0:06

This is Seeds for Success, a

0:08

show where we have a good yarn about ag life

0:11

with producers who are having a go.

0:13

On the show, you'll hear from farmers in New South Wales,

0:16

who are out there battling the elements, making

0:18

tough calls, and getting the job done.

0:21

You'll get a laugh out of some of their stories

0:24

and also pick up some knowhow along the way.

0:27

I'm your host, Neroli Brennan.

0:32

Hey, podcast fans. It's Jasmine Wells here,

0:34

Senior Natural Resource Management Officer for Local

0:37

Land Services. We're excited to present

0:39

the Seeds for Success summer series, a special

0:41

crop of episodes all about

0:43

drought management. In this series,

0:45

we've gathered the best advice and stories from our

0:47

past episodes and we focused on the challenges

0:50

and strategies for farming during drought conditions.

0:53

So let's get into it. First

0:56

up, you'll hear from Tess Herbert. Tess

0:58

and her husband Andrew run a 6, 000 head cattle

1:00

feedlot on their property Gundamain at Euwgowra. Like

1:04

a lot of you listening, during the drought, the Herbert's

1:06

made the difficult choice to de- stock. They

1:09

used software to help them calculate how much stock

1:11

to sell off so that they could continue to

1:13

feed their main herd and breeding stock. Rohan

1:16

Leach sat down with Tess and asked her how she

1:18

dealt with the challenge of continuing to feed her

1:20

stock with the increased cost of grain during

1:22

the drought.

1:26

It's an interesting question, 'cause I can still remember

1:28

during the drought, again, access to cattle was okay, it

1:31

was the type of cattle that was a bit of a

1:33

struggle, 'cause again, we were probably getting more

1:36

of Bos Indicus content than we wanted. But

1:38

access to grain was particularly

1:40

difficult, so we were bringing in

1:42

grain from a long way away, different

1:45

states, which was probably somewhere

1:47

we'd never had to be before. But

1:49

I think what you learn from those

1:51

things is that, you're looking at your marketplace,

1:54

you're looking at where you can source your inputs

1:56

from and you're making those decisions.

1:59

Can we still with this... as freight is an

2:01

increased overhead, can we still make money at

2:03

the other end? And it was interesting

2:05

for us having now owning more property,

2:08

where we're making those decisions about on

2:10

property as well 'cause we were hand feeding a lot of stock.

2:13

So again, we made the decision do we de- stock,

2:16

which we did a little bit, but we also

2:18

decided that we were used

2:20

to buying in feed for our feedlot

2:22

and we had those connections, so

2:24

we continued to buy in feed for

2:27

our properties as well and to hand feed

2:29

right through the drought. That was hard, but

2:32

it was a decision that paid off.

2:34

Something pretty familiar to what a lot of farmers

2:37

had to make the decision. And you're

2:39

confident with that decision that you made?

2:41

I think so. I mean,

2:43

there's a real challenge about philosophically

2:45

de- stocking when you have a breeding herd,

2:48

that really hard decision that has

2:50

to be made. Again, we made the decision

2:52

to do some de- stocking, but to maintain

2:54

our core herds of sheep and cattle

2:56

and to feed them through, and we think

2:58

that was the right decision at the time.

3:01

You've talked about how much you

3:03

rely on your buy price and all those

3:05

sorts of things, your software to calculate exactly

3:08

where you cut even and you break even prices

3:10

are, is that just as important when de- stocking

3:12

through drought?

3:13

Yes, because the price that you're buying

3:15

in commodities, you have to think, is

3:18

it worthwhile keeping these stock? We

3:21

don't know when this is going to end. There's no

3:23

date that it says you can stop buying hay on

3:25

this date and you'll be able to feed through. It's

3:28

a risk and you make that decision based

3:31

on, we're always hoping that the drought will

3:33

end. But we also know that there will be

3:35

another one and everyone you go through,

3:37

I think, you're better set up for the next one and

3:39

you have more options, and I think

3:42

your decision making is better every

3:44

time you come through one as well.

