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 Grace Hadley.
Grace is the business manager at Burrawang West, an 11,000 acre mixed farming property between Condobolin and Parkes, which is owned by the AAM Investment Group. Grace's main focus is managing their Burrawang Dorper and White Dorper Stud programs. In this episode, we look at how Burrawang focuses on breeding rams, selected on conformation and fertility to produce lambs of a mid-
maturity growth type. Grace also tells us how Burrawang uses various strategies to train their Dorpers for quiet temperaments and how an eight- month joining means two ram sale days and a lot more work. Local land services mixed farming advisor Rohan Leach hit the road towards Condobolin to bring you this chat with Grace.
G'day listeners. Today I'm with Grace Hadley from Burrawang Dorper Stud near Forbes. Grace, welcome to the Seeds for Success podcast.
Thanks very much for having me, Rohan.
Can you start off by telling the listeners a bit about this Burrawang West the property?
So we're 25 Kilometres east of Condobolin. It's a bit over 11, 000 acres. We're a mixed farming enterprise, so we have a Dorper sheep stud, which is the main game here, and then we do a couple of thousand acres of cropping as well. And then we've also got a couple of thousand acres locked up in a biodiversity conservation trust.
You've taken me for a little bit of a drive around this morning and there's plenty of creeks and crisscrossing waterways across the property. What creeks run through it and how do you sort of manage with the creeks?
Yeah, we're pretty fortunate to have a fair bit of water. I didn't think so when we first come across this place, and I reckon three months in, we did have the biggest flood on record, which is a good break in. But we have seven kilometres of river frontage from the Bumbugga Creek, which is an offshoot of the Loughlin River. And then we have the Gubang and Yarrabandi Creeks that run through it as well. So we irrigate out of the Bumbuggan Creek.
We've got a four set of pivots, over 120 acres, which yeah, really fortunate to have and definitely helps us with the sheep stud to keep that feed coming through.
And one of those pivots you told me earlier is organic. What does that mean?
Yeah, so we run one of the pivots organic. When we first bought the place we had 1800 acres of organic country. We've taken it back just to the one pivot to make a bit more ease of management. I'm going to get a bit more out of that country. We make organic hay out of that, so that goes up to our northern property at Blackall. They run an organic sheep and cattle place up there, so we send that hay up there and it's really good integration between the businesses as it can be hard to come by.
I should have mentioned earlier that AAM Investment Group is the company that you work for and we probably will get into sort of how it fits in overall, but getting back more to Burrawang West, what are the soil types here?
So it goes from anything from Red Loams all the way through to heavy cracking clays. We have a fair bit of variability, which also works in well with the sheep and the cropping. We get to map it out on the place which what best suits and then yeah, get to manage that accordingly.
And matching pastures to those soils. What have you got on farm?
Yeah, so we have a fair bit of loosen and which we make hay off to keep in the shed and then also grow out some of our younger lambs on that loosen. And then we've got a fair bit of native country that we utilize, especially for the Dorcas because it's pretty well suited. They like a range of options when they're grazing and that seems to work in well at the moment.
So what's your role specifically here?
So I'm the business manager here, so we have a team of four staff including myself. I've got a livestock overseer and then a cropping and a sheep farmhand and my job can range from absolutely anything, but I look after the sheep stud is probably my main game. So yeah, anything from movements, joinings right that way through to preparing our ramps for the sale and preparing the catalog and everything.
And then the cropping side of things, obviously we do some of it on site and then some of it is a contractor model, so managing that and the staff and then obviously we have a fair bit of business stuff to do. I work for AAM, which is an investment company, so there's a lot of business side to this and we do a lot of budgeting and forecasting, which is real beneficial looking forward and then also seeing what worked well in the past.
So I'd like to know a bit more about the Burrawang Stud and how it fits in with AAM group structure. Can you tell me about that?
The aim of the game is to have a bit more of an integrated lamb supply chain. So our Blackall property Terrick Terrick Station has 50,000 Dorper ewes, so that was established like early 2021. As part of that, we wanted to procure a seed stock business so that we could manage the genetics that
we're getting. So yeah, when Burrawang was identified, we purchased it in July 2022 and we're really looking to expand those genetics not only to improve the rams that are going to our clients, but also to send them up to Terrick Terrick Station to integrate with our youth flock up there.
