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 host,
Neroli Brennan: Neroli Brennan. Today, we are sitting down with Trent Johnstone
Neroli Brennan: from Trojan Shorthorns. Trent runs a livestock trading enterprise, along
Neroli Brennan: with his Shorthorn bull breeding business at Forbes and Lyndhurst.
Neroli Brennan: To facilitate his trading business, Trent has become a bit
Neroli Brennan: of an expert at doing the numbers on leasing country
Neroli Brennan: and adjesting livestock as well. In this episode, you'll hear Trent
Neroli Brennan: share some of his key principles for trading livestock, as
Neroli Brennan: well as some of his most memorable wins and losses
Neroli Brennan: in the trading game. You'll also learn how he manages
Neroli Brennan: livestock on as many as 13 different properties across the state,
Neroli Brennan: in an effort to mitigate against the drought. Local Land
Neroli Brennan: Services Mixed Farming Advisor, Rohan Leach met up with Trent
Neroli Brennan: on the top of Memorial Hill in Parks after Trent
Neroli Brennan: ran into a spot of trouble in the morning with
Neroli Brennan: a B Double loaded full of stock.
Rohan Leach: Today, I'm here on top of Memorial Hill in Parks
Rohan Leach: with Trent Johnston, so welcome to the Seeds for Success podcast, Trent.
Trent Johnstone: Thank you. Thank you very much for inviting me and giving me
Trent Johnstone: the opportunity.
Rohan Leach: Bit of a mad dash this morning. Do you mind
Rohan Leach: telling the listeners, mate, why we've had to meet here?
Trent Johnstone: Well, we were meant to meet in Dubbo and I managed to get a B Double
Trent Johnstone: bog this morning, so that was a slight hold up,
Trent Johnstone: and I had some cows that I wanted to get
Trent Johnstone: rid of and I wasn't going to let them back
Trent Johnstone: out of the yard, once I had them in there so I said, " We might just have to make it a different spot,"
Trent Johnstone: so here we are on top of the hill, which
Trent Johnstone: is quite good, actually.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. It's not a bad view, is it?
Trent Johnstone: No, it's perfect.
Rohan Leach: Mate, tell me in about your farming operation.
Trent Johnstone: The farming operation that we run, based home is at
Trent Johnstone: Lyndhurst, between Blayney and Cowra. We've got other country, South of Forbes. At Lyndhurst, we've got 2000 acres there. At Lyndhurst, it's all pasture- improved
Trent Johnstone: country, fertilized country, heavily fertilized every year sort of thing, and
Trent Johnstone: then our Lyndhurst country is ... Forbes country, sorry, it's 24 Ks
Trent Johnstone: South of Forbes there, we've got another 2000 acres there and then I've got some other lease country around here,
Trent Johnstone: there, and everywhere, and it keeps me in the car a bit, but it's all good.
Rohan Leach: What enterprises do you run?
Trent Johnstone: We've got a stud cattle operation, stud Shorthorns doing about 250 stud cows
Trent Johnstone: now every year, and then producing bulls that go all around
Trent Johnstone: the East Coast of Australia pretty much and down into
Trent Johnstone: South Australia, and so we've got to spread them where our bulls
Trent Johnstone: go every year, and then also at Lyndhurst is our lamb
Trent Johnstone: feeding operation that we put about 10, 000 lambs through there every
Trent Johnstone: year on a good year. Last year was back a little bit, but
Trent Johnstone: yeah, predominantly about 10,000 lambs every year go through there, and then our
Trent Johnstone: Forbes country, it's grazing, trading opportunistic stuff there that we
Trent Johnstone: do. Seems to work pretty well with a bit of
Trent Johnstone: forage crops. We don't crop necessarily. I leave that to
Trent Johnstone: the other fellows and I just know how to fatten cattle
Trent Johnstone: and sheep, and I just do it that way, so I found that that
Trent Johnstone: works probably pretty well for us.
Rohan Leach: The first interaction I had with you as an agronomist,
Rohan Leach: your priority was definitely on the livestock side of things, wasn't it?
Trent Johnstone: Definitely that, and I like growing forage crops and we try a few
Trent Johnstone: different things and fortunate enough, we put a (Reiziq)
Trent Johnstone: cropping out there at Forbes a couple of weeks ago
Trent Johnstone: now, and it's up and out of the ground and certainly fine, but we've had
Trent Johnstone: pretty good conditions for that too, so looking forward to getting
Trent Johnstone: some lambs on that and really making it hum.
Rohan Leach: What a season we're having at the moment. What's your primary enterprise, would you
Rohan Leach: say, or your majority of your focus?