3:46

So that probably leads me into a good question.

3:49

You guys make a lot of silage, but you

3:51

probably use that

3:53

mostly straight away in your own

3:55

system. So probably planning for

3:58

a long- term drought and laying down silage

4:00

for 10, 15 years time, probably

4:03

not something that you guys do much of?

4:05

We don't do it for that long period of time,

4:08

but we certainly have three or four years on hand,

4:10

so we have enough to feed paddock stock

4:12

as well. And we've also dug pits

4:14

out at some of the other farms as

4:16

well, just for silage for

4:19

the breeding stock.

4:24

Georgia White moved back to her family's sheep farm,

4:26

Talbragar, near Coolah, not long

4:28

before the drought broke in 2020. She

4:31

chose to stay on afterwards to help her family

4:33

manage their flocks through the breeding season. Along

4:36

the way, Georgia picked up a few tricks she plans

4:38

to use in the next drought. The biggest

4:40

one was how to identify the highest performing

4:42

ewes using eIDs and tagging.

4:45

Jill Kelly asked Georgia what kind of tech they

4:47

use to measure performance.

4:52

Well, pretty much just using

4:55

scales. We weigh a lot of sheep

4:57

quite often and record that, but we have

4:59

actually given all of the ewes

5:02

that have eIDs, even though

5:04

it's not a requirement, it's just something that I

5:06

feel is really important. Being

5:09

down in Victoria, everyone's down there telling

5:11

me, " Oh, it's only a matter of ewes anyway."

5:14

Yeah, because a lot of the bulk is the cost

5:16

of those tags, but you find you get

5:18

value from the tag,

5:21

the data collection value outweighs

5:23

the cost of the tag.

5:24

Oh, it depends on who you are, but for me

5:26

for sure, and for our family, that's definitely

5:29

something that we believe we haven't

5:31

done, obviously sums because there's a lot of

5:34

tangible stuff.

5:35

Yeah, absolutely. But through the drought, I know

5:37

you guys de- stocked a bit, you sold sheep.

5:39

So were the eID and the data collection useful

5:42

to identify poor performers?

5:44

We pretty much just got rid of all our

5:46

older ewes and just have a young flock.

5:48

And then, while the numbers were down, at

5:50

about half what we normally have, we thought

5:52

now's the time to strike, we'll tag everything

5:55

and then record it. So from

5:58

that year we had all of the mobs

6:00

that they'd been like if they'd had twins

6:02

or singles or dry. So then we scanned

6:04

everything on then and we've been collecting that

6:07

data ever since.

6:07

Yeah, okay. So it may help you in future times

6:10

when you want to...

6:10

It'll definitely help us in the future, which we

6:12

classed out a mob of ewes when

6:14

we're looking down the barrel of a drought and

6:17

put them aside in a mob to sell

6:19

if the season really did go bad and thankfully

6:21

it didn't. So we still kept on those.

6:24

The interesting fact is that the tripletting

6:27

ewes, when we scanned them,

6:29

a lot of them came through as those classed

6:31

out ewes and I actually said to our classer, " What

6:33

are you doing? You're classing out all our good ewes."

6:35

He's like, " Well, I don't know. They've probably been tripletting for

6:39

five years and they look all scabby and

6:41

not great." But in reality they're our best

6:43

performers, so we never would've known.

6:47

You don't know, looking at them, if

6:49

they're your best performer or not.

6:51

Yeah. And so the big fat sheep with the beautiful

6:53

wool that looks all fat score three

6:56

or four...

6:56

Yeah, maybe they're just bringing you singles in every year. They're

6:59

doing a good job, but they're not your top ladies.

7:01

They're not the ones that you want to keep.

7:06

Trent Johnston runs a livestock trading

7:09

enterprise along with his Shorthorn bull

7:11

breeding operations at Forbes and Lyndhurst.