The Terrick Station, 50, 000 ewes, are you breeding rams for all of them or are you sourcing genetics elsewhere?
I'd absolutely love to say we are at the position where we can do, but we outsourced rams early on from a lot of sister studs and stuff, so we run as a standalone business. While we are integrated, we have to make money ourselves. Our clients come first and foremost, so when we have a draft of rams, we keep a top 5% for ourselves on the stud to produce further ramps. Then the next draft whatever goes into our sale.
So we aim to sell between 300 and 400 rams a year on our two on- farm sales and then anything surplus to that, which is the bottom end of the grade head up to Terrick. And we then are also very fortunate to have access to the size here, which we utilize by collecting seamen, sending it up to Terrick and doing AI programs up there to continue to advance those genetics as well.
When you first purchased the stud back in '22, how many rams was that stud producing then?
When we took over, there's about 2000 Stud ewes and we've probably grown it to about 2,600 or 2, 700 now. It is a slow progression to make sure that we're keeping the right ewes and that we're also continuing to cull on ewes that aren't performing the way we want them to, specifically on structure but also on fertility, which is a very big focus for us.
So you've increased your numbers, are you looking to increase more or is this about the sort of level that you're wanting to stay at?
Yeah, definitely. We'd love to increase and we have increased it since we've been here. Like I think we've done eight ET programs to sort of work on one or two pretty big ET programs a year of about 140 donors and that's been very critical in advancing that genetic gain and getting those matchups right and increasing the numbers. But we're just very conscious of making sure that we're increasing the right numbers. We don't just want to be able to say we've
got 4,000 ewes. We want to be able to say we've got 4, 000 of the right ewes that are going to take us forward and take our clients forward as well.
Now after hearing you talk, people would probably be a bit shocked to know that you're only 24 years old. So can you tell me a bit about your path in the ag industry Grace?
I've been really fortunate. I grew up on a cattle property east of Bathurst and then when I was 18 I finished school and I moved to Armidale and completed uni there. So I did three years there doing an ag science degree.
Albies or Rob?
Controversial question. I didn't go to either. I went to Devour College. And absolutely loved my time there and got to meet a good mix of people from a lot of different backgrounds. And then, yeah, two years into my uni degree was COVID and I didn't get much of an opportunity to go out and do many placements or anything or do practicals at uni. So I was very fortunate through a very long distance contact to end up at Sunshine Farms out here at
Forbes working for AAM under Greg Wynn. And yeah, I cannot talk highly enough about my time there like that definitely kickstarted my career and these guys have been really, really good to me. So I worked harvest there and did casual work over the summer and then I was very fortunate at the end of that year I finished exams on the Friday and started there at Sunshine full- time as the livestock overseer, which was really exciting and absolutely
loved my time there. And yeah, in amongst the mix of it, AAM bought Burrawang, so I come over here to count the sheep when we purchased it to make sure they're all here and I'm still here today. I definitely didn't come over here with that intention, but here I am and yeah, absolutely love it.
So would you put down like a bit of your rise to working in corporate agriculture and the structures that they've got in place to foster talent or providing a bit of a pathway?
Yeah, absolutely. Like there's a lot of preconceived conceptions about corporate agriculture and like while AAM is a corporate, it's owned
a hundred percent by Australian families, which I've met. They've been really good to me and then it's fully Australian, funded the money through the super funds, which I think is really important and one of the things that drew me towards the business, but they've also, yeah, because it's been so big, like I've had so many opportunities when I first started working here, I'd dead set, hadn't left New South Wales, I'm pretty sure I've nearly been to every state in
Australia working for AAM and that's given me a lot of opportunities and opened my mind to a lot of different things and they've also been really good at advancing my career and giving me those opportunities.
What's in the future for yourself? What's the goal?
