Cooks' telemetry recipe

From using cattle dogs to telemetry, the Cook family have undergone a number of changes to adapt their business so that Mr Cook could return to work. Mr Cook shared his story at the Young Beef Producers Forum in Roma recently.

To practically apply some of his ideas Mr Cook, his wife Sarah and their two sons moved from Suplejack Downs Station in the Northern Territory to Gin Gin this year.

The family runs a crossbred Brahman herd with Droughtmaster and Red Brangus content on Suplejack to provide what they believe is the ideal animal to target the live export and domestic markets.

They bought Cabbage Tree, a 405-hectare open grazing property, which has an irrigation channel through the middle so water can potentially be supplied to cattle in extreme drought. They plan to use their second Gin Gin property, Brumby's Run, to fatten and finish weaners, as it has a 200 megalitre dam and they are able to irrigate 61ha to "make every blade of grass count".

Currently they are setting up a fodder solutions unit and plan to create their own feed ration with a barley fodder base.

Mr Cook hopes to put a feed bin on skids, so that he can supply the custom feed mix to the cattle each time they are moved to another cell.

"I think telemetry has been a big thing, through the observant software in being able to monitor our watering points and get a gauge on water flows and how much water is being drunk each day in each paddock," he said.

"We even have the ability to take a photo of the cattle when they are taking a drink of water.

"Now that we are over in Queensland we are able to get a zoomed-in shot of the cattle and that gives us little bits of information, like are the ticks or flies bad, and I can do all that from the computer at home."

They also use a Remote Livestock Management System, from Precision Pastoral, to remotely collect weight gain data.

Mr Cook said he had always been a big believer in pregnancy-testing cows to "separate the haves from the have-nots".

"It is the benchmark of your business and it's your cash flow for next year; if it's not 100 per cent, well then you're missing out," he said.

"Now that I can't do it manually, we looked into ultrasound units and I just couldn't find a better unit than the ReproScan XTC.

"It's that clear and easy to use that even backpackers can use the wand to put the repro in the cow and I can determine the age of pregnancy by what I see on screen."

They have also added an electric, over hydraulic, Joyce to the cattle race, which has enabled Mr Cook to block cattle and operate five-way drafts. He said so far as they could tell it was a world first.

Working dogs had not been used previously on Suplejack to muster but dogs were now used every time cattle had to be shifted at Gin Gin.

"I'd never used working dogs prior to my injury and I wish I knew about it because they're a pretty fruitful little member of the team," he said.

"I can get out in the lead of them and leave my dogs to do all the work in the background; they'll keep the cattle tucked in behind me and we can head out across the paddock and when I get there I can pull off to the side and yard up.

So even age-old technologies such as using dogs?

"It's the way we have started thinking about how we run our business."

Mr Cook said his determination to remain in the beef industry after his accident proved to be a massive motivation during his recovery.

"When you are lying in intensive care for nearly three months, not being able to move, it gives you a lot of time to think," he said.

"A helicopter accident tried to take my life away from me and I made a decision that I wasn't going to let that happen.

"That's what really pushed me to learn to breathe - outside of my wife and two young sons spurring me on. I think going home and trying to get back to what I had was what drove me in the early days."

Mr Cook said the realisation that a property could be run on brain power rather than physical attributes was an important lesson. "It's still our goal to administer some of this technology out there to make it easier for others to run their business and make it more fruitful," he said.

"Before we can do that we've got to prove it to ourselves and do it on a smaller, localised scale and once we prove it is possible we'll look at returning to the station."