7:14

Throughout the drought, Trent reflected on what

7:16

buyers would need post- drought when they started

7:18

to rebuild their herds. Rohan Leach

7:21

caught up with Trent to ask him where traders

7:23

and producers should be focusing their efforts.

7:29

I believe the cattle job in the next six months,

7:31

Queensland going to drive a day, they'll come in swinging a

7:33

pretty big bat, I reckon, now they're getting a bit of rain.

7:36

Queensland will drive that cattle job. I

7:38

sort of got a little bit of an insight when I take bulls

7:40

up there and there's no cattle around

7:42

up there and them fellows, like a lot of

7:44

that's real proper cattle country and they'll

7:47

come in swinging a big bat for females in that herd

7:49

rebuilding sort of thing. That's

7:51

probably one of the major things

7:53

that's probably going to happen there looking into a crystal

7:55

ball. I think, livestock in general,

7:58

for the next few years, are going to be quite good just

8:00

with the whole herd rebuilding. Numbers are down,

8:02

plenty of confidence, plenty of feed and

8:04

it'll still keep pretty solid. And

8:06

good quality animals always sell too, like if

8:09

you can chase that quality or breed, that better

8:11

quality, or spend that little bit extra

8:13

more on your bull that you buy and stuff like that,

8:15

that definitely changes things too. We bought up some

8:17

bulls over the years and kept a bit of a track of what

8:19

they actually do for you and stuff. I remember the very

8:22

first time we'd done it, we paid $10, 000

8:24

for a bull back then.

8:25

Which was big money back then.

8:26

That was massive money back then. I still remember

8:28

the day we bought him. So I kept a bit of a track of it

8:31

just to see what it actually done and

8:33

that bull made a hell of a difference within our herd.

8:36

So we sold $ 240,000 worth of progeny

8:38

out of that bull, out of a $10, 000 purchase.

8:41

And ever since then I've sort of believed that they're a

8:44

pretty cheap article to buy if you keep track

8:46

of them and follow it through. We don't mind spending

8:48

a bit of money if they're the right article.

8:51

So that return on investment there is not a bad

8:53

one?

8:53

That's a good return on investment, that one. But it's

8:55

like anything, you get some that aren't that good either sometimes.

8:58

But I think yeah, quality. Crystal

9:00

ball, quality's always going to pay. Females

9:03

are where it's going to be at for the next little bit. That sounds like a lot of money going

9:05

and spending three and a half thousand on a cow

9:08

and calf unit at the moment or something like that. But you break it down to choose a 600

9:11

kilo cow or around that sort of weight,

9:13

it's not all that much money when you

9:15

break it down, there's a weaner there and you can put it back in calf

9:18

again. So things like that,

9:20

that's where I'm sort of going to be looking at, I suppose, in the next

9:22

six months or whatever.

9:23

Mate, have you got any trading tips for producers

9:26

that are looking to step into trading?

9:28

Quality. If you can just buy quality. I've

9:31

just loaded a big double of not such

9:33

good quality and that sort of reiterated

9:35

that today. They were cheap at the time, but

9:38

they are cheap for a reason. Well, I can give you a prime

9:40

example. So I bought some females

9:42

at the exact same time, some good,

9:44

well- bred heifers, calved them down.

9:46

So we bought these cattle in February this year, so

9:49

there were some cattle out of the north that we bought that were cheap. And

9:51

then I went to Victoria and bought some

9:54

females out of there, well- bred females,

9:57

calved them down in March

9:59

and sold them in April. Had

10:01

them for 60 days and

10:03

I made $1,300 a

10:06

unit, clear profit, on them.

10:08

And I've had these other northern cattle

10:10

from February till, what

10:12

is it now, start of December. And

10:16

obviously they're not sold yet but they'll be sold tomorrow.

