THE past few months have been a bit painful for the Toole family, "Rocky Ridge" and "Fairview", in the Pullbooka district near Caragabal.
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The time has come for a parting of ways from their Poll Hereford herd of some 45 years.
The herd must be sold to enable settlement of the estate.
Established by the late Neville Toole in the late 1960s, the herd was made up from Jinderlee blood from the outset.
Peter Toole said they had bought Jinderlee Poll Hereford bulls for as long as he could remember.
"We'd just ring (Jinderlee principal) Brian Thompson about 12 months prior and tell him to keep an eye out for another bull for us, and before the next joining we'd call in and select our next sire," he said.
The herd was kept to between 70 and 80 breeders of which the best 10 heifer calves each year were kept as replacements.
"We'd put the bulls in on the first week of October and pull them out early January so cows would start calving in early August," Mr Toole said.
First calf heifers were joined at 18 months.
Mr Toole said the family had experimented with different bulls across the years with the heifers.
"We tried Santa Gertrudis, Angus and Murray Grey, but mainly Angus these past several years," Mr Toole said.
"Black baldy (Angus/ Here- ford) calves are liked by buyers."
He said all breeders from second calvers onwards would go to Jinderlee Poll Hereford bulls.
Calves were kept on their mothers up until weaning and sale at 10 months of age, with steers weighing 280 to 300 kilograms and marketed through the Central West Livestock Exchange at Forbes.
"We'd take the calves off about two months out from the cows calving down," Mr Toole said.
Until Neville Toole's death in 1988, two-thirds of "Fairview" - originally his parents' property - and "Rocky Ridge" would have been running stock, mainly Merino sheep, with a third used for cropping.
"We moved out of woolcutters and into cropping and we now crop two-thirds of our country," he said.
Farm work is carried out by Mr Toole, his wife Lyn and son, Graham, the third generation on the property.
"We concentrate on winter crops of a mix of canola, wheat and some barley," Mr Toole said.
"Last year we harvested close to 1.25 tonnes per hectare of canola and three t/ha of wheat."
Making the family change from sheep to cropping was the collapse of the wool price reserve scheme, but Mr Toole said while cropping became more profitable, "we've also had 10 years of drought and failed crops to contend with".
The Poll Herefords had always been grazed on a separate leased block several kilometres from "home".
However, that property was recently sold and the Tooles have had to move their herd on to their cropping country.
"We've slowly culled out and sold the older cows and young stock and are now left with the core herd," Mr Toole said.
While trying to hang off selling due to current low cattle prices, the family is faced with completing the sale of the whole herd as soon as possible to enable settlement of the estate.
"Unfortunately they can't stay here forever," Mr Toole said.
"It's hard to have to make this decision, but we just can't keep them here much longer."