Augathella cattle traders customise data software for purpose

The couple are based at Gleneden, 40km west of Augathella, which is run in conjunction with the Bassett family's other properties at Roma and Morven.

Purchased in 2009 as part of expansion plans, it was originally used for breeding but the Bassetts have switched to a predominantly heifer trading operation.

It was a decision that came from many different pressures, the need to be flexible to manage drought among them.

Mr Bassett said they operate a rotational grazing program that worked well with dry cattle and the constant movement of cattle coming and going.

"Breeding wasn't working with our development plans either," he said. "We've put a lot of fencing and water infrastructure in and at some stages we needed three paddocks with no cattle in them."

As well as completely reorganising the fences and waters around a central point on the 8100ha property, they have worked with the programmers of the Stockbook livestock management software to customise reports that suit a trading operation.

"If you're going to do something that's not stock standard, you can't use stock standard analysis," Ms Bassett said.

They use it to work out kilograms per hectare and per paddock, with entries for every paddock, plus kilograms gained per year against rainfall, and total kilograms versus total profit.

"The next section is financial performance, forecasting and historical performance on individual animals, the history of those animals - where they were born, the history of the feed they've been on," Ms Bassett said. "That gives you confidence to buy from those same vendors again."

Mr Bassett said it was helpful in saleyard situations where cattle might be looking poor, but only as a result of external events such as being dipped.

"If Amelia's said, look, these guys, we've had them for three years now, and each year they just kick it out of the ball park, that gives us confidence.

"Where it comes in from a breeding perspective is, it takes a long time to improve a herd when you're breeding cattle - if you get it wrong in what we're doing, you find out what can happen very quickly."

Ms Bassett said they didn't dismiss a whole mob just because a couple didn't stand out one time.

"It's all about averages - on the flipside, 10 amazing cattle doesn't mean you ignore other data or stop collecting," she said. "If you put that data over four years, then you can see trends that are a little bit more indicative of their breeding performance than just seasonal inputs."

The Bassetts say that collecting data on all the stock that passes through their business gives them the ability to make really quick decisions when opportunities present themselves in a saleyards situation.

"It comes back to knowing your cost of production," Mr Bassett said.

"Anything over that figure's good, anything under it, you don't do.

"That's the nature of trading, it's a busy enterprise but just so long as you're constantly looking at everything, you can make it work."

They say the year to come in the trading environment will be 'interesting'.

"I think the tough year is probably yet to come in our enterprise," Mr Bassett said.

"The Australian cow herd is down so much, it's going to be an interesting year going forward.

"So long as you're buying and selling on the same market, we just ride the wave.

"Sourcing cattle is going to become difficult so we will tweak our operation around that."

As Ms Bassett said, the decisions can stay the same but the total values at stake get higher, making it even more important to be really confident in making those decisions.

"You've got to know what you can do with everything that you buy," she said.

They hope that with the return of a decent season they can look forward to running 1200 head year-in year-out.

That's a far cry from 2019 when they were four days away from completely destocking the property, when it rained for a week.

Want daily news highlights delivered to your inbox? Sign up to the Queensland Country Life newsletter below.