In one of those coincidences that happen sometimes, a mob of Lee McNicholl’s cattle at Dulacca that spent four-and-a-half months on the road earlier this year is now munching its way through a succulent crop of oats named the Drover variety.
In March Lee decided his season was in the balance at Arklow and Borally and he wanted to conserve what grass he’d managed to grow over summer.
He got in touch with Miles-based Alex Stringer and put together 500 Shorthorn, Angus and Brahman cross heifers for him to drove.
In the meantime, 18mm of rain on April 4 was enough for Lee to decide to plant out 400ha to oats and cross his fingers. Thankfully for him it was followed up on June 4 with 22.5mm.
Another 25mm fell on June 19 and 20mm a month later on July 17, and the crop has burst out of the ground.
“The timing was just about perfect,” Lee said.
“The crop is currently running 2.5 beasts/ha and keeping in front of them. We are busy fencing it up so we can manage the lush feed.”
He estimates the steers in the paddock are putting on one kg a day, and the heifers 0.8kg/day.
The oats are a different menu for the cattle, which were eating dry grass during their time on the stock routes.
Many of them had already had a taste of life on the road when the McNicholls and three other producers put a mob together for Alex to manage in 2015.
“It worked out well then,” Lee said. “All the stock routes around Brigalow and Chinchilla had been burnt, and when it rained there was a fire hazard.
“Council was very supportive. There was going to be too much smoke to burn it so we ate the grass down.
“As well as that, Alex was GPSing and reporting Mother of Millions weed when he came across it.
“And we ended up with quiet cattle.”
Although they had to cart their own water, Lee said it had paid enough that he was able to pay for droving costs.
Most of this year the mob was not far from the Teys Australia feedlot at Condamine, which Lee describes at “a supply chain made in heaven”.
Alex had two overseas backpackers to help, Paul Kleinlein from Nuremberg in Bavaria, and Jordi Vilagut, a mechanical engineer from Barcelona.
“As Jordi said, we can say adios El Nino and hola El Nino,” Lee said.
