THE new South Eastern Livestock Exchange (SELX) is chock full of features designed to minimise stress to stock while allowing smooth, safe handling and efficient function during key pressure points, such as penning, selling, weighing and loading.
SELX director Rohan Arnold said this focus was evident as soon as stock arrived at the yards, with the facility designed so all the traffic and stock travelled in one direction.
“So they’re unloaded at the northern end where there are 12 unloading ramps – and that’s both cattle and sheep – and then the stock move uphill and then they’re loaded out at the southern end.”
This minimised the amount of handling to move stock through the yards during the selling and transaction process.
“All beasts, particularly cattle are a lot more comfortable moving uphill,” he said, explaining the facilities had a three per cent incline from north to south.
“The core intent of the design is to minimise stock movement and to ensure that whenever stock are stationary, particularly the cattle, they are on a soft floor product.”
The new saleyards were nearly three years in the making.
“We trialled nearly 10 different mix designs (for the flooring) and the mix design (we used) is a combination of a woodchip, a sawdust, a sand and crusher dust,” Mr Arnold said.
“Eventually we found the one that delivered a good firm underfoot surface for our staff, but also was soft enough and malleable enough for the beasts to not get stressed and also so we could till it up and turn it after each sale so we could aerate it and get it dried out.”
The only concrete in the facility was through the drafts and leading up to the weigh bridge, which were extremely high traffic areas.
In the sheep yard there is a hard sand surface with a two coat bitumen seal to minimise dust. By preventing dust, the sheep and lambs maintained good presentation while in the yards, Mr Arnold said.
Between the sheep and cattle yards was a multi-species yard which allowed extra space for sheep or cattle when sales exceeded normal volumes.
The entire facility was covered with 35,000 square metres of roof, with the exception being a small part of the delivery yards.
This presented an excellent area for water collection, which supplied the watering troughs and three-bay truck wash facilities, from which used water was recycled for further use on the site.
Water captured from the roof, meanwhile, was stored in the site’s 30 megalitre capacity storage ponds.
When the bobcat goes through to clean out the pens, the used soft flooring didn’t have to go far, with a fertiliser facility conveniently located next door.
“We’re very fortunate the business next door to us, called Martin’s Fertilisers, sources that product from all over the state,” Mr Arnold said.
