Drought resilience improved at Buckleboo Station

Mr Kerr, who has been the manager of Paroo Pastoral-owned Buckleboo Station since February 2018, said the need to prepare for droughts was key.

"It's so important to build drought resilience, and the amount and quality of information out there about the climate and where we're headed is staggering, so excuses just don't cut it anymore," he said.

"If you're in a business that is reliant on rainfall, your operation and your thinking and planning should be around that."

When Mr Kerr first took the reins at the 1000-square-kilometre sheep station, he identified a number of issues that were limiting grazing potential on the property.

Some of these issues included desertification, suboptimal grazing practices, unreliable bore water supply and monitoring inefficiency.

"There were issues, but I sat down and planned out, step-by-step, how I wanted to solve them all," he said.

First was "getting the basics right", in the form of fixing sheep yards, building loading ramps and improving boundary and internal fencing, before setting to work on significant management changes.

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One management strategy Mr Kerr implemented was a switch to rotational grazing early last year.

He split the station into six grazing areas, each roughly 200sqkm, with the 5000-head Dorper ewe flock kept together as one mob, and grazed on one area for three months, before being moved to the next.

Following grazing, areas are left to rest for 10 months, allowing for adequate grassland regeneration.

"Sheep had previously been spread across the whole property, so any saltbush plants and native grass species that came up would be eaten straightaway. There was bare ground everywhere," Mr Kerr said.

"Just about all good varieties of native grasses were gone, and there is a still a lot of work to do to regenerate all those grasslands.

"But already I can see a massive difference."

Another major problem on the station was water security, with all 35 dams drying up through the 2018-20 period.

The station had one main bore, but water supply was unreliable, with water carting costs in excess of $200,000 since July 2018.

To shore up water supply, six good bore points have been identified, with construction started on two of them.

Mr Kerr has also invested in 20 Netafim airbleeders, which ensure water pressure through pipelines remains at a suitable level.

"There are no air pockets in pipelines anymore, so I get fantastic pressure from 20-30km away - they have made a huge difference," he said.

All of the station's dams and troughs are now surrounded by a trap yard, to reduce mustering time.

The idea is to force sheep to push through one side of a gate to get to a fenced water point - ranging from 40sqm to 100sqm - and stopping their exit through the opposite side, trapping them, ready for mustering.

Using this technique, mustering has been reduced from two weeks, to about five days.

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"About a month before mustering, you train the sheep," Mr Kerr said.

"You set the trapping gates up, and the sheep walk in one side to get a drink, and out the other.

"Gradually, you close the traps a little, and the sheep learn to push through, then the day you want to muster, you shut the exit, so they walk in, and can't get out.

"You can trap 2000-3000 sheep in the bigger trapping points at once.

"It's easy enough to trap in one area, then walk the sheep to some nearby yards, draft them and put them on a truck.

"I've spent my whole life mustering, why we haven't been using trap yards in Australia forever is beyond my comprehension."

Mr Kerr is building six new permanent yards on the property, taking the total to 11, to ensure good proximity between trapping points and yards.

With grassland regeneration and water security on the improve, Mr Kerr said the next focus was on improving the sheep flock.

Mr Kerr is hoping that shored-up nutrition and water security can allow for an increase in breeding ewes by 60 per cent, up to 8000 ewes.

He is also sourcing high-quality rams and strategically culling ewes.

A target has also been set for 125pc of lambs to be weaned, which will be moved straight to an on-property feedlot to take the pressure off the grazing country.

Ram movements will be monitored using Ceres tags, another tool introduced at Buckleboo Station.

"I'm looking to fence off 12 monitoring sites around the property to place soil probes, look at soil health, and monitor change in vegetation overtime across different soil types, to see if and where grasses are becoming more present," Mr Kerr said.

The sites will contain wild dog lures, with the station able to remain organically-certified if baits are set up within the fenced-off area.

Other technology being considered to improve monitoring efficiency will be the use of telemetry to monitor water levels storage tanks, while AgriWebb software has been utilised to keep track of stock movements and rainfall.

Mr Kerr said while the benefits of all the changes would allow for sustainable livestock production, the efficiency would also mean effort required to run the property would be reduced.

"Within the next two years, by which time I'm hoping all of this will be done, I'll have this property really well set up, that it would not matter how old I am, I should still be able to run it," he said.

Longer-term plans for the station include the creation of a native grass seedstock area - using a crocodile seeder to create divets for water to settle and potentially germinate underground seedstock - while carbon farming, services to the silver mine and outback tourism were also potential projects.