Cambil Brahmans

Good Morning everyone!

It is day 3 at Cambil Brahmans and I've finally got my computer and internet working so let me catch you up to speed!  I am staying at the home of Bill and Tolma Camm which sits right in the middle of two seperate mountain ranges.  Let me just say that I have a pretty awesome view from my window!  Cambil Brahmans is roughly 3000 acres; mostly spread out among seperate properties.  Along with raising Brahman cattle, the Camm family are also sugarcane farmers.  According to Bill, about 1700 acres of their property is for sugarcane. 

On Monday, I woke up and went to the kitchen dressed for the day in jeans, a t-shirt and my LSU cap (basically what I've been wearing every day) before we left, Bill says "Ah Brooke you won't need that cap, we will get you an Aussie hat" and goes to his room and comes back with an Akubra.  So yep, I'm officially an Aussie and have been wearing the Akubra every day since.  We went for a drive around the property and helped to round up cattle for the Proserpine show which is this Friday and Saturday.  Along with the "led cattle" classes, there are also group classes such as: a pen of three steers not weighing more than 500 kilos, and so on.  All ready for this weekend!

Lawson, Bill and Tolma's son, also runs Cambil Brahmans; cool thing is, he came to the U.S. on the Hudgins Scholarship and stayed with various Brahman ranches about 16 years ago.  Now he is married to a lovely lady named Sophie and they have 5 children; Georga, Mitchell, Liam, Charlie, and James.  Georga is 13 and is taller than me! Mitchell is very into showing and will be showing at the show this weekend,  Charlie is dad's little helper, he even gets to drive the small tractor to feed the bulls!  Liam never wears shoes and is prettey much indestructable, and James is 3 and the cutest little kid I have ever seen, and not shy one bit! By the way, all of the kids have very thick Australian accents and say things like: "pardon" and "right-o" makes me laugh!

Tuesday, I was able to go to the sugarcane fields with Bill and see how they planted and prepared the land for the upcoming crop.  Driving through the endless cane fields, I definately felt like I was home in Louisiana.  I was able to see some pretty cool wildlife, these huge birds about 3 or 4 ft. tall were wondering around the paddocks when we drove up, they are called brolga's.  They are grey and red with massive claws and long beaks, they kind of reminded me of a small ostrich with less feathers.  On the way to check cattle at a different property, I saw about 30 wallabe's!  A wallabe is pretty much a mini kangaroo and are about 4 ft. tall; pretty cool! Sadly, the only kangaroo I have yet to see in Australia was a dead one on the side of the road yesterday morning...

Today, which is Wednesday, I was able to do some pretty cool things and get down and dirty.  We sorted and grouped the cattle going to the show and had to weigh and mouth them.  Then came the paint branding; for the show, the pen cattle classes have to be paint branded with the class number and exhibitor number on either side of their back.  We used red paint, so needless to say I was covered in red paint...  That was fun, but the best part about today was that I got to drive the Ute around the paddock and into town.  I was so nervous that I was going to ease onto the wrong side of the road!  Everything felt backwards, I had to drive a standard left handed, but I survived and the Ute is still in one piece!

Beach Break!

One of the amazing things about Australia is the fact that it is a small country and continent but very diverse!  Thursday night, I took a Charter bus 7 hours to a very small town in Queensland called Proserpine; home of the Camm family.  This week I will be staying at Cambil Brahmans, a Brahman cattle ranch that is also home to acres of sugarcane fields as far as the eye can see.  Bill and Tolma Camm, along with their son Lawson and his wife Sophie and five children are graciously hosting me this week.  I am also looking forward to this weekend, I will be traveling to the Proserpine Cattle Show with Lawson and his children who will be participating.  I love watching the junior exhibitors show here, it reminds me of the young members at home; they share the same passion and love for Brahman cattle and showing 15,000 miles apart.