Trent Johnstone: Probably a 50/50 split, to be perfectly honest. It just
Trent Johnstone: depends on the time of the year too. We're just about
Trent Johnstone: to ramp into this lamb job now. I've got a heap of lambs
Trent Johnstone: that are out on adjestment at the moment, but they're all coming back and they'll
Trent Johnstone: go on feed. That lamb job goes from end November
Trent Johnstone: through till May, I suppose you'd say. Just when it
Trent Johnstone: starts to get a bit too wet in the feet, we boot them
Trent Johnstone: out, and I go looking for some adjestment, some cropping
Trent Johnstone: country, which I've over the last few years, I've been
Trent Johnstone: quite fortunate to be able to find some cropping country to be able to throw some
Trent Johnstone: lambs out onto and slow some crops up for some
Trent Johnstone: fellows. Yeah, it also gets them out of feed lot for me
Trent Johnstone: when it starts to get a little bit too wet and they don't do the
Trent Johnstone: weight gains. They're the ones, it starts to get a bit
Trent Johnstone: like that, so they sulk a bit, so that time of
Trent Johnstone: the year, and then there's a bit of a bit of
Trent Johnstone: a crossover there. Obviously at the moment, we've just been
Trent Johnstone: doing a big fixed time AI program with our stud
Trent Johnstone: cattle, so that takes up a bit of time, so which
Trent Johnstone: was all pretty good as a crossover period there and then we get
Trent Johnstone: into March next year and we start our bull selling season, and that carries
Trent Johnstone: on from March through to September with all the different
Trent Johnstone: sales we go to. I guess to answer your question, it's probably a 50/ 50 split and try and make it work
Trent Johnstone: best we can and grab what opportunities come past if
Trent Johnstone: we can get something and go from there.
Rohan Leach: How has your seed stock enterprise ... It sounds like that compliments the trading enterprise and vice versa?
Trent Johnstone: Yeah, definitely. It gives us cash flow, and that's the
Trent Johnstone: hardest thing on farms is cash flow, and with the seed stock
Trent Johnstone: thing, we sell bulls, March and then June and then a whole
Trent Johnstone: lot in July, and then we take a load of bulls
Trent Johnstone: up to Monto in Queensland. We've been taking them up
Trent Johnstone: there every September. It just helps and sure, we do the
Trent Johnstone: miles. Like the sale in March, that's down at Naracoorte in
Trent Johnstone: South Australia, we take a load of bulls down there, but at does help
Trent Johnstone: with the cash flow, the seed stock side of things,
Trent Johnstone: and it is something I'm passionate about, I suppose, is
Trent Johnstone: the seed stock. I've had the opportunity to judge all
Trent Johnstone: around Australia, really, judge cattle at Royal shows and stuff
Trent Johnstone: which I do enjoy, so the seed stock thing is
Trent Johnstone: a major part and it helps, and it's something, if you enjoy
Trent Johnstone: it, it's not that hard of work really, I guess.
Rohan Leach: Mate, just as a little aside, earlier in the month,
Rohan Leach: when we were trying to book this interview in, you mentioned another podcast that gave
Rohan Leach: you a good idea with a trainee. Would you mind telling that story?
Trent Johnstone: Yeah, I was just driving along to one of the places where we had some
Trent Johnstone: stock and I was listening to a podcast which I do
Trent Johnstone: sometimes just to pass the time, because the radio gets a
Trent Johnstone: bit boring. They were interviewing someone. I think it was in Western
Trent Johnstone: Australia, actually and they were saying about how their staff and stuff
Trent Johnstone: like that and at the moment ... Well, back then, we
Trent Johnstone: only had ... It was Dad and I run the farms,
Trent Johnstone: and we had a bit of casual labor, and I've
Trent Johnstone: got a bloke at our Forbes place that looks after it
Trent Johnstone: as well, but was starting to get a bit too much and Dad's getting a bit older and stuff
Trent Johnstone: too, so I thought ... I started to listen to this podcast and they said
Trent Johnstone: they've put on a trainee and the government subsidies and
Trent Johnstone: all that sort of stuff, and it got me thinking, and
Trent Johnstone: then I finished listening to that and we made a few
Trent Johnstone: inquiries as to about a trainee. Anyway, so now we've got a
Trent Johnstone: trainee working for us now, which he's only been there three weeks now,
Trent Johnstone: full time with us. Fresh out of school, Year 10
Trent Johnstone: kid, got plenty of go in him and he wanted to stay in the agriculture
Trent Johnstone: thing and I didn't want to lose him to somewhere else,
Trent Johnstone: and I thought, " Well, if we can look after him and
Trent Johnstone: keep him in the agriculture side of things, and with
Trent Johnstone: some government subsidies and help that they give, was a no-brainer, really."
Rohan Leach: You were saying it's a pretty cheap labor unit.
Trent Johnstone: Yeah. Very cheap labor unit by the time the government puts their
Trent Johnstone: hand in their pocket and gives us their bit, and
Trent Johnstone: then it certainly, the hourly rate, the labor unit per hour, it's
Trent Johnstone: good and you get to train someone, and in the years
Trent Johnstone: to come, it's a two- year traineeship he'll do with us and
Trent Johnstone: then after that, hopefully we'll have him full time. You
Trent Johnstone: get to train them how you want to, yeah, which
Trent Johnstone: is good and as long as they're willing to have a
Trent Johnstone: go, which he is, so it's a good thing, I think.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. You said it was a bit of a ... Your
Rohan Leach: style is a sink or swim. You chucked him in the yards
Rohan Leach: for a few days in a row and tested his
Rohan Leach: metal from there.
