Living and working in the Kimberley Part 5

PART 5

LIVE STOCK

Jed is the manager of the live stock here at Liveringa and has been for the past 3 years.
His has a 2IC and lead stockman under him. Each year the station employs around 8 to 10 ringers to work in the dry season and a full time helicopter pilot.  There is also a full time bore man, nicknamed Pigsy, real name Matthew, who has a full time job keeping the water running for the cattle.

 One of the very special parts of Liveringa is it's  breeding program run by Alf who is 76 years old and I doubt will ever stop working. There is one paddock dedicated to breeder bulls ( stud Bulls), those that produce good sperm. All these bulls are bought already knowing they are good sperm produces and twice a year Alf  keeps track of these bulls and makes sure they stay Studs. He invited us over one day to watch the process of sperm collection which was a very interesting lesson and one you are about to learn......... 



First the bull is put into a holding cage that locks its head in place and allows Alf to get to all the essential parts. The bulls have a microchip which they swallow and it sits in one of their guts so everytime the cattle have anything done it is recorded.
 


The bull going into the holding pen. Alf is on the left and Chris who is a ringer
is on the right.



Once the bull is secure the fun begins.... on goes a very long glove.

Yep the hand goes up the bull’s bottom checking for any lumps on the bowl which would mean the bull will be infertile. Yes the boys thought this disgusting, even more so when the hand was pulled out and covered in pooh!
I didnt think you needed to see the photo!

Testical tape measure.



 Next he gets a tape measure which is looped and measures the bull’s testicles; they have to be over 40cm around for him to collect semen.

 To collect the semen an electric pulsating probe is put into the bull’s bottom and this causes the bull to ejaculate which Alf catches in his little pot on a stick.

This is the probe!




Alf collecting the sperm with his little pot whilst Chris is holding the probe!

  

 The bull is then given a couple of needles of medicine and then released.

Needles which are attached to the medicine it gives.

 The semen is put into a labelled test tube then a drop is put on a slide and looked at under a microscope. Alf can tell how many sperm per mill the bull has, some can be up to 400,000.



Alf testing under his microscope.

Then he takes another sample and checks for good sperm. They need to have around 70% good sperm to be a viable bull. We were able to look under the microscope and see the sperm and the difference between good and bad. Unfortunately the station is having a bad run with their sperm and many bulls are lacking in good sperm and they do not know why.   At the end of each muster all the good sperm collected is kept in a special dry ice container and sent to a place in Perth. Alf does inseminate cows but we didn’t get to see this, he said it was just done with a needle and a very easy job.

MUSTERING

This was the first helicopter muster we saw.



John the helicopter pilot bringing the cattle in from one of the paddocks.

  

The station runs approximately 25,000 cattle most of which are Brangus; a cross between a Brahman and Red Brangus.  They muster twice a season starting as soon as the ground is sufficiently dry enough after the wet. They use horses, motorbikes and helicopters to muster. 





He uses the fence line to control them.

  



All in the yards, closes the gate.

  















Job done, taking off!

  







This was a muster done in the paddock just outside our home.

    





They used two helicopters for this muster which they do sometimes
 when they have a large herd in a large area.

    




Tom watching the cattle go past.

 





They aslo use bull buggy's to muster. Tom and Daniel giving it a try!

 Horses and motor bikes are used as well.

 
The objective of the station is to produce the maximum number of healthy calves and maximise the kilograms of calf meat produced per cow per annum.  

As you could imagine with 44 paddocks to get through on 1,000,000 acres mustering can take quite a while. With the paddocks being so large and some far from the feedlot or main holding yards ringers camp out at outstations while they are mustering certain areas. These camps are set up with a mobile kitchen and they have the necessary equipment to do the cattle testing and branding that they do in the main yard.





This is the mobile kitchen for the stock camps.

  















Inside it.

 

Outside set up.




All the things needed to do the cattle work at the out camp as well.




 Some paddocks closer to the main feedlot just have temporary holding yards for the cattle so they can be trucked up to the main yards either for selling or sorting.

