Big bullock helping sick kids

The 12-year-old bullock didn’t have a name but the new lucky owner of the Hereford-cross bullock horns could give them one, according to owner Geoff Carrick.

During this year’s Big Country Bull Sale at Charters Towers, the shiny set of horns will be auctioned to raise money for the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital in Brisbane thanks to Geoff Carrick and family, Maitland Station, Einasleigh.

“The horns came from a very quiet bullock that always missed our musters,” Mr Carrick said.

“It was the same couple of bullocks who would go hide up the creek flats and lay down, so we always miss them during mustering time.”

The Carrick family eventually got the old bullocks to the yards during one muster, who had roamed the 13,000 hectare property for many years, but Geoff Carrick ‘didn’t have the heart’ to send them to a processor with such magnificent horns adoring their heads.   

“I decided the horns were to good for the meatworks and chose to keep them,” Mr Carrick said.

“They were simply two big, quite old bullocks that were left to roam around the property until their final days.”

But, Mr Carrick realised after a while he didn’t want the horns to sit on his wall and that’s where the idea to auction them for charity at the Big Country Bull Sale was born.

“I thought it would be great for someone who admired the old bullock horns to have them and also raise some good money for charity,” he said.

It’s the second time the Carrick family’s mounted steer horns have been auctioned at the sale to raise money for charity. The previous set made an impressive $4500 and sold to Mark Vaughan, NQ Helicopter Services with all those proceeds also going to the Lady Cilento Children's Hospital.

“Geaney’s Livestock have done our cattle business for a very long time and it’s great to be involved in such a charitable part of the Big Country bull sale in February,” Mr Carrick said.