Trent Johnstone: Well, this is the best way to test him. We're doing a bit
Trent Johnstone: of contract landmarking and we threw him in the catching pen
Trent Johnstone: and think, we started at seven in the morning, half past seven sort of thing, and
Trent Johnstone: then we finished at one, but he caught 750 lambs
Trent Johnstone: all by himself as a 16- year- old kid. I thought, "
Trent Johnstone: This kid's got a bit of go in him." I'll see how he go and give him
Trent Johnstone: a few hard ones, and he's going all right so far, so we'll see. But
Trent Johnstone: yeah, sink or swim sometimes. That's probably the best way to put it, I reckon.
Rohan Leach: Just to delve a little deeper in the trading side
Rohan Leach: of your business, where's the value in the livestock market
Rohan Leach: this week?
Trent Johnstone: That's a good one. It changes. As we all know,
Trent Johnstone: it changes day to day. Nearly minute to minute at the moment, but I've been buying
Trent Johnstone: a few lambs out of the West. My agents, they've been buying them for me and
Trent Johnstone: been shipping them over, and there seems to be value in that and we'll be able to value add to
Trent Johnstone: them, and some of them lambs locked in on a forward contract
Trent Johnstone: for January, February. That takes some of the risk work out
Trent Johnstone: of it, as long as they put on the weight,
Trent Johnstone: they're doing the numbers on, but as long as they're
Trent Johnstone: well bred too, so that takes some of the risk
Trent Johnstone: work out of it. Look, and I still think there's still value
Trent Johnstone: in females. There's definitely value in females with this herd rebuilding thing,
Trent Johnstone: whether it be-
Rohan Leach: With cattle?
Trent Johnstone: Cattle and sheep. Yeah. Might get back in the market
Trent Johnstone: to buy a few more cows shortly or some heifers just
Trent Johnstone: to join. I've got a bull sitting around at our
Trent Johnstone: fold block doing nothing at the moment, so throw something
Trent Johnstone: in with them. It's getting a little bit late in the season, but we might just be able
Trent Johnstone: to do something there and go there, but yeah, I've got a
Trent Johnstone: lot of trade cattle up there and they're all females now.
Trent Johnstone: I did have steers and then I got out of
Trent Johnstone: them and into females, so joining all of them up.
Trent Johnstone: I think just at the moment, that's where the opportunities
Trent Johnstone: are, but everyone's different too, I guess. Depends on your
Trent Johnstone: situation and what your farming practices are, I suppose.
Rohan Leach: Have you got any principles or fundamental things that help you
Rohan Leach: reveal these good buys?
Trent Johnstone: Calculator. It's about a calculator, and you've got to surround
Trent Johnstone: yourself with some good people too, I believe. If you can
Trent Johnstone: get a good agent that's willing to work, which I'm
Trent Johnstone: fortunate enough to have, or works in conjunction with us
Trent Johnstone: and people are willing to actually have a go and
Trent Johnstone: yeah, throw caution to the wind a little bit, I suppose, and also, you've
Trent Johnstone: got to obviously do your numbers and make sure that
Trent Johnstone: when you're buying in big double loads of lambs at a time, that got an out
Trent Johnstone: there somewhere and also monitor their progress. That's a big
Trent Johnstone: thing too. Don't be afraid to sit down with a
Trent Johnstone: pen and paper and do the numbers first, and if you think it's going
Trent Johnstone: to stack up.
Rohan Leach: That's it, so it's, you've really got to work on it.
Trent Johnstone: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you've got to do the numbers. Even with steers
Trent Johnstone: now ... Well, not so much for me now, but through the
Trent Johnstone: winter, I had steers up at Gunnedah on crop. When they're putting on, even if they're
Trent Johnstone: only doing a kilo a day, which some of the poorer performing
Trent Johnstone: ones are only doing kilo a day on crop, but if they're still
Trent Johnstone: doing a kilo a day, at five bucks a kilo, or when
Trent Johnstone: I sold them, they were $5. 90 a kilo, you're still making good
Trent Johnstone: money. It's pretty good. If you're say, at $ 6 a
Trent Johnstone: kilo at seven days a week, six sevens or 42,
Trent Johnstone: you're making 42 bucks a week. That's pretty good charf I
Trent Johnstone: reckon, but you just got to do your numbers and prepare to
Trent Johnstone: get burnt sometimes. I've been burnt. Don't worry about that. They stick
Trent Johnstone: in the memory bank, the ones where you get burnt
Trent Johnstone: and you just got to move on from them, but you
Trent Johnstone: can't dwell on them, because they'll bring you ... Make you crazy in the
Trent Johnstone: head or something.
Rohan Leach: That's probably a good segue. What's probably one of your better wins?
