Makin' the Moolah

My husband Megsy is a butcher by trade and could honestly talk about meat all day. If you meet him, please don’t bring up the subject- he’ll take you back to the topic for as long as you linger. Needless to say, the first focus for our farming escapade was cattle.

Megsy, and most local farmers concerned about our abilities, were adamant we should start with steers. That is, young male bulls that have been castrated before reaching sexual maturity.  The plan was to buy some young, fatten them up on our property and sell them on again to the meatworks or a feedlot to finish them off.  

So took a day’s annual leave from my day job to spend the little money we had left after buying the farm. I headed to the cattle sales sporting my brand new akubra desperate to fit in. I was the only woman at the yards and the pristine condition of my hat screamed out to everyone that I had undeniably no idea what I was doing. The sale moved so quickly, it was like another language. Our stock and station agent was right amongst the crowd while I hung back looking terrified. We purchased 15 black boys at $1.53 per kilo. Our mate down the road carted the cattle home and I was elated with myself.

16 weeks on, and a bucket of rain later, we had feed up to our waists. Our cattle were looking a lot bigger than the day we bought them so we thought we’d try our luck at selling them on. A great decision, the rain had shot up cattle prices and we managed to average $2.09 per kilo when we sold our boys on to a feedlot between Scone and Tamworth.

Triumph for our first farming venture.