In just 7 hours, I feel as though I have entered into a whole new world!  Proserpine is about 15 minutes from a small beach town, Airlie Beach, located right on the coast.  Airlie Beach is part of the Whitsundays, which also includes includes 72 islands off the coast of Australia, or in other words...just a boat ride away. :)  Unlike Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia, Proserpine is near the coast and is definitely a small town!

I was able to take the weekend off and go to the beach to see the barrier reef and experience a completely different side of Australia.  I'm so glad I did!  The beaches are pure white and the water is crystal blue, not to mention once out on the islands it is so peaceful and quiet...seriously like heaven on Earth.  I am really glad that I was able to experience this amazing place with a fellow Brahman friend Crystal Ahrnes from Arkansas.  Crystal has been in Australia since May working on a research project with the university in Brisbane and also on a cattle station a few hours from Proserpine.  We were both interested in going to the reef so we coordinated dates and decided to go at the same time!  That's one of the great things about showing Brahman cattle, I have made friends all over the US and the world. 

At the beach, we were able to go shopping at the local markets, swimming, snorkeling, and go to a lookout over the prettiest place I've ever seen!  Seriously, the lookout we were at is on the front of a post card!  All in all, we had a great time and now I am sunburnt again, but it was definitely worth it!  Who knows, it might turn into a tan....

Pictures cannot begin to describe the beauty of this place but here are some of my favorites :)

 

 

 A picture is worth 1000 words right? :)

Last Few Days at Kenrol

G'day mate! (I'm starting to feel like a real Aussie) Haha!

I've been pretty busy lately and have barely found time to blog; so, I'm going to catch up now!  First things first, this past Thursday was my final day at Kenrol Brahman Stud for a few week; I will return later this month for the Junior Beef Show.  It was a crazy week, filled with early mornings and late nights.  Since I have been at Kenrol, we have been preparing donor females to flush and receipts for the embryos.  With eleven donor females, and double the amount of receipts, we had our work cut out for us!  The donors were given injections to increase the number of eggs released during ovulation and were carefully monitored to see when they came in heat and later artificially inseminated.  The receipts were also monitored to see when they came into heat and were then matched with the donor females that had similar cycles.  This is where the early mornings and late nights come in!

On Wednesday, the Vet came by to begin the flush process.  This was very exciting for me because I was able to be physically involved in the flush and I also got to see how the embryos were retrieved, evaluated, and placed into small syringes with a very fine flexible tube in place of a needle.  The receipt females were surgically implanted with the embryos from donor females.  I was able to watch the vet cut and enter either the left or right side of the female (depending on which ovary she ovulated on) and inject the embryo into the uterine horn.  Since this was a surgical procedure, the receipts were then stitched up.  In about 6 weeks, the receipts will have their stitches removed and will be preg tested.

Another cool thing about this week; I was able to help with the plunge dip for the second time.  The cattle we dipped last week will have to be dipped a second time to insure that they are tick free.  The property in which the cattle came from is in a tick populated area and the feedlot where they are headed is located in a "tick free zone" so in order for the cattle to be sold to the feedlot they have to be 100% tick free.  Crazy thing is, if the inspectors find a single tick on any one of the cattle being brought to the "tick free zone", the entire load will be dismissed and will have to be sent back to be dipped again.  So fingers crossed the cattle will be tick free after the second dip!


Here are some better pictures from the dip as promised!

Waiting to enter the dip.

Exiting the dip.

After exiting the dip, cattle are held in a holding pen for five minutes before returning to their paddocks.

I still cannot get over the beauty of the Australia sky, its amazing!

A Bird's Eye View

One of the cool things about Kenrol, is the amazing amount of wild birds that seem to hang around.  Besides the cockatoos, these amazing rainbow colored birds come to visit the kitchen window every morning for a snack.  My first day at the Cole's I noticed a small door inside the window above the sink which resembled a small cat door.  I could never figure out what that door was used for until a few days later when two birds were waiting patiently outside the window and Vicki gave them a treat!  Crazy right?

