Sustainable Grazing in Central Southern Queensland Will Roberts Victoria Downs, Morven, Queensland
Victoria Downs 650 kilometres west of Brisbane Average annual rainfall is 21 inches (506.6 mls) Total size 32,000 acres (13,000 hectares) 15,000 acres of open to semi open downs country (dark self-mulching soil) 17,000 acres of timbered country (red soil) Main grasses on the downs country are Mitchell grasses (curly hoop and barley Mitchell grass) and Queensland blue grass. Trees grow in the red country - box, ironbark and mulga. The main natural grasses in the red country are mulga Mitchell, mulga oats. With our development buffel grass has become the dominant grass and removed a lot of the poorer quality seedy grasses.
Good Management Happy, healthy animals make us more money! We utilise the National Wool Declaration Pain relief in all areas for which it is registered Members of the Bayer Better Choices Program
Property Development 1930s Ring barking timbered country 1988 to 1992 Pulling of small sections of trees 1999 to 2000 Re-pulling the country previously done 2009 Eastern side of property re-pulled 2010 Western side of property re-pulled 2014 to 2015 Repeat of eastern & western sides By thinning out the trees we now have much healthier foliage.
Erosion. All this happens within 250m Excellent ground cover trees thinned out Poor ground cover a tree desert
Fencing Development After 2002 drought started fencing to allow rotational grazing Over a period of years increased from 23 paddocks to 44 paddocks Rotational grazing has been a wonderful asset in allowing us to look after our country more and to keep our stock in better order. At present we have three main paddocks with sheep in them and 5 paddocks with very small sheep numbers (sires, sale rams, and specially joined ewes) and five paddocks with cattle.
Water Development Since 1909 Victoria Downs has always had access to bore water During the droughts from 2002 to 2010 we cleaned out almost every dam on the property and built several new watering points - but the consistency of the droughts meant that we were always running short of water. Through State & Federal funding under the Emergency Water Infrastructure Grants, we brought forward water infrastructure projects possibly decades.
Wild Dog Barrier Fence We live inside the world s longest fence The Great Barrier Fence Pest exclusion fence built in the 1880s 5,614 km of which 2,500 km is in Queensland
Wild Dogs & Other Pests 1989-90 Reserve Price Scheme collapsed & people started to drift away from sheep Wild dog numbers started to increase & the dogs started to drive people out of sheep inside the barrier fence where there is supposed to be zero tolerance of wild dogs. Mid 1990s started using 1080 baiting for the first time - a naturally occurring poison that is very lethal to dogs, cats and foxes. We use a higher dose for pig control.
Wild Dogs & Other Pests From an environmental point of view 1080 baiting would be one of the best things we have ever done! As a result of a lack of predation we have started to see the return of a lot of our native animals, echidnas, koalas, betongs, ground nesting birds, bustards (plain turkeys), lizards, snakes. There has been a pig footed bandicoot found in our cluster - an animal that is presumed extinct.
Wild Dogs & Other Pests The Murweh Shire - very proactive & provided us with funding not only for baiting but have also subsidised our trapping programs. South West Natural Resource Management - active in sourcing funding for us to assist with our programs. AWI - at times provided us with help in addressing the wild dog problem. Currently providing funding to train new trappers & also helping to clean the last of the dogs out of our cluster. Two co-ordinated baiting programs a year in our Shire. They were always very well attended. Still weren t getting on top of the dogs!
Wild Dogs & Other Pests 2010 - started a trapping program in what is now our cluster group Each year from 2010 to 2014 caught 160-190 dogs a year. We would always win the battle but we weren t winning the war. There is now unbelievable pressure from the number of wild dogs.
Cluster Fencing A part of the first Cluster Fence finished in Queensland. Our cluster fence encloses about 1,000,000 acres (404,685 hectares) Over 450 kilometres in length, including 79 kilometres of the Barrier Fence. The cluster involves 48 landholdings of which 43 are commercial properties operated by 32 landholders. The fence is approximately 1.7 metres high including a top barb wire. 16/180/15 netting with a fixed knot with 150cm of this netting in a vertical position to give a 30cm apron. Used a Clipex product which allows us to clip the wires into the posts. We feel the apron is essential for the integrity of the fence.
Cluster Fencing Cluster fence finished on 7 January 2015 3 month period after caught 198 dogs October 2015 to January 2016 caught another 160 dogs
Cluster Fence on Victoria Downs
Production Losses From August to February 2015, shearing to crutching, we lost over 1,000 grown sheep and only managed to raise 15% of lambs from our scanned ewes. After weaning the lambs another dog continued to kill the weaners that were scattered in amongst the wethers. In 2015 marked 87% of lambs to ewes joined, & on track to mark 100% of lambs but there was a dog coming in that we had no knowledge of. When we marked that paddock we were 30% of lambs down and in an adjoining paddock we were 10% of lambs down. The dogs kill the lambs and then aerial predators (crows, hawks, eagles) dispose of the carcase. From lamb marking to weaning we lost no more lambs than you would normally expect to lose from a variety of natural causes.
Cluster Fencing Prior to the cluster starting - some people had already started to individually fence themselves to allow them to get control of total grazing pressure. Since the completion of the fence - more properties have continued to individually fence themselves. By 2020 - I would expect that our whole cluster will be individually fenced either by design or through neighbours doing this. We have fenced 28kms of our boundary and have the material to finish the last 17 km. The materials are costing approximately $4,900 per kilometre.
Cluster Fencing Cluster fencing will prove to be a revolution for grazing land management. Not only will we exclude pests but we will also get control of total grazing pressure. Provides a huge benefit from a biosecurity point of view should we end up with an exotic disease break out in Australia. Initiated talks with National Parks and Wildlife to see if they are interested in releasing some of the endangered bilbies into our cluster. Discussions with the Koala Foundation about relocating koalas into our area after our population was decimated by the 2002 drought - koalas are starting to come back into our cluster now. Being one of the first clusters will mean that other fences will hopefully honeycomb off our perimeter and each time this happens it will provide us with more and more protection from the threat of wild dogs and other predators. South West Natural Resource Management (SWNRM) are to be congratulated for initiating this concept.
The Future This year we will be dog free at lambing and we expect to have our best lambing ever. Our country is in great order from the work we have done and we will be virtually predator free. We are doing an AI program this year, the first for many years. Now able to get into selling reasonable numbers of surplus sheep and our sheep, who will be happy, should cut more.
Thank You Will Roberts Victoria Downs Morven QLD 4468 Phone: +61 428722535 Email: vicdowns21@bigpond.com