2025 Field Day

Now that most of the packing up is done and we’ve all had a good night’s sleep we can reflect on our field day. Themes that repeated themselves throughout the day were curiosity, connection, resilience and efficiency… All vital for us to continue building a stable future for our great beef industry!

Firstly, thank you to all those who took the time to come out to Coota Park for the day, whether you are longtime friends and clients, or new faces, we appreciate it greatly. We have had a few great discussions about purpose and values over these last few days, and one of our values at Coota Park is always seeking growth and learning and being willing to have hard conversations and challenge our own beliefs. This isn't always comfortable! We greatly appreciate those who come along willing to learn and grow alongside us!

To our MC, Casey Proctor from Local Land Services NSW, thank you for leading us through the day, valiantly attempting to keep us on track and rolling with last minute changes – not an easy task!

Our first presenter, Stuart Austin from Audacious Agriculture spoke about the current state of Artificial Intelligence, and how it may impact our industry going forward, both in positive and negative ways – a real eye opener on some of the potential applications and efficiencies it might bring, and some pitfalls to watch out for! What a great asset it may be going forward to capture the true scope of the biodiverse natural capital that as farmers we are all stewards of.

Next up we had Caitlin Herbert from Gundamain Pastoral Co, who spoke to her findings and takeaways from both her Nuffield Scholarship and her family’s successful feedlot and mixed farming business. It was an excellent insight into how the grass fed and grain fed sectors of our industry don't have to be antagonistic but can work in symbiosis to give our systems flexibility and resilience in the face of rapidly changing markets and fluctuating environmental conditions.

Following Caitlin, we had Richard Parkes from Local Land Services NSW who spoke on his time working for Beef and Lamb New Zealand and his extensive background in sustainable agriculture extension and education. The data he presented from the New Zealand beef and lamb industries efforts over the last 30 years to mitigate their livestock related emissions and foster social license was fascinating, and he had some excellent takeaways on how we can apply the lessons learnt through that process to our own industries here in Australia. A key message was that one of the best ways forward for producers is to focus on improving the fecundity and production of each animal we farm, which can then enable us as an industry to reduce stocking rates and thus emissions, without reducing our level of production.

A delicious lunch of steak sandwiches and Blue-E sausages was cooked to perfection by the Woodstock Progress Association who support us every year, thank you!

Our amazing vendors were ready and waiting to chat with our attendees, and we had something for everyone – Delta Agribusiness/Lachlan Fertilizers Rural, Coopers Animal Health, Elanco, Virbac, Zoetis, Thunderbird, Allflex, Riverina Australia, Switch Ag, Conron Stockcrete, Local Land Services NSW, Optiweigh, Amos Water Tanks and our fantastic neighbours at the SheepMaster Parent Stud even brought some of their top quality shedding rams for us to view.

After lunch we heard from Dr. Kath Donoghue from NSW Agriculture with some hot off the press takeaways from the recent Southern Multibreed research project. It was a fascinating insight into the scope of the project – continual scanning of heifers to accurately detect age of puberty was just one of the unique data points that was collected! A key takeaway was that while there is variation between breeds, there is also a huge amount of variation within each breed. This allows us as producers chasing the increased fecundity and production mentioned by Richard to find and use those animals with the right genetics to get us where we want to go.

Bill Mitchell from Optiweigh then shared with us his almost accidental journey into precision animal data with his in-paddock weigh stations. It was interesting to hear how the product evolved and how the things they have learnt along the way weren’t necessarily what they thought they would find at the beginning! It turns out accurate and real time weight data can not only help you hit market specs more efficiently, but it can also help you manage your ecosystem, highlight health issues and limiting factors in your herd performance and reduce stress on your livestock and yourself.

Jake Chandler gave an engaging presentation that challenged us all to choose curiosity and context over judgement and comparison, to create not just learning but connection. He then wove in his studies with Integrity Soils on truly holistic systems that take a step back for an integrative view of ecosystem health instead of reactive and narrow focus solutions to immediate problems. After making a convincing case for looking beyond just a soil test to improve the health and performance of our soils and plants, he demonstrated it in real time with some audience participation, a bucket, some duct tape, a whole bunch of water and plenty of laughs! (Pictured below!)

To finish off the day Stuart Austin continued with the theme of curiosity and connection to encourage us all to be aware of our own thoughts and feelings, and how we can proactively work to increase our resilience and ability to cope during the tough times. He shared a little of his journey of managing his own mental health, and the strategies he uses to optimise his own wellbeing from a holistic perspective. A great takeaway from Stuart’s talk was the value of the moment between stimulus and response – the moment where we can consciously choose the way we respond.

Throughout the day we had our 2025 sale bulls on display, as well as our V drop bulls who have just finished feed testing and some of our new Blue-E/Santa Gertrudis X bulls. Our sale catalogue was available hot off the press for clients to look through – we hope to see you all at our sale on September 2nd!

One last thanks to our whole team here at Coota Park Blue-E – Jon, Nick, Jeremy and Lauren, as well as all our family and friends who pulled together to make this day happen.

Lets all take the moment between the stimulus and response to choose curiosity and connection for a stronger beef industry and healthier systems, whether that be our businesses, our communities or our own minds!