Inside the operation to muster 12,500 goats

They belong to Dirranbandi producer Peter Cookson, who mustered them up at his Mulga Downs property south of Bollon in December, with the help of Michael Swain's Dust Devil Helicopter mustering business.

He put 7000 breeding nannies into the 12,140ha goat-proof section of the 20,235ha property last year so he knew there'd be a sizeable number to muster, but no-one was quite prepared for the sight that confronted them when they were all chased out of the scrub onto the open country.

"We were working through a thick patch of brigalow towards an ironstone ridge, and I saw Jed in the chopper catch sight of them," he said. "His words were, this is a proper mob of goats."

Two chopper pilots handled the mob from the air, along with six on motorbikes on the ground, pushing the estimated 12,500 goats into holding yards for drafting.

Mr Swain said while his business, which has a fleet of six helicopters, undertook a fair number of goat mustering jobs, this was probably the biggest it had done.

"They were pretty good to handle - the place is exclusion fenced and they'd been mustered a few times," he said.

Mr Cookson agreed, saying his rangeland flock had an increasing amount of Boer content and were used to being mustered every year.

"We used to have a battle - they were entrenched in the timber, but now they just move along," he said.

The Cooksons bought Mulga Downs in 2017 and fenced it for goats a year later, and have been building their numbers for a while, from 2000 in 2020.

The mob was processed through sheep yards that had been adapted and the ones for sale moved to their fully fenced country at Dirranbandi for finishing prior to sale.

"We will have to cull the nannies a bit harder this year," Mr Cookson said, referring to his overall numbers, saying he'd sold to Melbourne and Bourke in the past but his preferred option was to go to Western Meat Exporters at Charleville.

He said the going rate for the best billies at the moment was around $3 a kilogram.