10:18

But in that same sort of period,

10:20

I'll probably only going to make a thousand dollars

10:23

and that's with weaning a calf off and

10:25

putting them back in calf. Which is still nothing

10:27

to be sneezed at, a thousand dollars is still a thousand

10:29

dollars, but time period and the amount

10:31

of feed they consume and stuff like that, yeah,

10:33

I'll sort of change my approach a little bit there. And

10:36

it's been the same too with feeding lambs.

10:38

I've had some disaster stories,

10:41

probably just animals that are not quite bred well

10:43

enough or people sort of maybe

10:45

use their own rams and things like that. Got a bit of a

10:48

list of some that I don't worry about touching

10:50

anymore and others that I'll jump

10:52

at them at a heartbeat. I've had some very

10:54

good composite lambs that have gone

10:57

pretty well. I remember weighing them last

10:59

year and I thought there's something wrong with the scales. Some

11:01

of them were doing 500 grams a day at their peak,

11:03

they were just humming. But it all

11:05

comes back to quality, I believe.

11:07

When I first purchased my

11:09

first starter mob, they were pretty wild

11:12

and pretty wooly. And that's definitely the first tip that my agent and others

11:15

have told me, is to get into more quality.

11:18

As long as there's still a twist in them, you can do it, but if

11:21

things turn sour and you've got to try and sort

11:23

of offload them, sometimes that twist isn't there.

11:29

I'm going to stay with Trent for a bit as he talks about

11:31

his strategy of spreading his cattle across properties

11:33

all over the state. This unique

11:35

approach allows him to spread the geographical

11:38

risk for his herds. Trent got

11:40

into how this benefits the health of the herd

11:42

and how this technique can be used effectively

11:44

during drought. Rohan asked Trent

11:46

about how he manages his stock when they're spread

11:48

out across the state.

11:54

You spend a fair bit of time in a vehicle, which is all good too, but I just

11:56

like spreading the geographical risk, hey. I'm a

11:59

big believer in that. I started it a

12:01

little while ago, a few years ago,

12:03

oh, in the drought actually, I started spreading a

12:05

few around. And that geographical

12:08

risk or where someplace will get a rain

12:10

and the other one misses out, there's a big difference there. But yeah, no,

12:13

you do a lot of time in a motor vehicle. I bought a new car

12:15

this year, back in March or something, and now it's

12:18

got 50- odd thousand Ks on it in six months

12:20

or whatever. But yeah, look, it's easy enough to

12:22

manage if you partner yourself up

12:24

with some other good farmers that are happy to

12:27

run an eye over them and get on the phone and give you

12:29

a call if there's something wrong and that. At

12:31

the moment I've got the Gunnedah block, so there's 1300 acres at Gunnedah.

12:35

And then got some sheep

12:37

out at Parkes, they're out there on agistment.

12:39

And then I've obviously now

12:42

own sort of one at Forbes. And then I

12:44

had some cattle down at Wagga but they just sold them. And then

12:46

got some other country at Lithgow as well, along

12:49

with our Lyndhurst country. So yeah,

12:51

we've got a bit of a spread on them at the moment. But there was one

12:53

stage there last year, I remember my wife

12:55

saying to me, " You're mad." We had stock

12:57

on 13 different places or something. But if

13:00

you can make the numbers stack up and grass

13:02

is cheap and transport's cheap,

13:04

if you're doing a few numbers, it all works

13:06

out in the wash, so you've

13:08

got to be prepared to get a slap across the wrist

13:11

every now and then or something like that. But no, I think

13:13

it works and it works quite well. And actually

13:15

I forgot, there's some at Dubbo too, I've got some lambs at Dubbo.