Trent Johnstone: I can give you a couple of my losses. I had some lambs I got from up
Trent Johnstone: North. It was only 220 of them, I reckon from
Trent Johnstone: memory, something like that, that came down. Really good lambs too,
Trent Johnstone: they were, and it was a pretty hot day and I had them in a pen and I
Trent Johnstone: felt a bit sorry. We just had them shorn and I
Trent Johnstone: started to feel a bit sorry for them. I thought, " I'll
Trent Johnstone: just let them out of the pen, and led them
Trent Johnstone: up a lane way and get a bit more shade." They've got
Trent Johnstone: shade in their pens already, but I just thought they can get a bit more and get under
Trent Johnstone: some trees, and there was a bit of water there. They can lay around
Trent Johnstone: and just ease them into it. I wish I didn't now, because I lost 62 that
Trent Johnstone: day, I remember out of that mob. I'm was pretty sure it was 220,
Trent Johnstone: so I lost 62 of them to nitrate poisoning. Ended
Trent Johnstone: up getting the (OLS) fed out and we cut them up, and they got into
Trent Johnstone: a heap of mint weed, where the mint weed grows. It was a bit
Trent Johnstone: of a bare lane way and heap of green mint weed
Trent Johnstone: comes through and smells lovely. But yeah, that smell of the dead sheep overtook that after a while. That's
Trent Johnstone: some of the losses, but look, where there's losses, there's
Trent Johnstone: wins too, don't worry. One that sticks your mind, I remember buying some lambs. They
Trent Johnstone: were composites. Anyway, I went through and drafted ... I mixed sexes.
Trent Johnstone: I went through and drafted the ewes out, give them four weeks
Trent Johnstone: on feed and spun them around. They looked pretty good.
Trent Johnstone: They come back looking pretty neat and put them on
Trent Johnstone: the box, and yeah, that was a nice little windfall
Trent Johnstone: in them, 80 bucks or something in for a week,
Trent Johnstone: which doesn't happen all that often. They made up for
Trent Johnstone: the losses beforehand. You've got to think outside the square a
Trent Johnstone: little bit too sometimes, doing stuff like that, like if you buy mixed sexes and
Trent Johnstone: you can wheel some out and do something a bit different, that's not a bad thing.
Rohan Leach: You mentioned before, livestock prices have been pretty eye watering
Rohan Leach: since the drought broke in 2020. Pull out your crystal
Rohan Leach: ball, and what are prices going to do mate, in
Rohan Leach: the next six months?
Trent Johnstone: I believe the cattle job in the next six months,
Trent Johnstone: Queensland going to drive the day. They'll come in swinging a pretty big
Trent Johnstone: bat, I reckon. Now they're getting a bit of rain, Queensland
Trent Johnstone: will drive that cattle job. I got little bit of an insight
Trent Johnstone: when I take bulls up there, and there's no cattle
Trent Johnstone: around up there and them fellows, a lot of that's real
Trent Johnstone: proper cattle country and they'll come in swinging a big
Trent Johnstone: bat for females and that herd rebuilding thing. That's probably
Trent Johnstone: one of the major things that's probably going to happen
Trent Johnstone: there, looking into a crystal ball. I think livestock in
Trent Johnstone: general for the next few years are going to be quite good,
Trent Johnstone: just with the whole herd rebuilding. Numbers are down, plenty of
Trent Johnstone: confidence, plenty of feed, and it'll still keep pretty solid,
Trent Johnstone: and good quality animals always sell too. If you can
Trent Johnstone: chase that quality or breed that better quality, or spend that
Trent Johnstone: little bit extra more on your bull that you buy
Trent Johnstone: and stuff like that, that definitely changes things too. We bought
Trent Johnstone: some bulls over the years and kept a bit of
Trent Johnstone: a track of what they actually do for you and stuff. I
Trent Johnstone: remember, the very first time we'd done it, we paid $10,
Trent Johnstone: 000 for a bull back then.
Rohan Leach: Which was big money back then.
Trent Johnstone: That was massive money back then. I still remember the day
Trent Johnstone: we bought him. I kept a bit of a track of
Trent Johnstone: it just to see what it actually done, and yeah,
Trent Johnstone: that bull made a hell of a difference within our
Trent Johnstone: herd. We sold $ 240,000 worth of progeny out of that bull, out of a $10,
Trent Johnstone: 000 purchase and ever since then, I've believe that they're
Trent Johnstone: a pretty cheap article to buy if you keep track
Trent Johnstone: of them and follow it through. We don't mind spending
Trent Johnstone: a bit of money, if they're the right article.
Rohan Leach: That return on investment there's not a bad one.
Trent Johnstone: That was a good return on investment, that one, but
Trent Johnstone: it's like an anything. You get some that aren't (inaudible) sometimes, but
Trent Johnstone: I think, yeah, quality. Crystal ball, quality's always going to
Trent Johnstone: pay, females are where it's going to be at for the next little
Trent Johnstone: bit. It sounds like a lot of money, going and spending three
Trent Johnstone: and a half thousand on a cow and calf unit
Trent Johnstone: at the moment or something like that, but you break it
Trent Johnstone: down to she's a 600 kilo cow. Around that weight,
Trent Johnstone: it's not all that much money. When you break it
Trent Johnstone: down, there's a weaner there and you can her back in calf again. Things like that,
Trent Johnstone: that's where I'm going to be looking at, I suppose,
Trent Johnstone: in the next six months or whatever.
Rohan Leach: Mate, have you got any trading tips for producers that are looking to
Rohan Leach: step into trading?
