Strong start after saleyard break
KILLARNEY Station, St Lawrence, was in the midst of Cyclone Debbie’s wrath, but Trevor Bradford says he and his family were let off easy.
The 16,000-hectare property has months of fencing repairs ahead of it before stock work can begin again with its 2500 head of cattle.
With fences and paddocks out of action, Trevor made the trip to the first Gracemere sale since Cyclone Debbie and the Rockhampton floods to check out the market and take a break from the fencing.
“I just mainly wanted a break from our fencing,” Trevor said.
“We’re fortunate, we didn’t lose much stock that I know of, but other than that we’re just going to be fencing for a couple of months. We have to do all of that sort of stuff before we even start our stock work, but it’s good to keep your finger on the pulse and know what’s happening.”
Trevor said coming off a four-week break, the market looked exceptionally strong, which was a positive sign.
“For the last 18 months or so the markets been pretty good. Before that it was a fair
struggle, the industry was very hard to make ends meet for what you were getting for your product,” he said.
“You were producing a good product but you still weren’t getting much money for it.
“But now you’re getting a decent return and you can start putting a bit of infrastructure back in.”
However there is always a
silver lining in every cloud.
Joel Dawson, from Brian Dawson Auctions in Rockhampton, was one of the agents in the yards on Friday when the sales started back.
“The market started back very strong. It’s been four weeks since we’ve had a sale here at Gracemere, just with the floods and the cyclone and also Easter,” he said.
“The weather affected people in the respect that we were unable to run sales. People were unable to get cattle out, with the flood we couldn’t get cattle into the saleyards.
“It has affected a lot of graziers who sell cattle week in and week out that weren’t able to run their normal operations.”