Technology counts at Duaringa Station

The Donovan family has run an integrated cropping, commercial beef breeding, backgrounding and feedlotting business for decades, with Bruce and Beryl Donovan taking over in the 1960s.

The operation is spread across three properties in Central Queensland - one at Gogango runs 1100 Droughtmaster breeders, another north of Dingo is used for backgrounding while the third, Duaringa Station Feedlot, is situated between the two, just off the junction of the Mackenzie, Dawson and Fitzroy Rivers.

Central Queensland Carcase Classic Committee secretary, Sarah Donovan, manages the feedlot that her parents Bruce and Beryl, set up in the late 1990s.

She said Duaringa Station was about 3240 hectares (8000 acres) of cultivation, or cropping country, 1620ha (4000ac) of tableland country and a 3000-head feedlot.

It produces a variety of coarse grains including wheat, sorghum and corn, as well as pulses, cotton and silage.

Ms Donovan said her parents built the feedlot in the late 1990s.

"It was never part of the original plan for Duaringa Station, but when sorghum prices kept falling and went below $100 a tonne, it pushed them to diversify," Ms Donovan said.

The accredited feedlot has a capacity of 3000 standard cattle units, and custom feeding now represents, on average, half of the feedlotting operation.

"It's our intention to grow enough grain to supply the feedlot, but being a dryland farming operation, the weather really does dictate whether we need to buy in more grain or not," she said.

"Predominantly our ration includes dry rolled wheat, but it can also include other grains, such as sorghum and corn, depending on availability."

Running an accredited feedlot comes with a host of requirements.

Ms Donovan said one in particular was recording the treatments each animal had received.

This included the dosage and their withholding periods.

"Administering the correct dosage of each treatment is made far easier by being able to use accurate weights. This, in turn, saves us money and allows the treatment to work well," Ms Donovan said.

To that end, Ms Donovan said Duaringa Station had used Gallagher weighing systems for "many years".

"We've used a Gallagher W810 for quite a while," she said.

"It's proven to be a very reliable, durable and highly transportable system, which has allowed us to successfully weigh and draft cattle across our three properties - including our feedlot," she said.

"But after many years of use, we finally needed to replace our W810 towards the end of last year.

"We didn't really consider looking outside the Gallagher product range, because we were already so pleased with the W810's performance and longevity. We saw the Gallagher TW-3, which looked really good."

The Gallagher TW-3 Weigh Scale and Data Collector is an advanced electronic identification compatible weigh scale and data collector.

Ms Donovan said it was simple to operate, with a touchscreen weigh scale with the additional functionality of life data and trait recording.

"We were immediately impressed with the TW-3 because it not only has the existing functions of the W810, but it also has built-in wifi and bluetooth capabilities, a much larger touchscreen so it enables more information to be displayed, and a much larger keyboard - which is crucial for fast and accurate data entry," Ms Donovan said.

Ms Donovan said the TW-3 allowed weight recording, multiple drafting, recording multiple traits and treatments, and data analysis while the animal was still in the crush.

"We can determine which animals are performing well, which animals aren't and those that are possibly sick and need treatment," she said.

"Gallagher's TW-3 provides information on each animal at their next weighing such as its corresponding withholding period. The beauty of this system is that this information can be entered at the time the animals are being treated, which saves me many valuable hours in the office."

Ms Donovan said the feedlot had been very fortunate to feed many cattle destined for various commercial cattle competitions, so they needed all the data and needed it to be accurate.

"The Gallagher weighing systems have played a major part in allowing us to provide valuable information to our clients on their animals' weight gain, feed conversion and also how their animals have performed with, and without, the use of hormonal growth promotants.

"This information therefore gives not just ourselves, but other producers, the ability to review their animals' performance and then apply their management decisions accordingly.

"It's a really valuable tool that's also easy to use, and because we can see the benefits in the future, we're also looking to get into the cloud with Gallagher's Dashboard Livestock. This will give us more advanced analysis, with access from any of our properties just using a web-enabled device."