Trent Johnstone: Quality. If you can just buy quality. I've just loaded
Trent Johnstone: the B Double of not such good quality and that reiterated that today.
Trent Johnstone: They were cheap at the time, but they are cheap for a reason. Well, I can give you a prime example. I bought some
Trent Johnstone: females at the exact same time, some good, well- bred
Trent Johnstone: heifers, carved them down. We bought these cattle in February this year. Yeah,
Trent Johnstone: so there was some cattle out of the North that we bought that were cheap, and
Trent Johnstone: then I went to Victoria and bought some females out
Trent Johnstone: of their well- bred females. Carved them down in March
Trent Johnstone: and sold them in April. Had them for 60 days and
Trent Johnstone: I made $1, 300 a unit clear profit on them, and
Trent Johnstone: I've had these other Northern cattle from February till ... What
Trent Johnstone: is it now? The start of December, and obviously, they're not sold yet, but they'll be
Trent Johnstone: sold tomorrow, but in that same sort of period, I'm
Trent Johnstone: probably only going to make a $1, 000, and that's with weaning a calf, often
Trent Johnstone: putting them back in calf, which is still nothing to be sneezed at. A $1,
Trent Johnstone: 000 is still a $1, 000, but time period and the amount of feed they can consume and stuff like
Trent Johnstone: that, yeah, I'll change my approach a little bit there, and it's been
Trent Johnstone: the same too with feeding lambs. I've had some disaster
Trent Johnstone: stories. Probably just animals that are not quite bred well
Trent Johnstone: enough, or people maybe use their own rams and things like that. A bit of a list of some
Trent Johnstone: that I don't worry about touching anymore and others that I'll
Trent Johnstone: jump at them at a heartbeat. I've had some very good composite lambs
Trent Johnstone: that have gone pretty well. I remember weighing them last
Trent Johnstone: year and I thought, " There's something wrong with the scales." Some of
Trent Johnstone: them were doing 500 grams a day at their peak. They were just humming, but it all comes
Trent Johnstone: back to quality, I believe.
Rohan Leach: When I first purchased my first starter mob, they were pretty
Rohan Leach: wild and pretty wooly, and that's definitely the first tip
Rohan Leach: that my agent and others have told me is to
Rohan Leach: get into more quality.
Trent Johnstone: As long as there's still twist in them, you can do
Trent Johnstone: it, but if things turn sour and you got to (inaudible)
Trent Johnstone: and offload them, sometimes that twist isn't there.
Rohan Leach: You've really mentioned a lot about leasing and adjestment, and you've got
Rohan Leach: stock over a few different places. My dad who's quite
Rohan Leach: good mates with you, loves telling me how you've got
Rohan Leach: cattle spread from Condo, to sheep up at Monto or
Rohan Leach: Lyndhurst and in Lithgow. How do you manage having stock
Rohan Leach: spread over so much of the state?
Trent Johnstone: Yeah. You spent a fair bit of time in a
Trent Johnstone: vehicle, which is all good too, but I just like
Trent Johnstone: spreading the geographical risk. I'm a big believer in that.
Trent Johnstone: I started it a little while ago. A few years ago, in
Trent Johnstone: the drought actually, I started spreading a few around and
Trent Johnstone: that geographical risk or where someplace will get a rain
Trent Johnstone: and the other one misses out, there's a big difference there. But yeah, no, you do a lot of time in a motor vehicle. I bought a
Trent Johnstone: new car this year, back in March or something, and now it's got 50 odd thousand Ks on it in six months or whatever, but yeah, look,
Trent Johnstone: it's easy enough to manage, if you partner yourself up
Trent Johnstone: with some other good farmers that are happy to run
Trent Johnstone: an eye over them and get on a phone and
Trent Johnstone: give you a call, if there's something wrong and that.
Trent Johnstone: At the moment, I've got the Gunnedah block, so there's 1, 300 acres at Gunnedah,
Trent Johnstone: and then I got some sheep out at Parks. They're out
Trent Johnstone: there on adjestment, and then I've obviously got our own one at
Trent Johnstone: Forbes, and then I had some cattle down at Wonga,
Trent Johnstone: but just sold them, and then yeah, got some other
Trent Johnstone: country at Lithgow as well as along with our Lyndhurst country. Yeah, I've
Trent Johnstone: got a bit of a spread on them at the moment, but there was
Trent Johnstone: one stage there last year, I remember my wife saying to me, "
Trent Johnstone: You're mad." We had stock on 13 different places or
Trent Johnstone: something, but if you can make the numbers stack up,
Trent Johnstone: and grass is cheap and transport's cheap. If you're doing
Trent Johnstone: a few numbers, it all works out in the wash, so
Trent Johnstone: you've got to be prepared to get a slap across
Trent Johnstone: the wrist every now and then or something like that. But no, I think it works and it
Trent Johnstone: works for quite well, and actually, there's some at Dubbo too. I've got
Trent Johnstone: some lambs at Dubbo, but everything will be making its way
Trent Johnstone: back shortly and getting locked up and fed and whatever
Trent Johnstone: else, but I do like having them in different areas and keeps
Trent Johnstone: you thinking too. It keeps the brain ticking and it's
Trent Johnstone: good, and you learn a lot. I've learned a lot
Trent Johnstone: by doing that, just different areas and how they work,
Trent Johnstone: and what's the better times of the year, and remember,
Trent Johnstone: I sent some lambs out to Condo. Not this winter,
Trent Johnstone: the one just before and they're flying. I had 1, 500
Trent Johnstone: lambs out there on adjestment, just to slow those crop up and they absolutely
Trent Johnstone: flew, and that's bit warmer country too. If you can move
Trent Johnstone: it around to suit the climate a little bit, it's
Trent Johnstone: a good thing, I think, as long as you're happy
Trent Johnstone: to get out and about and chase it a bit, I suppose.
