Cattle emerge from thick fog, walking along the yard rails in a big group.
Next come the pen riders.
They are rugged-up.
But it’s their fluorescent safety vests that standout against the hazy morning light.
Streams of frosted air, white puffs, blow out the noses of the horses and cattle.
They are turning hot air into cold, simply by breathing.
It’s chilly.
Icy, really.
But it will get warmer – quite sunny.
And then a frost – up to minus five degrees celsius returns the next day.
This is Rangers Valley feedlot in July.
And this is exactly why the 40,000-head NSW business built a Ridgeback®.
Rangers Valley is different to many of the other 400 Australian feedlots constructing shade and shelter inline with the Australian Lotfeeders’ Association (ALFA) pledge.
The New England feedlot quickly established that what may work for others in hotter and drier climates, wasn’t going to be practical – and maybe not viable – in the traditionally high rainfall region of Rangers Valley near Glen Innes.
This long-fed, Angus and Wagyu operation needed something different.
A structure that provided shade, shelter and further enhanced animal welfare.
A Ridgeback® ticked all these boxes, according to Rangers Valley Managing Director Keith Howe.
“Considering the environment, our colder and longer winters and quite mild summers, we felt that a shade, or a netting-type solution over the cattle pens was not going to provide adequate benefits and actually give us some challenges,” he said.
“So, we decided to put up a permanent structure.
“What we wanted, with that permanent structure, was the ability to cover half of the pens and to give the cattle choice. The choice to either stay undercover or go out into the elements, whether that be summer or winter.”
On this winter’s day, half the cattle in the pens sheltered by the 440 by 30 metre Ridgeback® were under the shade.
The others were soaking-up sunshine.
Rangers Valley sells its long-fed premium beef into more than 50 markets around the world.
Its brands include Infinite the “pinnacle” verified Australian full-blood Wagyu, fed for a minimum of 500 days, Black Market a 270-day fed Angus line and a variety of Wagyu-cross products known as WX.
Meat from this exclusive New England feedlot – Australia’s fourth largest – can be found at restaurants in the humongous 89,000 square-metre Hyundai Centre department store in Seoul, South Korea and throughout Mexico, the US, Europe, Middle East and South East Asia.
These global fine-dining establishments might be a world away from the daily workings of an Australian feedlot, but Keith said Rangers Valley customers are intrigued by the organisation’s livestock production system.
And they regularly visit Rangers Valley.
The feedlot’s viewing platform – overlooking the entire operation – is testament to this welcoming approach.
“They (customers) are interested in understanding how we look after cattle in our operations and our feeding program and animal welfare are all major parts of interest to our end-users around the world,” Keith said.
“We are very conscious of wanting to continue to improve our position in this area and the installation of the Ridgeback® has given us a really good environment to test this type of concept, where we can cover half the pens with a permanent structure. I feel this is really ticking best practice because we are giving cattle options.”
It’s this freedom of choice and incorporation of a permanent shelter that will be investigated as part of an industry research study.
Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) is using Rangers Valley’s Ridgeback® to build on the results of a sheltered feedlot trial completed in the New South Wales New England region two years ago.
This research, also including feedlot veterinary and nutrition consultancy Bovine Dynamics, will bolster the industry’s knowledge about cattle performance under a permanent structure.
Rangers Valley Feedlot Data and Operations Officer Maddison Fryer is working with MLA and Bovine Dynamics, collecting performance and carcass data.
She said the early benefits from the Ridgeback® included cleaner cattle, less cattle “pulled” for treatment and improved feed intake.
Initial indications also suggest the Ridgeback® will help to reduce feed wastage, according to Feed Mill Foreman Wade Brown.
That’s important considering about 570 tonnes a day is fed to Rangers Valley cattle.
“We have feed trucks passing through every 10 to 15 minutes, picking up a load and delivering it to feed cattle,” he said.
“With the Ridgeback® in place we are able to keep the feed covered in the feed bunks which is allowing it to have a longer lifespan whether the weather is wet or hot.”
Rangers Valley Managing Director Keith Howe said the business was happy to collaborate and share information with the Australian feedlot industry.
This independent analysis will also guide its future investments.
“Having more substantial shelter structures may be a really good longer term position, and that’s the approach we are leaning on,” Keith said.
“With the data being collected and analysed independently, it should give us a really good robust outcome to help us decide what our future stages are.”
