and that can be a little bit of a needle in a
haystack. Sometimes you get onto it quite quickly. There was a dog trap at Ballimore in January this year, we just happened to strike the cameras on the pads that this dog was using regularly and we were able to... That's a trapper or a local landholder that's become really good at trapping from Goolma. So he'd come in with those landholders and was able to trap the dog quite
quickly. But other times it can take quite a while to work out what paths these dogs are using. But cameras are the reason why we knew early on. We were doing monitoring for fox numbers and there was a dog, it just turned up and then another dog, a fellow at Ballimore shot one. So that's about 15 years ago. So that started raising it, thinking maybe we've got emerging problem here and maybe get proactive and get ahead of
it and try and keep on top of it. In the position we are now, for me, 15 years after we first became aware of them and still only really having scattered dogs in the main, is testament to the efforts of the landholders getting together and getting skilled up and doing trapping and forming groups where they have their trapping kitty to pay for trappers when
needed, keep their baiting up. And with the aerial baiting, coordinating all that across a large area, it's been a bit of a team effort by everybody concerned really to be in the position that we are now. So touch wood, it keeps on going that way. Yeah, probably also going forward with wild dogs is we're talking about trapping and shooting and baiting as being the mainstays, but-
Exclusion fencing.
Yeah, and it doesn't have to be like six foot high stuff to help out. In the table lands, they've done the western fence offsets have been effective in reducing the movements of dogs about the area too. So their natural instinct isn't to jump over a fence, it's to go underneath. So utilizing stuff like that I think will be increasingly important going forward. And even using guardian animals
too, if it really gets any worse. So at the moment we're tracking all right, but we've got to keep these other options. People need to be thinking about the whole, using all these tools if we want to keep on running sheep going forward.
Right, Rhett. Well thanks for coming in today. Appreciate your time and hearing about all what's going on in the pest animal space.
Yeah, no, that's all right. And if anybody has questions, just give us a ring anytime. We'll pop in, have a yarn, and yeah, that'd be great.
Thanks for listening. This podcast was brought to you by Central West Local Land Services. Local Land Services delivers advice and support to farmers, landholders and the community across New South Wales. To learn more, you can find us online
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