13:17

But everything will sort of be making its way

13:19

back shortly and getting

13:22

locked up and fed and whatever else. But I do like having them

13:24

in different areas and keeps you thinking too, it

13:27

keeps the brain ticking and it's good. And

13:29

you learn a lot, I've learned a lot by

13:31

doing that. Just different areas and how they work

13:33

and what's the better times of the year. And I remember

13:35

I sent some lambs out to Condo, not this

13:37

winter, one just before, and they

13:40

were flying, I had 1500 lambs out there on agistment just

13:43

to slow a blokes crop up, and they

13:45

absolutely flew and that's sort

13:47

of bit warmer country too. And if

13:49

you can move it around to suit the climate a little bit, it's a

13:51

good thing, I think, as long as you're

13:53

happy to get out and about and chase it a

13:55

bit, I suppose.

13:56

Probably the drought and spreading

13:58

your risk is really what's driven you.

14:01

Yeah, for sure. For sure, without a doubt. I remember I sent

14:04

cattle down to Lithgow for the winter.

14:06

I mean, I was born down

14:08

there and sort of left there a fair while ago now, but I

14:11

remember the winters being cold down there. And I thought

14:14

I'm mad probably sending cattle down there, but they're running

14:16

around down there in the hills and they can actually sort

14:18

of get up in the hills and they sort of get

14:20

half protected and now that's an ongoing

14:22

thing. So every sort of March I'll wean my calves

14:24

and boot the cows down there and they spend the winter down

14:26

there, and bring them back in August and they come back

14:29

fat as fools and you're just, I

14:31

can't fathom it, but they get up them gullies and they get out

14:33

of the weather and it's not too bad. So it's

14:35

been different ways to learn things. I learned

14:37

a bit like that sort of stuff, when I went over to Canada

14:40

a couple of years ago and we went to a university,

14:42

they were doing some studies there and they were trying to

14:44

wind down the cows, like how

14:46

much they could feed them during winter. And I remember,

14:49

so they had some 500 kilo cows and

14:51

they were in snow up to their bellies and they wound

14:53

them down to 10 kilos a day and

14:56

they held their condition. And it was

14:58

things like that sort of impressed me and I learned a bit

15:00

and thought, well you can make them tough it out if you

15:02

have to, over the winter, especially dry

15:04

cows.

15:05

So it's about that livestock class

15:08

and suiting livestock class to

15:10

feed source.

15:11

For sure, without a doubt. No, if you

15:13

want them weaners, I tend to get them on a crop and not

15:15

afraid to feed the crop too. Fertilizer

15:17

prices are quite dear at the moment, but in

15:20

all seriousness they're still reasonable

15:22

when you're getting $ 6 a kilo for steers and $

15:26

9 dressed for lambs or something

15:28

like that, it's still quite... urea

15:31

at whatever price it is now. I

15:33

know before this next lot of rain comes

15:35

or something, the next forecast decent rain at Forbes,

15:37

I'll hit this brassica with a heap of urea and not

15:40

be afraid to have a crack at it.

15:41

Yeah. We're at a lucky time with high

15:44

costs of inputs but it's also high

15:46

commodity prices all around, isn't it?

15:48

Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, it is a very

15:50

good time to be in the agricultural game I suppose. But I

15:52

guess we're making up for some times a few

15:54

years ago where it was all just going out the door and not

15:57

coming back in. So it's a nice business to be in for us at the

15:59

moment.

16:00

What are some of the advantages and disadvantages

16:03

of leasing over owning the country

16:05

or leasing agistment?