Rohan Leach: Probably, the drought and spreading your risk is really what's
Rohan Leach: driven you, for sure.
Trent Johnstone: Yep. For sure. Without a doubt. I remember, I sent cattle down to Lithgow for
Trent Johnstone: the winter, and I mean, I was born down there and left there
Trent Johnstone: a fair while ago now, but I remember the winters being cold down
Trent Johnstone: there and I thought, " I'm mad probably, sending cattle down
Trent Johnstone: there," but they're running around down there in the hills, and they
Trent Johnstone: can actually get up in the hills and they get half
Trent Johnstone: protected, and now that's an ongoing thing. Every March, I'll
Trent Johnstone: wean my calves and move the cows down there, and they spend
Trent Johnstone: the winter down there and bring them back in August, and they come back fat
Trent Johnstone: as fools and you're just ... I can't fathom it, but they get up them gullies
Trent Johnstone: and they get out of the weather, and it's not too
Trent Johnstone: bad. It's been different ways to learn things. I learned a
Trent Johnstone: bit, like that sort of stuff when I went over
Trent Johnstone: to Canada a couple of years ago. We went to a
Trent Johnstone: university. They were doing some studies there, and they were
Trent Johnstone: trying to wind down the cows, like how much they could feed them during
Trent Johnstone: winter. I remember, so they had some 500 kilo cows
Trent Johnstone: and they were in snow up to their bellies, and they
Trent Johnstone: wound them down to 10 kilos a day and they held
Trent Johnstone: their condition, and that was ... Things like that impressed me, and I learn a
Trent Johnstone: bit and thought, " Well, you can make them tough it out if
Trent Johnstone: you have to, over the winter, especially dry cows."
Rohan Leach: It's about that livestock class, and suiting livestock class to
Rohan Leach: feed source?
Trent Johnstone: For sure. Yeah, without a doubt. Yep. Now, if you
Trent Johnstone: want them weaners, I tend to get them on a crop and not afraid
Trent Johnstone: to feed the crop too. Fertilizer prices are quite dear
Trent Johnstone: at the moment, but in all seriousness, they're still reasonable
Trent Johnstone: when you're getting $6 a kilo for steers and $9 dressed for lambs or something like that. It's
Trent Johnstone: still quite ... You rear at whatever price it is now.
Trent Johnstone: I know, before this next lot of rain comes or something,
Trent Johnstone: the next forecast, decent rain at Forbes, I'll hit this (inaudible)
Trent Johnstone: with a heap of urea and not be afraid to
Trent Johnstone: have a crack at it.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. We're at a lucky time with high costs of
Rohan Leach: inputs, but it's also high commodity prices all around, isn't it?
Trent Johnstone: Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. It is a very good time to be in
Trent Johnstone: the agricultural game, I suppose, but I guess, we're making up
Trent Johnstone: for some times a few years ago where it was all just going out the door and not coming back in, so it's
Trent Johnstone: a nice business to be in for just at the moment.
Rohan Leach: What are some of the advantages or/and disadvantages of leasing over
Rohan Leach: owning the country or leasing adjestant?
Trent Johnstone: Leasing is good. You're locked in there for a certain
Trent Johnstone: period of time. When everything's going in your favor, that's fine. It gets a bit
Trent Johnstone: dry, it might not be as enjoyable, but I guess
Trent Johnstone: with leasing, we're still building up some of our foothold,
Trent Johnstone: I suppose, with country and probably want to go again shortly. In next couple of years, I might be able to do something again
Trent Johnstone: and expand again, but with leasing, I guess it's just
Trent Johnstone: the cheaper alternative at the moment. If you're paying, whatever the
Trent Johnstone: figure may be on some lease country compared to an
Trent Johnstone: interest rate, if you can correlate those two and build
Trent Johnstone: a bit of equity along the way, I think it's
Trent Johnstone: definitely the cheaper way to go, leasing at the moment. Look, there's a lot of
Trent Johnstone: farmers that I've found that don't want to sell their farm
Trent Johnstone: necessarily. They're happy just to sit there. I had one
Trent Johnstone: at Boggabri last year, happy just to sit there and
Trent Johnstone: potter around and treat my animals like they are his own, and they give him a purpose, but they don't want to let it go, but they're
Trent Johnstone: happy to let someone else come in there and utilize
Trent Johnstone: it and do the job on it. But there's plenty of
Trent Johnstone: older fellows that are looking to do that and don't
Trent Johnstone: want to actually leave, but there's opportunities there to maybe lease a bit of country off them. Adjesting
Trent Johnstone: is good. It's good until you have to get off,
Trent Johnstone: I suppose. It's been very fruitful for us over the
Trent Johnstone: time, but it's still, as long as you're putting kilos on
Trent Johnstone: it, adjesting's the go as well, so they've both got their
Trent Johnstone: advantages. Disadvantages are sometimes you get boxed into a corner
Trent Johnstone: and you got to get them off and you think, " Where the hell am I
Trent Johnstone: going to go now?" You start getting on the phone and ringing
Trent Johnstone: up, and see where you can find another little pocket or you
Trent Johnstone: ring up and order another simulative pellets or whatever the
Trent Johnstone: feed lot, and you just yeah, tighten them up in
Trent Johnstone: there a bit and go from there.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. I think, I remember a pretty frantic phone call from you six months ago
Rohan Leach: or so when you-
Trent Johnstone: Yeah, there was a-
Rohan Leach: "Yeah mate, just got this ... A fair bit of urgency on this one,
Rohan Leach: so appreciate it if you give me a call back."