Crunching the initial numbers for the Ridgeback®, Rangers Valley considered how the structure would deliver multiple improvements – generating more income – as well as savings opportunities.
This cost benefit analysis substantiated the business case for this “major capital investment”.
“There were key drivers in improvement in hot standard carcass weights, improvements reflected in animal health – lower morbidity and mortality rates,” Keith said.
“We also were considering that our wood chip program, for bedding, that we have for our heavier cattle, there could be some offsets or (opportunities to) reduce that bedding structure in various depths because of the result of having a shelter structure.
“So adding all those components up, and pen maintenance throughout the year – pens having less water, less erosion – that should reduce our maintenance costs.”
Efficient pen cleaning was a high priority for Rangers Valley in the design of its Ridgeback®, that’s why it included upright columns placed back from the feed bunk. These columns not only maximised bunk space for cattle, it ensured easy movement of machinery in pens for cleaning.
A polyethylene lining encases the bottom section of each column to prevent cattle rubbing on the galvanised column coating and reduce corrosion.
It’s only early days with the Ridgeback®, but Feedlot Operations Manager Andrew Slack can attest to the reduced pen maintenance workload associated with the new infrastructure.
Conventional pens require floor maintenance every two years because of the high rainfall at Rangers Valley.
The region averages 900 millimetres of rain a year.
“The challenges of lot feeding cattle in such a high rainfall environment is permeation of moisture into our pen floor surface,” Andrew explained.
“When we have permeation of that moisture we get degradation in that gravel which leads to big holes in the pen floor and our subgrade layer which deteriorates the pen and we then have to spend a lot of money on gravel, machinery fuel and labour trying to do these repairs.”
“The Ridgeback® is able to capture over 10 million litres of water a year, being so large, and that water – rather than going onto a pen floor and becoming effluent runoff – we are able to capture that, keep it and store it as drinking water.”
Stopping water from hitting the pen floor surface has also made one of the biggest jobs at the feedlot a little easier.
“Removing the manure from the pens, with the Ridgeback®, that manure is always at the same dry matter,” Andrew explained.
“In our conventional pens, that manure can have a much lower dry matter content, when we are carting it out, we are carting a lot more water. This subsequently leads to our manure having higher processing costs to get it to a saleable product.”
Using permanent shelter to improve the animal welfare and meat quality of cattle at Rangers Valley isn’t a new concept.
Sheds were first installed across some of the pens more than 30 years ago, when Japanese trading house Marubeni purchased the feedlot.
These sheds still house “exit cattle” – those within a week or two of dispatch from the feedlot – because shelter has proven to decrease the dag-load of the feedlots’ Angus and Wagyu cattle.
Reducing dags makes processing easier and cheaper. Penalties can apply if cattle are presented to an abattoir with dags, and washing cattle before processing can be time consuming and stressful for the animals.
But these original sheds have also served a really important role in the evolution of the Rangers Valley shed program.
They’ve informed the improvements Rangers Valley sought in the design and construction of its new Ridgeback®.
Rangers Valley Feedlot and External Cattle Operations Manager Alex Smith the height of the Ridgeback® ensured more airflow and sunlight compared to the original sheds.
The Ridgeback® patented technology increases natural ventilation and delivers 20 per cent more air changes per hour than gable sheds.
“The airflow design of the Ridgeback® definitely works,”Alex said.
“We see in our older sheds, a lot less passive airflow, and we can get some ammonia smells, especially when the bedding is getting old. That’s definitely not something we have noticed in the Ridgeback® design, to date.”
The cleanliness of the cattle under the Ridgeback® as well as their health, carcass quality and other important markers of profitability will be accessed as part of the MLA trial across the next year.
There’s no doubt the Australian feedlot industry will be watching closely and results of this trial will be available in 2024.
As for the Rangers Valley cattle, they are content.
There’s no weather worries for these bovines, regardless of the temperature.
Big producing Australian dairy cows are more susceptible to heat stress than ever before, but scientists have proven that a multifaceted approach is the best way to stem milk losses.
Leaning on the edge of a concrete feed trough with his arms folded across his chest, Ben Giblett tips his head back slightly while contemplating his answer.
It’s a cool yet sunny day in the rolling coastal hills of south west Victoria.
Dairy cows – mostly black and white Holsteins – dominate the lush green landscape.
From the top of the hills you can see the vast expanse of sea on the far side of the famous Great Ocean Road.
