Two years on: Post-fire 'tweaks' improve stock handling at Couchmans

Ryan Couchman and wife Leah lost their house, sheds, shearing shed, 400 rolls of hay and 900 sheep on their farm west of Parndana in the blaze on January 3.

At the time, Mr Couchman said they had "just got the property going the way we wanted, making some money and now we have to start all over again".

Their 85-breeder cattle herd did survive, along with 500 sheep.

In the past two years, they have built their composite crossbred sheep numbers back up to 1400, while their Angus-Limousin breeders sit at about 70 head.

"The sheep we were able to build back up quite easily, buying in 700-800 and we kept 300 ewe lambs," Mr Couchman said.

"But the ones we bought in aren't as good as what ours were, so it may take a few more years to get back to where we were."

The same was said about their cattle herd.

"We are running a few less as they're not really what I am after," he said.

"I'll have to trade a few more out and get new younger ones in to get it back to where it was.

"We hope to see some better cows in the next season or two."

The past year has been a good season at Duncan, west of Parndana, and livestock prices have certainly helped.

"That's been one of the fortunate things after the fires has been the good sales," he said.

"It has been very helpful to our business these past two years."

What wasn't helpful was the two inches of rain received last week.

"It hasn't been ideal for our paddock feed quality, but it is better getting it now, than in December I guess," he said.

When Stock Journal visited on Tuesday last week, Mr Couchman was finalising plans to concrete the floor of his new shed, which was built over the concrete pad of his old house

It was some of last post-fire work to be done on the place, other than some minor electrical and plumbing works, burnt shed maintenance and about 5km of fencing.

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The family moved back on-farm into their new house over the Easter weekend last year, while the new shearing shed has also been up since late 2020.

"The shearing shed was one of the first things we ordered," Mr Couchman said.

"I knew how much extra work it was going to be if we didn't have one.

"I do miss the character of the old shearing shed, but we're pleased with the new shed.

"If we had a better idea of what our insurance was going to be, we may have gone a bit bigger, but we wanted to get it going and done before another winter rolled around."

Livestock handling has also been made easier with the introduction of laneways through the property.

"We had been renovating our fencelines for the past 15 years, so before the fires we nearly had them close to the way we wanted," he said.

"It made it easy to know then where to rebuild the fences, although with a few tweaks, such as laneways, to make the flow even better."

But keeping fencelines clear of trees and plants is an ongoing frustration.

"Clearing fencelines is a job almost every few months, hard to keep on top of, we need to find an easier way," he said.

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