The short message went viral: “Kenmay burned yesterday, we need to sell cattle.”
The plea came from Dr Robert Scanlon of Parawanga Droughtmaster Stud. Scanlon and his wife, Karen, manage the stud on a 970-hectare property called Kenmay near Miriam Vale in central Queensland. It burned on 29 October in the Mount Tom fires.
“There were planes, helicopters, red fire trucks and yellow fire trucks, bulldozers, friends and neighbours all helping,” Scanlon says. “The noise was incredible – sirens of the helicopters, the roar of the fire – and the smoke was dense.”
When the smoke cleared, they had lost 92% of their 610 hectares of pasture. The firefighting efforts had shrunk back to protect the 28 hectares around the house and yards, where 400 head of cattle – bulls, weaners, cows and fresh-born calves – had been mustered.
And now they had no feed.
When natural disasters strike, be it fire, flood or the creeping cancer of drought, maintaining livestock comes down to the ability to feed them. For many graziers the best way to save country, sanity and finances is to de-stock completely. But for seed-stock producers, those whose livelihoods depends on generations of breeding and the development of specialised genetics, the options are more complicated.
Scanlon’s initial reaction to the fire was to partially de-stock, hence the message that made its way across social media and into national headlines. Help first arrived from a stranger who owned a commercial herd.
“She put her arms around us, then bought 40 heifers and a bull and told her husband they were moving into stud cattle,” Scanlon says.
Another 30 older cows and their calves remain for sale. “These are good cows,” he says. “These are the ones who have survived fires and droughts, and they didn’t die and they didn’t get culled. They would be great foundation cows for a new stud.”
That leaves him with 250 head of cattle. Further de-stocking is not an option, he says, if he wants to preserve the genetic line.
So now he’s buying feed. The first three truckloads of hay cost $40,000. The next came from generous community members.
“Two truckloads were donated by local businessmen, another friend brought round bails on a car trailer and another semi turned up with hay and I still don’t know where or who it was from,” he says.
It’s enough to feed his stock until Christmas. Recent rain has brought a green tinge to blackened paddocks, but not enough to carry cattle.
It’s a story repeated across Australia. About 750km south of Scanlon’s farm is the Mountain Valley Poll Hereford and Angus stud. The 1,251-hectare property at Coolatai, northern New South Wales, is owned by Ian Durkin.
The grass browned off months ago. As the drought tightens its grip, Durkin has sought agistment – leasing paddocks – to keep his valuable breeding stock alive.
Durkin is the fourth generation of his family to farm here and the second to operate the stud. Were he to de-stock he estimates it would cost him between $3m and 4m to replace his cattle.
“But how do you put a price on your life’s work?” he says.
He has kept his bulls and some cows at home, but the remainder of his herd are dispersed across the country.
In the previous drought he sent 300 head of cattle north to Longreach in central Queensland, and put another 400 early-weaned heifers on a ship to Tasmania.
“You go through the motions of sending them and wondering how the hell you’re going to finance this and the overdraft gets a bit bigger every day,” Durkin says.
Tasmanian stock returned after having their first calves on the island’s greener pastures and a second back in NSW. Their offspring underpinned Mountain Valley’s annual sale in 2023, where bulls averaged $21,000 – one of the highest average sales for hereford in Australia.
Six weeks ago, Durkin sent 252 heifers to Beachport in South Australia. “I don’t even know where that is,” he says.
While he says there are some “disaster stories” of stock that have been placed on agistment, especially when the distances involved mean someone else has to take over care of that stock, “you just can’t beat knowing people”.
“This is not a seed-stock business, it’s a people business and our cattle go to places where they get looked after better than they do at home,” he says. “These people are extraordinary. And how do you keep your clientele, how do you support these people in return if you sell your breeding stock?”
