What are our clients up to? 'Make decisions early:' how drought learnings helped grazing operation adapt

Dave Worsnop and daughter Maddie at Yarambie, Eremerang. Pictures by Rebecca Nadge

Adopting lessons learned during the drought and focusing on fencing and pasture management are the key drivers for Eremerang producers, Dave and Helen Worsnop.

"Make decisions early has been one big thing," Mr Worsnop said. "You've just got to be as prepared as you can, and don't be hungry beforehand if you can help it. "Our livestock capacity here, we're probably running at about 80 per cent. That gives us a little bit of room."

The Worsnops have two properties. Yarambie, at Eremerang, north of Condobolin, is 10,926 hectares, while Bessm at Thargominda, Qld, is 45,325ha.

Yarambie is up to 25 per cent cropping and the rest is open grazing, which includes the 3000 Dorper ewes. Mr Worsnop also runs about 900 cows, most of which are grazed on the northern block. He plans to increase the herd to 1200 head across the two properties.

He is moving towards using Santa Gertrudis bulls sourced from Rockingham Santas at Condobolin, although there are still some Murray Greys and Angus sires in the herd at Yarambie.

"Our cow line, it's a fair mix right through from Murray Grey, Angus, right through to full Brahman and everything in between," he said.

"We'll probably going to go down the road of just Santa bulls over whatever we've got.

"They seem to be doing the job fairly well for us."

He targets the 380 to 400 kilogram feedlot entry weights, with the top weaners selected for to go through the Roma saleyards. The operation had once run Merinos, but when the family got into Dorpers about eight years ago. Mr Worsnop started with 300 head before building up numbers.

He has sourced his rams from Tullinga Dorper Studs, Condobolin, and Begargo Creek White Dorpers, Lake Cargelligo, for the last five years "I just pick them on the type, sound feet, and structure," he said. "I'll try and stay away from the lighter pigment type ones to a certain extent. "And probably just a little bit of blanket down the back."

"Tullinga have been awesome with their follow up, with classing maiden ewes and stuff like that. It's been absolutely awesome what they've done there."

Lambs are sold either direct or through the yards, depending on the stage they are at.

Mr Worsnop is in the process of upgrading internal fencing. Picture by Rebecca Nadge

The Worsnop's Condobolin property is included in a cluster fence spanning 22 properties. The exclusion fencing was carried out about six years ago in response to pressure from wild dogs towards Cobar.

Mr Worsnop is also carrying out extensive internal fencing to better manage the flock. The goal is to increase capacity to 4000 head, provided the country can manage.

"It's been a lot of work to upgrade internal fences as we've been cattle only for probably 17 years," he said. "Through the through the dry spell we had, I had a lot of plain wire fences here and they just started pushing through the fences when they got hungry and then it just turned into one big mob.

"I realised I had to get onto my internal fences and upgrade them. So, as I've been doing that I've been getting more and more control over the sheep but at the moment the rams are in all the time."

Mr Worsnop sources rams from Tullinga Dorpers Studs and Begargo Creek White Dorpers.

He plans to fence 22 paddocks all up, while keeping mob size to 1200 head.

About six paddocks would be used for the cropping side of the operation, but stubble grazing through summer would help take the pressure off the grass country. Part of the cropping is managed through a share farm set-up. Now in its second year, he said the arrangement was working really well for both parties.

The operation recently received 31 millimetres of rain, which Mr Worsnop said was a good boost. Mr Worsnop has about 160ha of grazing oats and also under sows some lucerne.

The share farmers have about 1200ha of barley.

"They're doing a really good job. It's taking a lot of pressure off me to try and get around the whole place myself," he said. "It's a good setup we've got going and they're doing a really good job, and the crops this year have set themselves up to do very well. If we get another couple of rains before they finish, they could do extremely well."

He has 3000 tonnes of grain in storage, after running out in 2019, and also built a storage shed for hay.

They had been cutting their own but now plan to buy it in while prices are favorable.

"We're probably looking at buying it is when its good so we can pick the quality a bit, instead of risking making poor hay ourselves," he said. "We've had seasons when we've got rained out in the hay job."

Article Courtesy of Rebecca Nadge, The Land.

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