Rathdowney Blondes in Rathdowney, Queensland | Farm

Rathdowney Blondes

Locality: Rathdowney, Queensland

Phone: +61 429 618 147

Address: 479 Running Creek Road 4287 Rathdowney, QLD, Australia

Website: http://www.rathdowneyblondes.com.au/

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13.05.2022 We’ve had 1563 mm this year. It’s a a new record. 5 months with more than 200mm. We had 600mm by end of march so it could have been higher. After 2019 where we had 239 mm it’s a massive turnaround. 84 days of rain. 28 just in November and December. Dams full. Creeks running great.

08.05.2022 Quick little storm just ended our longest dry spell since September 2. The rain we’ve been getting has been magic.

02.05.2022 Needed the stump Energex left behind gone. It’s been burning for best part of 2 weeks now and there is a noticeable depression in the ground. Just keep putting big stuff on top to get the heat in.

12.04.2022 Several weeks ago we were doing stock work and had a small heifer about 200kg live weight broke her back in the crush. Once it became obvious that she wasn’t going to get up, we decided we’d try to home butcher her. Ryan helped with the skinning, gutting and breaking down into quarters. We borrowed a cool room and let her hang for a week. She was very lean but the meat looked awesome. Sarah and I boned her out over a couple of nights and she is some of the best meat we’ve eaten.

09.04.2022 Mice. We’ve been battling them for months. Heaps of baits, lots of trapping. The latest trap is an electronic one that’s caught about 10 so far in 2 nights. I’m hoping it saves the bait from being eaten. This video is up the back away from the house. You can see the dirt that has been scratched up after the rain. We desperately need a few good frosts to kill them in their nests, or it will be a proper plague later this year.

28.03.2022 The only reason I’m looking forward to cooler weather is that it will roll some of these mice. So many here they’ve made their own track down to bare ground.

26.03.2022 Nice little bull getting ready to leave Mum

09.03.2022 Everyone knows it’s hard to attract and retain staff. I found this staff member trying to leave part way through the job. We’re in the middle of a mouse plague and he’s trying to leave. We provide board and almost unlimited food and he still isn’t satisfied. He got a stern talking to and negotiated upgraded accommodation. I got a moderately increased heart rate.

23.02.2022 Smart tester is showing a short in the electric fence. Any ideas?

03.02.2022 The cutterbar on the old mower needed fixing but didn’t want to come out. The Ute and chain changed its mind.

23.01.2022 There’s dry and there’s very dry. You wouldn’t know it’s only 4 weeks since we’d irrigated this spot. Looking for some rain from Santa instead of Huey.

22.01.2022 Everyone knows it’s hard to attract and retain staff. I found this staff member trying to leave part way through the job. We’re in the middle of a mouse plague and he’s trying to leave. We provide board and almost unlimited food and he still isn’t satisfied. He got a stern talking to and negotiated upgraded accommodation. I got a moderately increased heart rate.

22.01.2022 Last year in the drought we put a cow in the freezer. She was close to the 160kg carcass weight minimum where your price drops on most abattoir grids. She was about 6 years old and certainly not fat and in at best, average condition. We got a lot of sausages and mince as I had doubts about how good she would eat. Turns out she was great. We killed another cow last week. This one had a limp from a hoof infection 12 months ago. Less sausages and mince and more steak, etc. She had a HSCW of 209kg. There was 170kg of meat. That’s an 80% meat yield for a 3/4 blonde cow that still wasn’t in prime condition but filled our freezer. Only downside was we finished packing meat away at 10pm.

21.01.2022 Had some culls on grain. Couple of fence breaking b@st@rds on grass too. Ten less eating us out of house and home. White steer by Blackwater ainsley. Couple of blondemans in there too. Most sired by fusion including a lovely purebred heifer who should be staying but there are bills to pay. Probably should’ve left them as bulls too but can’t keep them all. All the bulls will be on a truck soon anyway to keep cows alive. Getting the next load ready. No end to this drought #drought19

20.01.2022 The cutterbar on the old mower needed fixing but didn’t want to come out. The Ute and chain changed its mind.

19.01.2022 The only reason I’m looking forward to cooler weather is that it will roll some of these mice. So many here they’ve made their own track down to bare ground.

