While in Charters Towers last week I ran into John and Kate McLoughlin who had just finalised the purchase of the Hughenden aggregation Thornhill.
John and Kate’s latest acquisition will complement their current rural holdings of Roxborough Downs (including Mudgerebar) in the Boulia district that consists of over one million acres. Roxborough is dry and they were in the middle of mustering cattle for live export to Indonesia.
Now that they have secured Thornhill, those steers will be re-directed to Thornhill and later this year exported to Vietnam.
As part of the northern trip John and Kate will make their annual pilgrimage to Inverleigh Station in the Gulf to take delivery of the weaners that they have been buying for the past five years.
“The Inverleigh weaners do extremely well when they hit Roxborough (and now Thornhill) and we enjoy catching up with Darren and Shelby Heslin at Inverleigh Station. The cattle are well educated and handled and convert very quickly,” they said.
They tell me an extra inducement to the trip is that John has his yearly quota of mud crabs that are caught and prepared for the annual “feast” for each trip. A couple of well-known agents – Don Kelly, Landmark Injune, in partnership with Bob Lockhart, Landmark Mareeba – negotiated the livestock sale.
Activist group Animal Angles are at it again, this time challenging the Federal government’s right to issue live export permits for sheep movements through the Department of Agriculture. The action was filed late last week in a Melbourne court. They claim the permit issued for the early June shipment was illegal. What rubbish. This group needs to understand that the government runs the country, and not activists groups like them.
About 60 to 70 per cent of the live trade to the Middle East occurs in their warmer months from June to October and that has to be the case for Australian live exporters as trading in these markets needs to coincide with the conclusion of Ramadan in early June and Eid al-Adha in September.
If Australia does not provide the Middle Eastern markets with the live sheep they require in the nominated periods, they will secure what that need from other countries and that in turn will have significant impact on all sheep producers, particularly in Western Australia. This case will be testing, not only for the live sheep trade but for all live trade and industry needs to be concerned.
David Stariha manages three cattle sales a week in an intense market catchment area and that is no easy feat, but that is the weekly routine at Stariha Auctions most weeks. This week alone David will run the gavel at Woodford on Monday, Eumundi on Tuesday and Laidley on Thursday.
Over the three centres, the total yarding average is around 1200 to 1400 cattle a week. Woodford and Eumundi are the last bastions of ring selling in Queensland. The vast catchment area covers from Beaudesert to Gympie with the Lockyer Valley and Kilcoy pivotal to supplying livestock for these sales each week. Processors and lotfeeders alike are active in these weekly markets.
David took over the business in 2006 from his dad Alex (ex AML&F and Elders) who has not been in the best of health recently. The business really is a family affair with David very much hands-on and responsible for all the livestock marketing and with his daughter Emily and Martine and Codie assisting with all the office duties that are the backbone of this successful enterprise. If one tires of the ‘sun and sand’ with the annual holiday on the North Coast beaches, Eumundi and Woodford are not too far inland to attend.
Roma next week will see numbers hit the market with annual turnoffs of quality weaners. Kindee Pastoral lead the way with 1600 Santa/Angus cross cattle, also from the Taroom country the Gall family will present 1000 Angus/Charolais, EU accredited cattle. Whitton Cattle Company from Injune and Ken Symes from Noogilla will also be lining up on the day.
