Slippery black soil conditions had the Murray family, Kindee Pastoral Company, sweating despite the week’s cold snap as the pressure to supply a promised 1300 weaners for the inaugural nation wide live online auction set in.
Kindee successfully trucked cattle from their Injune and Taroom properties for yesterday’s Roma store sale, moved forward a week in comparison to previous years on account of a better time slot.
Fresh on the company’s schedule, technology allowing for live and immediate online bidding was front and centre throughout the sale of the Kindee lots.
Partnering with Watkins and Co livestock agents, Andrew Murray said the technology opened the market up to those who would traditionally travel from Victoria to buy one or two pens.
“It negates travel costs- buyers can now simply bid from the comfort of home,” he said.
“Elite Livestock Auctions had a camera positioned on the catwalk and bidders throughout Australia clicked a button on their device and saw updates as quick as we could call the bids.”
Brad Neven, Watkins and Co, Roma, said while traditional auctions would always be at the forefront of 99 per cent of Queensland saleyards, live online bidding may be a viable addition.
“It opens up doors for markets and the world is becoming more online savvy so it’s a big opportunity for the beef industry,” he said.
“We’ve seen it work well here today. The technology best suits lines of cattle and I’m sure many people were sitting on the fence watching to see if we could make it happen.”
The Murray family had enjoyed a mild winter at both Cowangah, Taroom, and Muya, Injune, and were confident cattle prices would also land in their favour.
Mr Neven said a strong online presence saw about 620 head sell to online buyers.
A pen of Charolais cross steers topped at 400c/kg with the steer portion averaging 385c/kg for 289kg returning $1114/hd- a record average price for the Kindee draft of steers.
The heifer portion saw a top of 368c/kg for Angus cross heifers, with the female line averaging 262kg and selling for 352c/kg to return $924/hd.
A fourth generation farming and grazing family operation, Kindee Pastoral Company began with a Santa Hereford genetic base before moving into Charolais and Angus arenas.
Mr Murray said the change in breed focus promoted more bone and body within the herd.
“We chase cattle that convert grass to better daily weight gains, which then transitions into meat,” he said.
“More recently in 2010 we went to Moree and bought 25 Shorthorn bulls from Weebollabolla Shorthorn Stud to breed a better frame of weaner.”
Mr Murray said trialling different breeds allowed the operation to evolve and meet market demands.
“People want a better response and animals that put on more weight in a shorter time frame, so we haven’t sat back on our laurels and said we’ll just do what our grandfather has done,” he said.
“We’ve been dynamic enough to move around and while that hasn’t always meant happy outcomes for our traditional genetics suppliers, at the end of the day we’re chasing outcomes for our customers.”
If yesterday’s sale was anything to go on, innovation and dynamic management systems look set to benefit Kindee Pastoral Company into the future.