Keeping track of Max

JACK Nixon is a cattle man. He has been all his life.

His early days were spent working on the family cattle station in the Kimberley and he invested 13 valuable years assisting in the TB eradication program carried out in that same area. He also spent some time on a mixed farming enterprise in New Norcia, and now he is based in Bunbury.

Jack used to read this column from time to time and the reason I know this is because he sent me an email in response to an item I wrote that involved the transport of a borrowed bull. You see Jack works for the Department of Agriculture and Food. He is a stock inspector and keeps an eagle eye on brand registrations, property identification codes and the national livestock identification system.

His communication with me was just a gentle reminder that I had transported an animal onto our property, albeit for a short time, and had not recorded this animal’s relocation onto the data base.

Jack was right, both parties to the transaction had filled out waybills that travelled with the bull but had neglected to enter the required details on the NLIS data base. The lifetime traceability of this animal could have been compromised. A quick telephone call to Jack to advise that I had corrected my oversight resulted in an invitation from him to view on screen some examples of the distance travelled and contacts made by some animals in a relatively short period of time.

A good example is a bull, which for this exercise, we will call Max. This is Max’s travel diary between the end of March and early September of the same year. He was born and then matured in Queensland. Keen to get on with the job he serviced a herd or two close to home in the months of March through to June and then joined up with another 180 frisky fellows on an outback road train adventure to Katherine, spent the night bellowing with 3000 head of cattle in the sale yards there and then continued on to Port Hedland.

Max made merry with some station cows in the Pilbara spinifex country for a week or two, performed in Kununurra then Broome and finally ended up back in Port Hedland in September. Jack’s point in illustrating this example was to highlight just how many contacts that one animal had made in a period of just eight months.

It doesn’t take a great deal of imagination to realise just how quickly a diseased animal could spread contagion throughout this country’s herds. So, to my mind a national data base that records all movements of cattle can only be a good thing. But it is only as good as its weakest link. And its weakest link is probably the small block owner like myself, who trades cattle on an infrequent basis and neglects to update those movements.

Or those small land holders running a cow or two who haven’t registered a brand and do not have a property identification code.

The law is quite clear. All owners of cattle, including those with only one or two animals, must comply with NLIS requirements. All cattle must be identified with an NLIS identifier before they are moved off the property for sale or moved to a location with a different PIC.

If any small block owners are concerned about the skills required to transmit the required information, rest assured a quick telephone call to Jack will clear up any confusion in the workings of the system. Or you can contact your local telecentre which offers scanner hire and trained staff to help with transfers on the NLIS database.

So, as a group of responsible small landholders, let’s give Jack a hand in maintaining the integrity and safety of our cattle herds.

Next: A little anaesthetic, and the kitchen oven

This is the eleventh instalment in a series of articles on the experiences of becoming a farmer by Peter Seeney. You can share your experiences with SuperLiving readers by posting a blog on the website. Just click here to go to the blogs section, select the section that corresponds to your story (Travel, Finance, etc.), upload a picture if you'd like to and tell us your tale under the “blogs” tag. Your article will then be posted on the site.