I get this question so many times, like leaving uni, this is like my 15- year plan to go on and manage a place and brain's still playing catch up, but at the moment I'm just absolutely loving the opportunity of what I want to do and yeah, getting to do it better and better every day and looking at ways to improve.
So let's get into the nuts and bolts of the Burrawang Stud. So what sort of rams are you aiming to breed here?
First and foremost, we start on structure. So they get assessed from six months of age all the way through to when we sell them, multiple times. Because they're such a quick growing animal they can change. So we want to get that structure right because these animals, whilst they may only go into a small intensive place, a lot of our rams are going out into extensive areas in Western Queensland and Western New South Wales where they have to do a lot of walking and get the job done.
So we don't want them to break down. So we focus a lot on that, which we're very fortunate to have Nev Kelly who manages our Blackall property, he comes down and does our classing. He's not only had a lot of experience in the merino industry classing, but he's also manages the 50,000 ewes at Terrick. So he gets to see day to day what those rams need to do and what we need them to be bred like to be able to achieve that successfully. Next biggest thing for
us is fertility. So our ewes are continuously reviewed every time they go in for a joining, they get reviewed how many lambs they've had, what those progeny have done to make sure that they keep coming through and performing under those eight month joinings and then pass that on to their rams. So we're looking for a mid- maturing ram that's going to put that early growth into those lambs.
A lot of our clients are turning these lambs off anywhere between three to five months, so they really need to put that early growth into those lambs and get them turned off as quick as possible.
One of the criticisms maybe of Dorpers is that they probably lay on fat too early or mature too early. What do you say to that?
So it's all about how you manage it and I think there is a lot of preconceived rumours around about that, but we're seeing more and more that the abattoirs are absolutely loving the Dorpers. There's a lot of abattoirs that are preferencing them now, and they are also looking at them not only as a lamb that can be killed at 24 kilos, but they
can actually grow out to that 28 to 32 kilos. Internally our lambs at Blackall get either go onto some of our other properties to get fattened or they go into a feedlot scenario where they are getting to that weight and we're having really, really good success with both yield and carcass results on them.
Talking about your carcass results, like is eye muscle area, marbling, yield, those sorts of things that you're trying to improve as well? Or is the sort of demand not quite there for those particular traits?
Yeah, absolutely. We're really hoping with the introduction of mandatory ERDs that we'll be able to start getting more feedback from our clients and our own lambs through the abattoirs to get that ball rolling. Like we are dragging the chain a little bit with that, so it'll be good
to see that come through. Internally we're doing our AI programs with our sires up at Terrick and we're looking at the carcass data from that, which is really interesting and we're trying to be part of any trials that are coming up and we did our own internal trial combined with UNE to get some of that carcass data back, which was really valuable and we'll look to do more of that in the future.
Yeah, cool. So talk me through that trial.
So that was like our own like we'll call it a pilot trial. We just ran it side by side with White Dorpers, crossbreds, Merinos just to get that feedback and we sent it up there and yeah, we got some really interesting results that we're hoping to flesh out in further trials and we got them killed and yeah, really positive results from the Dorpers and the White Dorpers and it'll be good to flesh that out more in some more extensive trials over some different areas.
That's awesome. So can you maybe talk me through your calendar of operations?
Absolutely. So when I first come here, absolute mind- boggles to get around, like going from a traditional Merino where you lamb once a year is very different. We not only do eight- month joinings, but we also have split lambing. So half our ewes are on one cycle and half our ewes are on the other. That's just to keep the consistency of the rams coming through for both our March and October sale, getting them the right age and yeah, also
managing our pastures and everything. Obviously if you land that many sheep at once, yeah, it puts a fair bit of pressure on your pastures. So we split that up. So we'll join, we do six- week joinings, try not to join so that we're not lambing between that December February period, but out of that it's all a little bit just, yeah, whenever it times in, sometimes we keep them back for a few weeks just to get the right timing for those ram sales and everything or bring
them forward. But yeah, we typically lamb for six weeks. We break them into two, three- week periods from scanning just to get that accuracy and management easier and then we'll put the rams back out at lamb marking, they'll stay in there for six weeks. Then we'll scan and yeah, after lamb marking, the lambs are typically weaned about that three months old age and then they go into our
weaning program. So a little bit like cattle, we do a weaning program here and put them through the yards, put them into the feedlot pens and get them used to eating hay and worked with dogs run through the yards. So that typically lasts between four and five days and then they go out in the paddock and that really just sets us up so that they're easy to handle later on.