17.01.2022 Smart tester is showing a short in the electric fence. Any ideas?

17.01.2022 44 mm for December gives us 420 for the year. We had more rain in March 2017 than all of 2018. Currently at 75% stock capacity and we are still over stocked. Be some road side grazing soon. The last time it wad this dry was through 2003-05 when we had 4 of the 5 driest years on record.

17.01.2022 The kids are in there somewhere feeding palm kernel. It’s like ice cream for the cows compared to the hay they’re currently eating. The hay is comparable to the stale crumbs on the bottom of the weet bix container. #drought19

16.01.2022 Been a while since this was required.

16.01.2022 110mm of rain for summer. Not sure i can remember when it was last this dry. We'd normally expect 120mm per month. More cattle going Tuesday.

15.01.2022 What a difference a couple of months and a few hundred mm of rain makes. 200 x 5 foot rounds into the shed and about 30 outside that aren’t good enough. Some of the nicest grass hay we’ve ever made. Never cut any last year. And most after cyclone Debbie went outside due to silt.

14.01.2022 #drought19 has turned into #flood20 . We’ve had 330mm so far this year. We had 239mm in 2019 and just over 400mm in 2018. We bought only a few bales of hay in early January to get us through. The recent flooding stayed inside the banks which was great news. I think most of this regions farmers will be looking for a dry week to make some hay and start filling hay sheds again. The rain means the jobs to do are changing; no more hand feeding cattle for a start. Dam is full too

13.01.2022 We hired a new staff member last week. Works for cuddles and dog food. Meet Rhuby. She’s 5 weeks old and seems very smart.

13.01.2022 Not sure if it's a late calf or an early one but welcome to drought little one. #drought2018

12.01.2022 Drought feeding cattle. Almost a rite of passage for kids growing up. Even feeding at night because we run out if daylight doing the footy run. Pretty relieved we have a reasonable stock of hay on hand but it won't last long. #drought18

12.01.2022 All of our followers would know we have our own feed test station, where we normally feed bulls or steers for about 90 days to determine their feed efficiency. For the last month or so, we've been hand feeding a few cull cows to get rid of them. They were too skinny to put on a truck, and could not handle the dry weather due to age, so I locked them up and started them on a grain and hay ration. Two of the three were sold to the meatworks on Tuesday (the third is heavily preg...nant). In about 6 weeks they put on 107, 122 and 128 kg respectively for an ADG of 2.76 kg/day. They converted at 4.15 kg of grain:1 kg of liveweight gain over the 6 weeks, not including any pre trial period, so this includes compensatory gain, which we banked on. I reckoned I could get them to perform at better than 4:1 because of the condition they were in when we started feeding them. It doesn't include the hay they ate. The two I sold put on 250 kg combined, and ate less than a tonne of feed. At 50% dressing % and $4.07/kg average price, they increased in value by $508, which was more than the cost of the feed. One of them would not have made it through the drought, and she returned over $1000. It was a profitable exercise, and we also learned a bit about feeding cull cows, even at expensive grain prices. See more

11.01.2022 Cows pretty excited for some grain this arvo. Windy but at least it’s blowing the Canungra fire the other way. #drought19 #greenshirtsmovement

09.01.2022 First with our Blonde x mg heifer in the Beaudesert show carcase comp.

08.01.2022 The new staff member suffers from cuteness overflow. She’s about 12 weeks old.

08.01.2022 If only we had some feed to mow for hay, to make it rain. Works almost every time.

07.01.2022 We’ve decided to open up parts of the farm for camping to gauge interest. Bookings through youcamp. Sarah created the listing at lunch time and we had our first booking at 3pm. https://youcamp.com/view/eastgrove-running-creek... (We are limited by number of bookings per year by Council, when they have been exhausted, we won’t be able to accept further bookings until next year)

06.01.2022 Nice little bull getting ready to leave Mum

04.01.2022 The new staff member suffers from cuteness overflow. She’s about 12 weeks old.

04.01.2022 Leg breaking cracks in the ground. Size 10 boot for reference.

01.01.2022 You wean our calves -we’ll wreck your pipes and wheelbarrow

25.12.2021 Been a while since this was required.