Roma grain grower, Nick Cameron, always knew the right time would come to take his family's mixed farming operation to the next level with an on-farm feedlot.
Following a horror run of seasons, the Camerons took the plunge in 2017 - opening the 4000-SCU Roma Feedlot and Spelling Yards for business in September that year.
"We've always had it in the back of our minds but it's one of those things you've just got to find time to do," he said.
"We seem to be in a very dry cycle at the moment - really for the past 10 years - and while it's unfortunate for the industry on a whole it's when feedlotting really comes into its element."
The Cameron family have been farming on their 8500 hectare aggregation 45km south of Roma since the late 1970s.
Today the business structure sees Nick and wife Sarah running the feedlot and Roma cropping operation while Nick's brother, Simon, runs the family's 4000ha farming operation at Croppa Creek in northern NSW.
Another brother, Ben and wife Sophia are based in Brisbane where Ben is also a partner in Bentleys Chartered Accountants and Business Advisors.
Until the feedlot was built, the main focus of the Roma operation was grain production.
The Camerons have 5200ha under cultivation at Roma and currently have 2800ha of Spitfire and Suntop wheat planted along with 200ha of barley, 240ha of oats and 400ha of chickpeas. In summer they grow sorghum with the grain crops historically averaging yields of around 2t/ha.
The balance of the country is used for backgrounding, usually carrying around 1500 head of dry cattle.
The location of the Cameron family property, 45km from Australia's largest store cattle selling centre, the Roma Saleyards, made it an ideal location for a feedlot and spelling yards.
About 60 per cent of the feedlot space is allocated to custom feeding with the other 40pc used for the Cameron's own cattle.
Nick said there appeared to be a lot of demand for custom feeding.
"Not many feedlots are doing custom feeding anymore and being a new feedlot we needed to do that for cashflow," he said.
"A lot of feedlot space has also been taken up for the Wagyu job so there just isn't a huge amount of space around."
The Camerons are feeding for three main markets - the 130 day grainfed EU market, the 100 day grainfed market (both HGP and non-HGP) and the prime cow market.
The cows typically spend 50 to 60 days on feed and are sold under the new grain fed finished category, introduced last year.
Filling up the feedlot
When much of Queensland missed out on vital summer rain this year, the Camerons found themselves swamped by requests to place cattle in the feedlot.
When summer stretched into March with still no rain, the number of cows on feed swelled considerably as producers scrambled to lighten off.
"Most people found their pregnancy rates were right down so they were looking to offload the empty cows but also we had people forced to offload PTIC cows just to save grass," Nick said.
"At the height, 30pc of the feedlot space would have been taken up with cows whereas the same time the year before cows would have only accounted for 5pc."
It was a testing time, not only for desperate producers but also the Camerons and feedlot workers.
"It was hard trying to shuffle things around to give people pen space especially when you know what it is like to be down and out," Nick said.
"And there really were no alternatives for some of those cattle - apart from dying the paddock or selling in them in the saleyards for 80 cents."
The spelling yards also filled up fast as northern pastoral businesses moved stock in search of grass and other markets.
The spelling yards are used for stock being transported long distances from the west and north west. They rest and rehydrate for three to four days, sometimes longer for poor conditioned cattle, before heading on.
"During the winter last year we were getting big volumes of cattle coming from the NT and north west Queensland," Nick said.
"That will happen again soon - it's just that some of our clients have had a big wet and they haven't starting moving cattle yet.
"The aim is to rehydrate their organs, fill them up and get them moving again."
The feedlot
Built on a slightly undulating site, the feedlot features 133-SCU pens. Large maxi bunks enable the cattle to be fed once a day and each pen has two water troughs.
When it comes to the feed ration, the Camerons are tempering the grain. This involves soaking the grain overnight in a silo before milling the next day.
"Tempering is second to steam flaking which a lot of the big feedlots do but steam flaking has become very expensive," Nick said.
The Camerons' facility currently has limited grain storage with 1900 tonne on-farm but Nick said more silos were on the cards.
"It's something that we need to do but we're just waiting a few years given the big setup costs we've had," he said.
Among those big initial costs was water.
The Camerons purchased a 115 megaltire intensive livestock water licence from another landholder - a process Nick said was particularly challenging.
"There are a lot of people who have water licences who aren't using them and it wasn't easy to find a willing seller," he said.
Integrated and aligned
A big advantage of an on-farm feedlot, according to the Camerons, is the efficiency gain when it comes to freight.
"Previously we were growing all this grain, paying to cart it to town and selling to GrainCorp for whatever we could get - now we try to value add to it by putting it down cattles' throats," he said.
"In the ideal season we'll grow 75pc of the feedlot's grain requirement."
The Camerons are still finding their feet in the feedlot game but Nick said there was a certain peace of mind knowing the feedlot had added another important revenue stream to their business.
"It's sad to say but we're fortunate that for our first few years it has been dry and that has kept the feedlot full," he said.
"Australia is a big paddock and there is always going to somewhere that is dry and looking to move stock."