And one of my staff members doesn't have dogs or anything and she can go and muster any of the mobs on her own, which is, yeah, really beneficial and makes it a lot easier later in life.
I guess that is probably another, I seem to be talking about the criticisms of Dorpers a bit in this podcast, but yeah, that does seem to be one of the criticisms of Dorpers is that they're all crazy and that you can't handle them well. Well you're sort of proving that with just a bit of extra work and yard weaning like in the cattle program that you can calm them right down and settle them.
Yeah, well I'm not a good liar. I'm not going to tell anyone that they're going to be the same to manage as Merinos, but it's just about making sure you manage them right for the right animal and we treat them a little bit more like cattle. They get a weaning program, they get set up, but then we don't have a lot of issues. But yeah, you just need to make sure first and foremost that your fences
are good. These are very smart animals, which is a lot of the reason why they can survive in tougher conditions, but it also means that if they get out that fence once, they're probably going to do it again. Just making sure you're setting your fences up right, got good fences and making sure that they get the right training at an early age so that they can continue that later in life and make it a lot easier for everyone around.
So do you also use sheep handling equipment to make things a bit easier in the yards?
Yeah, absolutely. Very fortunate for that. We've got different weigh boxes, automatic handlers and all that sort of thing, which makes everything a lot easier, especially the studs pretty intensive, so we're using our yards and everything a lot. So very fortunate to have those facilities.
And obviously all the things that you've talked about virtually impossible without electronic ID. So yeah, what role does that play in the business?
Absolutely critical. So at landmarking they get an EID tag and a visual ID tag to link back to each other and then linked to that is a DNA sample, so all of our animals born on the property are DNA tested and genomically tested, which is linked back to that EID. Yeah, obviously we're doing it here for a long time, but it's very exciting to see that coming in mandatory and hopefully we'll start getting that feedback from abattoirs and see that all flow through the industry.
So one final question I had about the stud was are you still sourcing genetics from elsewhere or are you sort of closed internally?
So this has been a closed flock for a number of years. I'll never say never. We're also always looking at our outside genetics and improving the flock where we can, we haven't yet, but yeah, never say never. And we're really looking into making sure that we're moving the way the industry is and doing everything we can to give the best to our clients.
So I'd like to talk sort of where Dorpers fit wider in the sheep industry and sort of pick your brain a bit on what your thoughts are there. So where do you see Dorpers fitting in the sheep industry?
Yeah, so everyone thinks, because I've got Dorpers, I'm a Merino hater, I definitely am not. I think they absolutely have a place in the industry and they always will. I probably see Dorpers fitting in that fat lamb production more so where the cost of shearing is just ever- increasing. So if you can move to a shedding sheep where you don't have that cost of shearing but can continue the similar lamb production and if in a lot of cases better lamb production, then I think that's probably where
like a lot of people are moving into it. And we've seen it in the industry, like 95% of my new clients are moving away from wool producing sheep just because they're trying to get better lambs and they just can't afford that cost of shearing if they don't have that premium wool clip.
In the past, most people could associate shearing their cross- bred ewes, they might make the money back on the cost of shearing, but the last few years has sort of shown us that that's been blown right out of the park with shearing costs increasing and the coarser wools decreasing in value, I guess it makes sense to be having shedding sheep as a bigger part of the industry,
Having shedding sheep shouldn't be a bad word anymore. There's a lot of people out and a lot of people having great success and I know I speak to a lot of our clients out in that western division that yeah, they wouldn't have sheep and they probably wouldn't be there if it wasn't for Dorpers and what they've allowed them to do, which is great.
Obviously that obvious tension or divide between Dorper producers and Merino producers, have you got any tips or seen any instances where that has worked well?
