Portable yards offer a solid solution

When Daniel and Cynthia Burbury moved to the St George district six months ago, they knew their first investment needed to be new cattle yards. Their 4000-hectare property, Wagoo, was without a set of yards and the Burburys were keen to get their stud and commercial Hereford operations under way.

Because they were new to the property, the Burburys were reluctant to invest heavily in permanent yards that could not be shifted to a new location. The solution was a set of portable, semi-permanent yards and after meeting Metalcorp’s Scott Malone at Farmfest in Toowoomba last year, the Burburys were sold on the idea.

“We called into the Metalcorp site at Farmfest and spoke to Scott and the real selling points for us were the fact that the yards were portable and that they were willing to travel to St George to give us a hand putting them up,” Mr Burbury said. “We bought the yards at Farmfest in June and they came out in July and four of us put them up in two-and-a-half hours.”

Mr Malone believes Metalcorp’s flexibility with the design and the extra service of building the yards appealed to the Burburys. “We came up with a design and they needed some changes made to suit their needs and were able to accommodate them,” Mr Malone said. “I think the extra service that we provide and the fact that we can put the yards up in only a matter of hours is also very attractive to people running family operations.

“We also pride ourselves on safety on site with anything we sell. These yards are designed with safety for the operator and beast in mind, which makes more user friendly equipment.” The 500-head capacity yards were built from Australian-made steel. They feature Metalcorp’s oval-shaped cattle rail design, which minimises bruising to stock.

The yards feature a curved race that is lined with rubber matting to ensure stock run as smoothly as possible. To maximise safety and comfort of those working in the yards, a walkway extends along the length of the race. The yards also have a six-way pound and feature a Cyclone Classic Plus crush. Mr Burbury said he could not be happier with the new yards.

“We run our property with our four children and don’t have any outside help with jobs like cattle work so the yard needed to be functional and safe,” he said. “This set of yards makes cattle work a real enjoyment. Both properties we owned before this one didn’t have a good set of yards and we’re just wondering now why we didn’t do this 20 years earlier.”

Mr Burbury now plans to further improve the yards. He said he had plenty of ideas to make working in the yards even more comfortable. “We are in the process of getting power to the yards and we have just connected water there,” he said. “Our next job is to concrete the race and put the race and crush under cover. We are just using handheld scanners at this stage but eventually we’ll get a panel scanner on the side of the crush.”

The Burburys run about 400 commercial Hereford breeders and 50 registered breeders as part of Stonehouse Hereford Stud. The stud is 50 years old and originated in Tasmania before the Burburys shifted to NSW to expand their operation. Further expansion is the motivation behind their recent move to St George and once his country recovers from the drought, Mr Burbury wants to increase his commercial cattle numbers.

The Burburys normally sell commercial steers at feeder weights directly to feedlots and aim to turn them off about15 months old. Mr Burbury said the new yards not only needed to be functional for normal stock management jobs such as branding, weaning and preg testing but also must suit jobs such as artificial insemination. “Once the season turns we’ll start doing some AI work so the yards had to be up to scratch for that,” he said.

The Burburys normally aim to join breeders for just six weeks but extended to three months during the drought. Mr Burbury said he achieved better fertility rates and a more even line of offspring with tight joining periods. “We haven’t done any preg testing here yet but we normally get about 93pc,” he said.