In this day and age in agribusiness, it is not good enough to just get bigger, you also have to get better.
Doing things better has been at the centre of the $2-million overhaul of the Beckersfield Pastoral prime lamb feedlot on the outskirts of Keith in the past 12 months.
That approach has feedlot experts who have visited the site recently, such as a representative from Compass Feeds, praising the operations as one of the top feedlots in Australia.
“It is the most state-of-the-art feedlot in southern Australia,’’ manager Aaron Prettejohn said.
“You can always go bigger, but to ensure you survive in today’s agribusiness environment, you have to get better.
“Because the feedlot is backed by investors, it is very much state-of-the-art, but all aspects of what we do here are considered.
“It’s not just about the facilities and technology used in the feedlot for growing the lambs, but also the facilities and conditions that look after the staff that have been considered.
“We’re on the front foot and cutting edge right across the operations.’’
The Beckersfield Pastoral feedlot has the capacity to turn out up to 60,000 lambs a year and at least 48,000 head this year, with every animal that passes through the feedlot tagged with an electronic ID and its growth rate tracked.
The feedlot carries 12,000 head at any one time on fully automated feed.
By Christmas it will have a workforce of eight running operations.
“If we can get good lamb turnover we will get up to 60,000 head annually,’’ Mr Prettejohn said.
“We have achieved an average of 411 grams growth a day, nearly 50g above the average.’’
Tracking the growth rate of each animal eliminates wasted resources on the feedlot.
“We can’t afford to be feeding a lamb that’s only putting on 100g a day,’’ Mr Prettejohn said.
“But our clear market edge is that we’re able to give real data and usable feedback to the growers and the abattoirs.
“They have the ability to track every lamb back to the farm it came from.
“We know the growth rates and the carcase scores of every lamb that goes through the feedlot and this is helping the farmers we buy from to improve their product.
“It really is a paddock to plate operation.’’
Due to the electronic identification practices used at Beckersfield Pastoral, Australian meat processors have the capacity to put the number of each individual lamb they process from the feedlot onto the packaging that hits the supermarket shelves, Mr Prettejohn said.
“Each animal that we buy from a farmer is able to be tracked to the farmer,” he said.
“Our strength is really about our grower connections and building new relationships, which has been largely credited to Platinum Livestock.
“We’re going back to finding and buying these lambs before they go on the box (AuctionsPlus) and we can pay the price deserved for these lambs because we know how they will grow.’’
Crossbred lambs are bought at about 36 kilograms and grown out to 60kg, with Mr Prettejohn saying there was no real preference given to breeds.
“We’re really looking for anything we can hang meat on … anything with a decent frame and good genetics,’’ he said.
“We know the good growers because we have the facts from previous seasons, which is good and useful data. Information is only good if it is usable data. We have 12 months’ of figures on the 20 to 30 farms we are working with and that is only going to grow.
“We have a few people in our system with neighbours who are also on the project and while they might breed the same crossbreds, they could be using different studs.
“The data from each property can be used by those farmers to improve their operations by making those little changes they can see work for others.
“We are able to provide farmers with a clear picture of how good their lambs are going and what they can achieve.
“We will take lambs from pretty much anywhere, especially if they are a good bloodline.’’
Mr Prettejohn said credit for the transformation of the feedlot outside of Keith must go to PSB Investments, for turning the operations from a basic feedlot built 12 years ago into the state-of-the-art operation.
Mr Prettejohn, who has been in the livestock game with his family since he was a child, said the future looked bright for the feedlot as a result of that investment and the present agricultural environment.