Yeah, I think we just need to be really open about it. I know a lot of people were concerned about having neighbours with Merinos and stuff and that difficulty, but if you're only going into Dorpers, you need to be prepared to set your fences up and everything. Just like I'm sure Merinos don't want other Merinos walking into their flock. They definitely don't want Dorpers. So just setting up the infrastructure beforehand and having an open conversation I think is a really good start.
Us as LS as well, it's biosecurity such an important thing. And with the rollout of EID, like if you're not able to contain your animals, it's going to be a big risk factor for a lot of biosecurity plans and people's ability to farm, I think.
Yeah, absolutely. It's not just the crossover between Dorpers and Merinos. You just don't want your sheep walking around the neighbours and I'm sure they don't want them there either.
Yeah. So Grace, I've had a great time today, but before we get onto my final question, I just thought we could briefly touch on sale day here at Burrawang and the fact that you've got two of them. Can you talk me through that and what a headache it must be?
Yeah, well we thought like one's not big enough, so we thought we'd have two. Benefit of that. We've been here like three years now, so I'm pretty well rehearsed on sale day, very exciting time of year, like we've started preparing for that... Well, it's been prepared for like 20 years the work that's gone into this stud, but those lambs hit the ground 10 or 12 months earlier and they were
joined five months before that. So it's really good to see that come into fruition, get that feedback from clients, but also the feedback from what their rams are doing and what their offspring is doing for them. But we're a little bit controversial. Last sale in October, we had our sale on a Sunday, so wasn't sure how it was going to go, tried something new and we had a
lot of really good feedback. So it was a good day for families to come out and we sold the rams at four o'clock and then we had a nice dinner here afterwards, which was really well received. So our next sale would be upcoming on the 30th of March. So we're well underway for preparations for that, but it sort of looks like we try and film the rams anywhere
between three and four weeks out from the sale. Get the catalogue ready, send it out a couple of weeks before and welcome for anyone to come and have a look beforehand or anything and hope to see people there on sale day.
Grace, I've had a great time today. So for my final question, I like to ask what the big issue in the Australian ag industry is at the moment.
I have been thinking about this because I've listened to your podcast before and it's a little bit of a repetition, but a few different things. Like one of the biggest things I think at the moment, which is really ripe in the industry is the ban on live export, which starts becoming a very dangerous precedent to set when we're making decisions on maybe not so much facts but public opinion. So I think it's really, really important that we as an industry take control of that and make sure that
we're letting people make really informed decisions. I think it's really important in the industry today when everything is on social media and there's so many uninformed opinions getting around that we do our job as part of the industry to share our knowledge and make sure that people know what our industry is really about and yeah, they can make informed decisions on what their opinions are of our industry and make sure that we're doing a really good job
of advertising what such a great industry it is, Australian Ag.
We should really be making those big decisions on science and evidence- based decision- making rather than emotive or what our feelings are on a subject.
Yeah, absolutely. Making sure that those decisions are informed by the right people who know what's going on.
So on the other side of that, what's been the big win for Aussie Ag in recent years?
This is probably really narrow on the industry that I'm in, but I'm really excited about the introduction of mandatory EIDs.
I know that it's going to be a lot of work to get that implemented, but I'm really hoping that the industry can see that feedback coming back from abattoirs and actually start flowing through to make more informed decisions, especially all the way back to us as seed stock producers, but then to our clients as lamb producers and yeah, make better decisions based on more facts.
I think it's about the consumers as well. It's all about everything we do. We're not just farming in a vacuum, it's about what the consumers want and people buying lamb on the grocery store shelves. It's what they want and hopefully EIDs can contribute to that through more feedback from abattoirs to producers.
Yeah, definitely. The more data we can get, the better. It doesn't mean we necessarily have to use all of it, but it's good to have it there and be able to make those decisions.
Yeah. Thanks Grace. Thanks so much for having us and coming on the podcast today.
Thank you very much for having me.
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 by searching for Central West Local Land Services. If you'd like more information about the topics we discussed today, as well as links to relevant articles, fact sheets, events, and other helpful resources, we've added those into the show notes
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