When they muster the cattle are sorted into groups; cows, weaners, bulls, odd balls and poddy's. Cows that need to be sold are put into a holding yard to fatten up more. They are put onto pellet food so they are able to survive when they go onto the boats where they are fed pellets.

Cows not being sold are checked over and put back out to pasture.

Unfortunately when a muster is done calves also called "poddy's" can become separated from their mothers which then means they need to be kept in a special yard and fed a formula of milk 2- 3 times a day.





Jaunita pouring in the formula for the Poddy's.

  



The poddy's drinking. These guys range from one day old to 6 weeks old.
Not all poddy's can be saved sometimes they are just too week and unable to
recover even when they are hand fed.


Other stations will shoot poddy calves because of the extra work needed to raise them and they do not always survive but as we have been told “Liveringa has a heart”! When the calf is healthy enough it is put in with the weaners.


This little fella is only a day old!



A weaners is an older calf and weigh around 80 -120kg. Sometimes weaners are seperated on purpose from their mothers if the mother hasn't pushed them off already. They are old enough and quite able to look after themselves and if the weaners are not forced from their mothers they could stay feeding off her for a year which means she will not get pregnant again which is not good for business.
The weaners are all grouped together and it is at this stage that they are ear tagged with an RFID tag, branded, dehorned, vacsinated and castrated, if needed, all in about 5 minutes. We went over and watched this process.  It was quite a shock at first seeing the blood but it does happen very quickly and it is a fact of life for up here so if you do not like blood close your eyes for the next few photos. The guys can do up to 500 in a day.

The set up for branding etc..

 




The weaners are pushed from the run and into this "cradle" which they are
 trapped in. They lay them down and begin the process with each person doing their
job quickly and effeceintly.



Dave is doing the dehorning. It is done with a sharp knife in a scooping fashion so as the
growth plate of the horn is removed and they never grow back. It is done very quiclky. Jed is doing the
castration at the same time.



First Branding "4ND" this is Liveringas number, every station has its own.

  




Second brand "2" this is the year 2012 They don't usually keep
cattle for 10 years therefore only the last number is needed.



The branding fire runs on gas.





All done. They are also given a needle before they are realeased.



The heifers are put out to pasture and the steers are sold. The steers are put into a yard and fed on pallets till they reach around 280-300kg which is a good weight for selling.

As explained Alf takes care of the bulls.  

The oddballs can be those that have a problem or illness and each is dealt with accordingly.

All the cattle are put through "the dip" which is a special wash to protect the cattle from tics and other skin diseases. The cattle are made to jump into the wash and then forced to swim along the length of the dip, as they are swimming they have their heads pushed under quickly so as all their bodies get covered in the wash.

The dip. The cattle jump off the other end
and swim to the ramp.

The station has its own trucks and trailers to move the cattle around on the station and to the shipping ports in Broome. One night Greg the truck driver  picked Tom, Charlie and myself up from our homestead fully loaded with three trailers and we went over to the station with him, awesome.....



The boys after their ride in the MACK.




Cattle being off loaded into the feedlot.



I never knew how the cattle were loaded / unloaded from long road trains.
I thought this very simple that the gates of trailers become ramps so one whole level
can be done at a time. The top floor of the first trailer also drops down to form a ramp
down to the lower level allowing for the cattle to be unloaded easily.

I think this double ramp is used to" load" the cattle onto the road trains.

Liveringa cattle is either sold for exporting or taken to our abottoir in Perth for our own food label.

This is just a brief over view of how things are done and I have no doubt got some facts wrong but I have done my best to show that it is a long process when you are going over 25,000 head of cattle each time. When the wet season comes and the land floods the cattle are moved into the appropriate paddocks which have higher ground and good food for them to get them through.
I also learnt that cattle will only travel 3km from a water hole to find another source of water. They can also have one particular spots they like to sit, like under a certain tree!

This is the crew of Liveringa for 2012, no Pete isn't in it, he missed out.