Trent Johnstone: Yes. Yeah. There's been a few of them phone calls that,
Trent Johnstone: it's not what you know. A lot of the time, I don't think there's ever been a truer word
Trent Johnstone: said, as far as that goes, if you can branch
Trent Johnstone: out and call on some other people that might just
Trent Johnstone: know of someone, it's a good thing. In agriculture, it's a
Trent Johnstone: pretty tight- knit community that they're always willing to help out
Trent Johnstone: another fellow, and if I remember that frantic call, they were on their
Trent Johnstone: way and we didn't really have anywhere to put them. But
Trent Johnstone: anyway, we found a spot and that's been good. We made a really
Trent Johnstone: good friend out of that too. We didn't know this
Trent Johnstone: bloke from a bar of soap and then we've become quite good
Trent Johnstone: mates and he's a good fellow. Yes. What you can
Trent Johnstone: do out of a situation sometimes is quite good.
Rohan Leach: With freighting and logistics and that stuff, have you got any
Rohan Leach: tips there?
Trent Johnstone: It's always nice to get back-load, like if you can get them on a back- load going somewhere, but
Trent Johnstone: that doesn't happen very often. I guess, there's no real
Trent Johnstone: tips. You just get someone that's reliable. I use a
Trent Johnstone: couple of a bigger freight companies that are very reliable, and then I've
Trent Johnstone: also got a neighbor that I use quite often, and it works pretty good when
Trent Johnstone: everyone can make something happen when you need to. We've
Trent Johnstone: got our own truck as well, and you can juggle a
Trent Johnstone: few things around where you need to, I suppose. To answer your question, I don't really
Trent Johnstone: have any tips. You've just got to get on the
Trent Johnstone: phone and ring them up and it's all on a
Trent Johnstone: kilometer rate and I think it's fair and reasonable, and
Trent Johnstone: I take my hat off to some of them drivers that
Trent Johnstone: sit there and I had one today that he's done
Trent Johnstone: a fair few miles already today, but they love it,
Trent Johnstone: which is good.
Rohan Leach: We're just about to wrap up. You've gotten through my questions
Rohan Leach: very concisely and neatly, mate, but what I like to
Rohan Leach: ask a lot of the guys that I interview is,
Rohan Leach: what do you see as the big issues in Australian agriculture at the moment?
Trent Johnstone: Some of the main issues I see at the moment is ...
Trent Johnstone: Well, I can speak from experience there on one of them. I
Trent Johnstone: had some sheep booked in to go to abattoir down South in Victoria,
Trent Johnstone: and then the day before that I meant to go, the abattoir got shut due to COVID or
Trent Johnstone: whatever else. They just shut it and I had sheep in
Trent Johnstone: the yard and things like that. I mean, things like that going forward are probably
Trent Johnstone: obviously going to be a bit of an issue, but I mean, as far as
Trent Johnstone: agriculture in general, I think we're in a very good
Trent Johnstone: position, as far as exporting all around the world and
Trent Johnstone: stuff like that, and it's pretty highly sought after, the Australian
Trent Johnstone: quality that we produce here. Off the top of my
Trent Johnstone: head, I can't really think of anything that's really a
Trent Johnstone: concern to me. The next drought's not that far around
Trent Johnstone: the corner, obviously, but we've all learned from the last
Trent Johnstone: one. I know, I've learned a lot of different ways
Trent Johnstone: to manage it and feeding stock and doing things a
Trent Johnstone: lot different that way. It always, it's etched in the
Trent Johnstone: back of mind that you've got to remember what to do
Trent Johnstone: from the last one, and there were some testing times there. Don't worry, and I mean, we're in a pretty
Trent Johnstone: safe area too where we are usually, but still test
Trent Johnstone: you. I remember calling mates out West and seeing what
Trent Johnstone: they're doing and getting a few of their ideas, and it was very
Trent Johnstone: good and I got through it, but yes, that's probably one
Trent Johnstone: concern is the next drought is not that far away. We can't have
Trent Johnstone: good seasons like we've had twos in the row and I've
Trent Johnstone: never seen a candle burn at both ends yet. I
Trent Johnstone: think that's probably one of the things going forward, we're going to have
Trent Johnstone: to deal with again, surely.