16:07

Leasing's good, you're locked in there for

16:09

a certain period of time. When everything's going in your

16:11

favor, that's fine. Once it gets a bit dry,

16:13

it might not be as enjoyable. But I guess

16:15

with leasing we're still sort of building up

16:17

some of our foothold I suppose, with

16:19

country and probably want to go again shortly

16:22

and next couple of years it might be able to do something

16:24

again and expand again. But with leasing,

16:26

I guess, it's just the cheaper alternative

16:28

at the moment. If you're paying, whatever

16:31

the figure may be, on some lease country

16:33

compared to an interest rate, if you can correlate

16:35

those two and sort of build a bit of equity

16:38

along the way, I think it's definitely the

16:40

cheaper way to go leasing at the moment. And

16:42

look, there's a lot of farmers that I've found that

16:44

don't want to sell their farm

16:47

necessarily. They're happy just to sit there. I had one

16:49

at Boggabri last year, happy just to sit

16:51

there and potter around and treat

16:53

my animals like they were his own and that give him a

16:55

purpose. But they don't want to let

16:57

it go, but they're happy to let

16:59

someone else come in there and utilize it and do

17:01

the job on it. But there's plenty of older fellows that

17:03

are looking to do that and don't want to actually leave, but there's

17:06

opportunities there to maybe lease a bit

17:08

of country off them. Agisting's good, it's good until

17:11

you have to get off, I suppose. It's been

17:13

very fruitful for us over the time, but it's

17:15

still, as long as you're putting kilos on agistings that

17:18

go as well, so they've both got their

17:20

advantages. Disadvantages are sometimes

17:23

you get boxed into a corner and you've got to get

17:25

them off and you think, " Where the hell am I going to go now?"

17:27

So you start getting on the phone and ringing up and

17:29

see where you can find another little pocket, or you

17:31

ring up and order another semi- load of pellets

17:33

or whatever for the feedlot and you just tighten

17:36

them up in there a bit and go from there.

17:37

Yeah, I think I remember a pretty

17:40

frantic phone call from you six months ago

17:42

or so and, "Yeah, mate just got this, a fair

17:46

bit of urgency on this one, so appreciate

17:48

if you give me a call back."

17:50

Yes. Yeah, there's been a few of them sort of phone

17:52

calls that it's not what you know, a

17:54

lot of the time., I don't think there's ever been a truer word said

17:56

as far as that goes. If you can branch out and

17:59

call on some other people that might just know of someone,

18:01

it's a good thing. And agriculture,

18:04

it's a pretty tight- knit community that are always

18:06

willing to help out another fellow and if I remember that frantic

18:08

call, they were on their way and we

18:10

didn't really have anywhere to put them. But anyway, we found a

18:12

spot and that's been good. We made a really good

18:14

friend out of that too. Didn't

18:16

know this bloke from a bar of soap and then we've become

18:18

quite good mates and he's a good fellow, yeah.

18:24

Trenton had a lot of good ideas about farming during

18:26

drought conditions, so this last clip is from

18:28

him as well. In this clip you'll

18:30

hear Trent share how living through a drought

18:32

changes your view on farming. Rohan

18:35

asked Trent about the biggest lessons he

18:37

took away from the drought.

18:38

Off the

18:42

top of my head, I can't really think of anything that's

18:44

really a concern to me. The

18:46

next drought's not that far around the corner obviously, but

18:49

we've all learned from the last one. I know

18:51

I've learned a lot of different ways to manage it and

18:53

feeding stock and doing things a lot different that way.

18:55

It always... it's etched in the back of your mind that you've

18:58

got to remember what to do from the last one and there

19:00

were some testing times there, don't worry. And I mean

19:02

we're in a pretty safe area too where we are usually,

19:05

but it'll still test you. And I remember

19:07

calling mates out west and seeing

19:09

what they're doing and getting a few of their ideas and that

19:12

was very good and it got you through it. But I guess that's

19:14

probably one concern of the next drought, it's not that far away.

19:16

We can't have good seasons like we've had two years in a row and

19:18

I've never seen a candle burn at both ends yet. So

19:21

I think that's probably one of the things going forward we're going

19:24

to have to deal with again surely.

19:25

Yeah, so that's probably one of the big learnings that a

19:27

lot of people got out of this last drought is they've

19:29

picked up a lot on drought feeding and confinement

19:32

feeding and that sort of thing. So what

19:34

particularly have you learned there?

19:36

I learned that cows, you can feed them pretty ruthless.

