Mustering on Riversleigh/Lawn Hill

LARGE lines of Brahman heifers that were destined for sale on AuctionsPlus this Friday have already been sold, after private negotiations with two buyers.

As Beef Central reported earlier, about 3000 Red and Grey Brahman heifers off Riversleigh and Lawn Hill stations in Queensland’s Gulf country were being set-up for competition on the national online trading portal this Friday.

If the sale had gone ahead as originally planned, it would have been the largest single-vendor cattle offering ever seen on AuctionsPlus.

However approaches from two large northern private and pastoral company operators has seen competitive deals done in advance. The heifers have already been trucked to their new owners, both described as restockers, with one line heading into Central Queensland, and the other into western Queensland.

The result is another clear reflection of the sustained restocker demand across eastern Australia this year, as producers look to re-populate breeder paddocks after two years of extensive drought and herd reduction.

The heifers were being assembled by Lawn Hill Riversleigh Pastoral Holding Co in Queensland’s Gulf country north of Mt Isa. Most were number 8’s and 9’s, in store to fresh store condition, with a percentage PTIC.

Lawn Hill and Riversleigh run around 45,000 cattle in a good year, but heifers are being sold in greater numbers, and early this year because of the failed northern wet season across the region last summer.

In 2018 Beef Central wrote about the final stage of acquisition of Lawn Hill and Riversleigh cattle stations on the Gregory River, south of Burketown by the local Waanyi people.

Back in 1997 the Gulf Communities Agreement created the Lawn Hill Riversleigh Pastoral Holding Co (LHRPHC) with ownership of the 539,000ha pastoral properties split between mining company New Century Resources (formerly Century Mine – 49pc) and Waanyi Advancement Limited (51pc).

New Century made a commitment to the Waanyi People that it would return 100pc ownership of Lawn Hill and Riversleigh to Waanyi once mining operations wound up. That stage is now complete.