Holbrook farmer, Bill Darlow, hopes wild dogs don’t widen their appetite from his prime lambs to Angus calves.
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Mr Darlow and his wife, Carmel, were among the mainly happy vendors at today’s premier annual Angus grown and weaner cattle sale at the Barnawartha selling complex near Wodonga.
They offered 83 Ardrossan-blood steers aged nine to 10 months and scored a top price of $1210 a head for a pen of 32 weighing an average 364 kgs.
Another pen of 34 steers weighing an average 333kg fetched $1145.
The lightest pen of 17 weighing an average 293 kg was knocked down for $990.
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Before the sale Mr Darlow had been expecting $1100-plus a head for his top steers.
After the sale he was upbeat, saying while the prices weren’t as good as last year “they weren’t too bad”.
But he wasn’t upbeat about the damage being caused by wild dogs in his sheep flock.
The Darlows run 200 Angus breeders and 2000 first-cross ewes on their 728-hectare property, “Whakadale”, which backs onto forestry country.
He has just erected 10km of electric fencing in a bid to keep wild dogs and pigs at bay.
Last year wild dogs killed about 60 of their sheep, mainly sucker lambs ready for market.
Vernon Graham
Former editor of The Land, former Fairfax Media Agricultural Editor
Former editor of The Land, former Fairfax Media Agricultural Editor