19:39

And having clients up in Queensland, I went and visited

19:41

some clients there in September and it's pretty ordinary up

19:43

there at the moment or it was for them, some of them guys

19:45

are up feeding 30% urea. He

19:48

said, " But you just don't let them go without, make sure you keep

19:50

it up to them." But I was doing a lot of straw

19:52

and urea for dry cows in the drought.

19:55

Don't be afraid to wean them early. They're tough little buggers,

19:57

they can handle it as long as you keep the protein

19:59

up to them and stuff. Cows are pretty ruthless.

20:02

Yeah, I remember thinking I'm going to kill these things.

20:04

But yeah, no, they just kept going and they've done quite well on it.But I

20:09

think, when you feed a lot of urea, you've

20:11

got some fertility issues sometimes, but

20:13

as long as you can sort of manage that along the way, it's good. And a

20:16

lot of minerals too. I'm a big believer

20:18

in minerals, a lot of dry lick and stuff. I

20:20

do that on induction into the feeding lambs

20:23

too, they get a mineral dry lick and

20:25

also some liquid minerals

20:27

in their troughs. And minerals really play big

20:29

part in nutrition, I reckon.

20:30

More in that high rainfall zone at

20:33

Lyndhurst there or just everywhere.

20:35

I think everywhere. And the animals, they're pretty

20:37

smart, they work out what they need and what they don't need. But I remember in the drought, Forbes here in '19,

20:43

I was feeding just some straw and

20:45

some high urea content and

20:47

some dry lick and stuff like that. And they were mowing

20:50

through the dry lick, but then they were also

20:52

eating leaves off trees and just keeping

20:54

them going. I've done a lot of calculations as

20:56

to what we were feeding a lot of ewes out there

20:58

at the time as well, and I was pretty ruthless

21:00

on them. One day they were getting fed pellets

21:03

and then the next day they were just getting straw. And

21:05

it worked, and we got some quite good conception

21:07

rates by doing that. We had them confined

21:10

in a pen and they got sort of 1.2 kilos,

21:12

I remember, 1. 2 kilos of pellets we

21:14

were giving them. That was on one day and the next day

21:16

they were getting straw and then they'd go back for

21:19

another day, 1. 2 kilos of pellets and

21:21

the next day they got some good canola hay and

21:24

I wound our ration costs right back down.

21:26

I think from memory I had them, I

21:29

think it was like $ 3. 30 a

21:31

week, I was sort of feeding these

21:33

ewes and getting them back in lamb.

21:36

You could wind it down and some learning

21:39

was done there, it was good. And it wasn't at the expense

21:41

of fertility either, so just

21:43

with giving them minerals and that as well, along the way.

21:46

So it really, probably a final point

21:48

is just that you've really got to do your numbers, whether

21:50

it's from trading or feeding or whatever.

21:53

Yeah, without a doubt. Do your numbers. Don't be

21:55

afraid to get a slap across

21:57

the wrist every now and then. Just bounce back

21:59

and learn from your mistakes. Don't be afraid to

22:01

ask people as well. That's what I've found out. Get

22:04

on the phone, and my wife's always up me

22:06

that I'm always on the phone or my phone's always

22:08

ringing or something like that. She's sort of come

22:10

to terms with it now and understands that it's always ringing

22:12

and stuff like that. And that was a bit of a shock for her

22:15

at the start, people ringing all the time and

22:17

now she knows that obviously that telephone's probably

22:19

a important part of the business too. And you

22:21

can make a lot of decisions off a couple of phone calls

22:23

here and there and calling in a mate every now and then to

22:25

give you some advice or someone that might've done it that

22:27

you can learn something off.

22:32

So that's it for today's episode. If

22:35

you want to listen to the full interview with any of today's

22:37

guests, you can find links to those episodes

22:39

in the show notes. I'm Jasmine Wells

22:41

and I'll chat to you next time.

22:46

Thanks for listening. This podcast

22:48

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