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