The Stockyard In the Australian Backyard

Today's itinerary for our K-State tour included a stop at a sale yard, a packing plant and a feedlot.

Some Hereford cattle being sold at Wagga Wagga.

First we visited the Wagga Wagga Livestock Marketing Centre, which is one of the largest cattle and sheep marketing outlets in Australia. The sale barn was started in 1979 and is operated by the Wagga Wagga City Council. Producers come from over 800 km to market their animals, and they come from both New South Wales and Victoria.

Cattle are sold on Mondays each week, while sheep are sold on Thursdays. Around 2,800 cattle were being sold when we toured the facility with an average of 500 cattle going through the ring each hour. The sheep sale is an even larger affair with over 30,000 head marketed each week.

While at the stockyard we were able to see our first display of working horses. In Australia the typical horse used for everyday cattle work is the Australian Stock Horse. It is similar to the Quarter Horse in working ability, but slightly larger in size.

Australian Stock Horses doing their thing at the saleyard.

The Australian Stock Horse is used for a rodeo event similar to cutting and team penning, it is called camp drafting. Cattle are put into a mob of 10 in a pen, then a calf must be cut out of the group and moved through an obstacle course in the open.

After the stop at the sale yard we went across the road to the Cargill-Teys packing plant. The facility slaughters and processes 1,200 head of cattle each day with a 50-50 split on grass finished and grain fed beef.

Around 35 percent of the product coming from the Wagga Wagga processor stays in Australia, with the remaining 65 being exported to Asian, European, and North American countries.

This is the sign that greeted us at the plant.

The Cargill-Teys plant was very similar to what you would see in the United States. Grading was performed by a computer camera system which could be overridden by the grader operating it. Also, the line for processing and packing the beef was much faster than what we had previously seen at JBS.

To help put a vertical integrated spin on our trip we toured the Jindalee Feedlot, which is owned by Cargill-Teys. The feedlot has a 17,000 head capacity and all of the animals are processed at the Wagga Wagga Cargill-Teys packing plant.

At the Jindalee Feedlot they have a turnover rate of about 3.75, meaning they feed over 60,000 head of cattle each year.

It was surprising to see how similarly the feedlot was managed when compared to the United States' cattle feeding industry. Implants were used throughout the feedlot and over 95 percent of the cattle were bought directly from cattle producers.

The feedlot that sends a primary share of beef to the Wagga Wagga processor

Death loss at the feedlot was low at only a percent. The morbidity rate for cattle was around 20 percent, with treatment of cattle being commonly caused by respiratory problems.

In all this was a day where we could see the most similarities to the American beef industry, but we still found enough differences that make Australia unique.

Well until next time, happy trails!