Sale summary: 58 bulls offered, top price $8000, average $3978, 78pc clearance.
If you were searching for an indication of the enduring nature of the Blackall countryside and its people, then the Blackall saleyards on Tuesday afternoon was the place to find it.
Two vendors with over a century of history behind them, and buyers whose names are synonymous with the west, featured in a day packed with history and meaning.
Terrick Merinos and the Lambert Hereford and Charbray Stud combined to offer rams and bulls in separate sales at the complex for the first time, while the Bredhauer family christened the revamped selling centre’s bull sale ring.
The sales, watched by hundreds, were part of Blackall’s 150th anniversary celebrations.
The Terrick Terrick Merino Stud was started west of Blackall 122 years ago, a few years after the Bredhauer family helped pioneer the Tambo district in the 1860s, and both have stood the test of time.
It’s why Pat and Scott Bredhauer were philosophical at the bull sale’s end, after recording a 78 per cent clearance rate.
“All things considered, when we’re in the grip of one of the worst droughts ever, you can’t expect people to buy a lot of bulls – the cows are just not there,” Scott said. “It’s been another hard year but next year could be totally different.”
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Even in such extreme conditions, new buyers – the Western Head Grazing partnership of Phill and Susie Picone, the Blackall-Tambo Regional Council, and Robyn Adams at Stratford, north of Blackall – were operating.
It was repeat buyers though who made the top prices.
Ben Simpson of Thistlebank Grazing, north of Aramac, paid $8000 for Acton M66, a white poll Charbray bull by Advance Guns out of a Radel herd cow.
It’s his third year buying at the Lambert sale, which he said he kept returning to because the bulls were more adapted to the western climate.
CA Hauff and Sons, represented by Tony and Bevan Hauff, came to Blackall in the 1870s and have been buying Lambert Hereford bulls for three generations.
They paid $7500 for Lambert Merit, a poll two-year-old Hereford bull by Days Wizard out of Lambert Fancy.