Talk of the Town: The modern evolution of cattle sales

I was only a youngster when my father decided to diversify our Merino sheep operation at Blackall, Qld, and began buying cattle but I still clearly remember the stories he came home with.

The old timber yards at Jericho, Qld, were the main ones he frequented, where "a bit of everything" was sold.

In those days - the 1970s - there was no curfew, people were unloading cattle sometimes half an hour before a sale, and some of them hadn't seen too many yards before, he reckoned.

The yard design was very primitive too - agents were standing on the second bottom railing of the pens, or balancing on a narrow timber walkway with no railing to hold onto.

I remember something similar at Blackall and as a shire councillor was part of the budgeting decisions that began replacing them with the steel structure we have now.

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Roma's complex, the biggest in the southern hemisphere, and Dalby's 2015 redevelopment that put four acres under cover, are two of the gold standards that have been giving agents the opportunity to present cattle to very high standards, and ensure better animal welfare and management and better safety for both people and animals.

All of them still rely on the traditional idea that agents, buyers, sellers and onlookers alike will walk along the pens, following the sale as it moves through the yards.

It was a totally different atmosphere at Longreach last Friday. Everyone sat under cover - enormous fans are ready to go for those hotter days - automated gates swung open and pens of cattle came and went before our eyes.

There was still the banter between agents and buyers but everyone was getting to grips with a very new way of doing things.

There was confusion between the results on screen for the pen sold, and the details for the pen being bid on beside it, but one agent loved that innovation - he could keep on taking phone calls and keep up with what had been sold at the same time, true multi-tasking.

When that part of the sale was over and everyone adjourned to the yards for the rest of the sale, sold outside, I could sense a relaxation among everyone, as they leant over those familiar railings again.