Central Queensland's Medway and Lunar Brangus launch to on-farm bull sales

The Donaldson family of Medway Droughtmasters and the Comiskey family of Lunar Brangus will both host on-property sales on September 29.

The Donaldsons, with properties totalling around 27,000 hectares at Bogantungan, Capella, and Gympie, will catalogue approximately 90 Droughtmaster bulls and 10 Beefmaster bulls.

The Comiskey family, with properties totalling around 7486 hectares at Yamala and Baralaba, will catalogue around 60 to 70 Ultrablack and Brangus bulls.

Elders Toowoomba stud stock agent Andrew Meara said a move to on-property sales was a natural progression and was something people aimed for as their operations grew.

He said while the move to on-property sales was more prevalent in some years as opposed to others, meaning the industry's success with high cattle numbers and a good season last year could be helping to propel people forward, it was usually linked to overall ambition and experience.

"It's not something people rush into overnight, the Donaldson family for example have been going to sales and building that clientele for years and years," he said.

He said vendors moving to on-property sales had to have a good reputation, strong clientele base, and a number of years behind them to launch out of the multi-vendor sales.

The Donaldsons selected their Bogantungan property due to its convenient location for central highland and western clients, but also due to a strong family history and connection to the place, since it was acquired by the family in 1908.

Brenton Donaldson said the family was confident the vision would future-proof their business within the structure of a multi-generational, and multi-property operation.

"I think it's a natural progression as the family has expanded. We're looking now at an operation run across basically three breeding herds instead of the one, so we're at an extra 600 breeders than we had," Mr Donaldson said.

"We're trying to get all of our bulls in front of people at one time in one place so people can see the direction we're heading and can also get a better overview of all of our entire herd."

Mr Donaldson said the family was focusing on ways to present a larger range of bulls that were very even, healthy, and not overfed - something he said was easier to do on property.

"I think it's a very competitive bull market, there just seems to be more bulls every year," he said.

"That's why I think it's important you're really strict on what you present, with a lot of prep, like we're going to do this year. I think it'll help us in the long run - I really do.

"We're doing a lighter, longer line of prep and got them on a really high roughage diet which will keep them pretty healthy, and I think that's going to be a big advantage over the next five or six years."

Mr Donaldson said while the family would still attend sales to purchase bulls, sell heifers, or support other vendors, they would only sell their bulls on property moving forward.

He said the decision would also help ease the demands of travelling to several different sales a year.

"The back and forwards means you don't have enough time in-between to actually do something, you've really only got time to check fences, do waters, and make sure everything's good before you're off again," he said.

The move to an on-farm sale has been a dream in the making for the family for the better-half of a decade.

Although the family acknowledged it was a project that may not necessarily see massive immediate financial boosts given the current market and costly outlays to construct a new set of yards and selling complex, it was considered it an investment into a successful long-term operation for the whole family.

Mr Meara of Elders said while the industry hadn't seen as much of a correction from last year in the bull sale market as was the case with the commercial market, clearance rates in the Southern Queensland markets had been good so far.

"Of course they're back a bit from a very big high we had last year, so I suppose everyone was and in expecting a bit of a correction but at this stage that correction isn't too bad," he said.

The Comiskey family Lunar Brangus have a stud breeding herd made up of between 500 to 600 head, and a commercial herd made up of around 200 head.

Ms Comiskey said while there were factors at the moment that were "not ideal," such as a drop in cattle prices and rising interest rates, the fact land prices remained high meant there was "still a lot of confidence in the primary production sector as a whole".

She said although their first sale may come with some challenges, they were thinking ahead to the future.

"Once you start this path, you're in for the long-haul," she said.

Ms Comiskey said the family wanted to launch their own sale this year to bounce off the success of last year's Rockhampton Brangus Sale, where their 27-month-old bull Lunar Rhodes topped the sale at $110,000.

She said the family had historically sold 10 to 15 bulls at the sale, with another 70 sold in the paddock each year.

Ms Comiskey said the family would love to have another 70 bulls as they could not keep up with buyer demand, but their Yamala property was not big enough to expand.

She said the Baralaba property was too far away to run a stud as it took them around three hours to travel between both properties and both Ms and Mr Comiskey run companies in addition to their livestock operations.

She said they were looking for more country all the time, but it was difficult seeing they were in a high demand area.

"Our long term goal is probably to build our land holding where we are and build our cattle numbers a little bit more, but a 500-600 head breeder stud is big enough to manage from the data collection point of view," she said.

"I think the name of the game is quality, not quantity, at some point."

Ms Comiskey said the family wanted to "take a leaf out of the American's book" by deciding to use videos and photos of the cattle on screen at the sale rather than putting them through a sale ring.

Elders Toowoomba stud stock manager Michael Smith said while the move to this style of bull sale was becoming more popular in NSW and Victoria, generally speaking Queensland buyers still preferred to see bulls in the ring to help make their judgements.

Mr Smith said overall the stud market was performing fairly well, with buyers prioritising quality bulls and willing to spend a little more to get the optimum genetic gain for their commercial operations.