Rohan Leach: Yeah. That's probably one of the big learnings that a lot of
Rohan Leach: people got out of this last drought is they've picked
Rohan Leach: up a lot on drought feeding and confinement feeding and
Rohan Leach: that sort of thing. What particularly have you learned there?
Trent Johnstone: I learned that cows, you can feed them pretty ruthless, and
Trent Johnstone: having clients up in Queensland, I went and visited some
Trent Johnstone: clients there in September and it's pretty ordinary up there at the
Trent Johnstone: moment, or it was for them. Some of them guys are up feeding 30% urea.
Trent Johnstone: He said, "But you just don't let them go without. Make sure you keep it up to them." But I was doing a lot of straw and urea for dry cows
Trent Johnstone: in the drought. Don't be afraid to wean them early.
Trent Johnstone: They're tough little buggers. They can handle it. As long
Trent Johnstone: as you keep the protein up to them and stuff, cows are
Trent Johnstone: pretty ruthless. Yeah, I remember thinking, " I'm going to kill
Trent Johnstone: these things." But yeah, no, they just kept going and they'd done quite well on it, but
Trent Johnstone: I think when you feed a lot of urea, you've
Trent Johnstone: got some fertility issues sometimes, but as long as you can
Trent Johnstone: manage that along the way, it's good, and a lot
Trent Johnstone: of minerals too. I'm a big believer in minerals, lot
Trent Johnstone: of dry licks and stuff. I do that on induction into the ... Feeding
Trent Johnstone: lambs too, they get a mineral dry lick and also
Trent Johnstone: some liquid minerals in their troughs, and the minerals there
Trent Johnstone: play a big part in nutrition, I reckon.
Rohan Leach: More in that high rainfall zone at Lyndhurst there, or
Rohan Leach: just everywhere?
Trent Johnstone: I think everywhere, and the animals, they're pretty smart. They work out
Trent Johnstone: what they need and what they don't need. But remember in the drought like
Trent Johnstone: at Forbes here in '19, I was feeding just some
Trent Johnstone: straw and some high urea content and some dry lick
Trent Johnstone: and stuff like that and (inaudible) through the dry
Trent Johnstone: lick, but then they were also eating leaves off trees and just
Trent Johnstone: keeping them going. I've done a lot of calculations as to what we were feeding
Trent Johnstone: a lot of ewes out there at the time as
Trent Johnstone: well, and I was pretty ruthless on them. One day they were getting
Trent Johnstone: fed pellets and then the next day they were just getting straw,
Trent Johnstone: and it worked and we got some quite good conception
Trent Johnstone: rates by doing that. We had them confined in a
Trent Johnstone: pen and they got 1. 2 kilos. I remember, 1.2 kilos of
Trent Johnstone: pellets, we were giving them. That was on one day and the next day they were getting straw, and then they'd go back to another day, 1.2 kilos of pellets, and the next day they
Trent Johnstone: got some good canola hay and I wound our ration
Trent Johnstone: costs right back down. I think from memory, I had them, I
Trent Johnstone: think it was $ 3 30 a week, I was feeding these ewes and get
Trent Johnstone: them back in lamb. You can wind it down and some learning
Trent Johnstone: was done there and it was good, and it wasn't at the
Trent Johnstone: expense of fertility either, so just with giving them minerals
Trent Johnstone: and that as well, along the way.
Rohan Leach: Probably, a final point is just that you've really got
Rohan Leach: to do your numbers, whether it's from trading or feeding
Rohan Leach: or whatever.
Trent Johnstone: Yeah. Without a doubt, do your numbers. Don't be afraid
Trent Johnstone: to get a slap across the wrist every now and then. Just bounce
Trent Johnstone: back and learn from your mistakes. Yeah, don't be afraid
Trent Johnstone: to ask people as well. That's what I've found out.
Trent Johnstone: Get on the phone, and my wife's always up at
Trent Johnstone: me that I'm always on the phone or my phone's
Trent Johnstone: always ringing or something like that. She's come to terms
Trent Johnstone: with it now and understands that it's always ringing and
Trent Johnstone: stuff like that, but it was a bit of a shock for her at the start,
Trent Johnstone: people ringing all the time and now she knows that, obviously that
Trent Johnstone: telephone's probably a important part of the business too and you can
Trent Johnstone: make a lot of decisions off a couple of phone calls
Trent Johnstone: here and there and calling in and mate, every now and then to give you some
Trent Johnstone: advice or someone that might have done it, that you can learn something off.
Rohan Leach: Mate, thanks for your time today, Trent. It's been a really
Rohan Leach: good chat and thanks for being on the Seeds for
Rohan Leach: Success podcast.
Trent Johnstone: I think it's a great thing and people can really
Trent Johnstone: get something out of it, and learn from other people's mistakes or
Trent Johnstone: errors or something like that. Thanks for having me. It's been good. Enjoyed it.
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