These beautiful wild birds come to the window every day looking for a treat, so today we went outside to feed them and this is what happened....

Amazing!

And the Cold Sets In...

So remember how I said I got a sunburn last week at Rocky Show, well the weather has definitely took a turn for the "worst"!!  By that I mean COLD and rainy!  It started raining here late Friday night and continued to rain all day Saturday; along with the rain came a cold front.  It is now Sunday here in Rockhampton and guess what the weather is like...beautiful, warm, and the sun is out!  I'm starting feel more like I am in Louisiana because of the mood swings the weather is throwing out!

Anyway, the cold weather hasn't stopped Kenrol from conducting business as usual.  Before the rain came, it was time to AI on Thursday.  At 9 p.m. sharp, Wendy, Vicki (a helpx exchange girl from the UK), and myself bundled up and headed to the "top yards" to AI.  Lets just say that I was VERY happy to get back inside the warm house after that was through!

Early Friday, cattle from the north were brought to be dipped for ticks before being sent to the feed yards.  This was a very neat experience for me since I had never seen cattle dipped in a "plunge dipper" before.  Later Friday, another load of cattle were brought in to be dipped as well. Since it started raining while in the process of unloading, we will have to wait until tomorrow or Tuesday to dip them.

I will have better pictures of the dip by Tuesday but here are a few for the time being...

Freezing!

So excited to AI!

Cattle waiting to be dipped

Plunge dip

So, so, so dirty after the dip...Every cow, calf, or bull that passed through the dip managed to sling mud on me while I opened the gates!

Rocky Show

First of all, I would like to correct myself on an earlier blog, this show was the Rockhampton "Rocky" Show (open and junior) not the Junior Beef Show.  Anyway, the show was great!  It was a long week, but all in all a success, and I even managed to get a sunburn...in winter.  I was also able to participate in the junior judging contest and won third place and my first Australian money!  By the way, their money is alot cooler than the States, they have purple, green, and blue bills!

Besides junior judging, I can proudly say that I have showed in another country!  I had the great opportunity to travel to the Rocky Show with the Cole's of Kenrol Brahman Stud, to work and help show a few of their cattle. Everyone was very welcoming and friendly, I got the chance to meet Brahman breeders from all over Australia as well as other beef breeders.

Here are a few shots from the show...

Motherly love

Clean butts!

No time for a sit down lunch!

I had to borrow a hat for the show ring all day!

Overseas mum! Great lady who has helped me out so much!

Cutie pie Alexandria and Data, she thought he should be wearing a hat too!

From now on, I will be known as "Louisiana" among the Aussie show barns or sheds, a big thank you to everyone who made this week a blast for me!

Beef Breeding Services

Before going to the Rocky Show, I got the chance to go to the Queensland Beef Breeding Services, or in other words..."the Australian Genex".  Very cool, I went with Wendy Cole to drop off a semen tank and ended up taking a tour of the facility!  

Here are the similarities...

Like us, they use large nitrogen tanks to store semen for customers and research,etc.  However, the tanks pictured here are the ONLY large tanks they have.  These tanks are quite a bit smaller than the tanks we use at the Baton Rouge Genex, but we do have a few small ones in distribution. 

Wonder where the rest of it is stored....

They use a "working pot" or "holding tank" to work in.

And obviously a nitrogen tank.

Here are the differences...

Ahh, here is where they store all of the other semen!  Two sheds full of semen tanks lined neatly in alphabetical order by customer or farm name.  I learned that it is much cheaper for the customer to leave their semen tank at the facility and only to pick it up when they need it and bring it back when finished.  Can you imagine filling ALL of these tanks with a hose?  Yikes..

Instead of using a funnel and bucket to quick fill the tanks, they use a nitrogen diffuser.  Much faster and very easy to use.

 I thought this was a cool, funny looking tank. 

 The cool part it that it is only for horse semen.

What you will not find here: CANES!  Who would have thought?  Instead of "caning" the semen, they use small goblets.