Connor Ballingall

• As the Director/Business Owner of my own company, my main job was the efficient, effective, and safe operation of my business. operating in construction I had to co-ordinate my Employees, meet with clients, schedule materials and hardware for each job, problem solve when issues would present themselves, as well as be on the tools myself when required, I also had to quote jobs, profit and loss tables, cost analysis and payrolls.

i employed at most 12 full time workers, which meant one of my main priority's was saftey, with a medium size workforce I had to ensure each person came to work and went home safely at the end of the day, this involved carefully assessing each task to be completed then putting a plan in place to ensure it was completed as safe as possible

As the head of a business one of my biggest roles was problem solving, being in charge meant I had to have the answers when approached about it and in a timely manner, not always job specific i was always kept on my toes.

• Webb Pastoral "Located at Glenburn on the slopes of the Great Dividing Range in Victoria, Webb Pastoral supplies high performance, commercially focused genetics to the Australian beef industry. Webb Pastoral takes pride in breeding easy doing, structurally sound carcase bulls. Webb`s are one of the founding fathers for the Black Simmental breed in Australia. Philip had a belief and a
  vision that Black Simmentals will and do play a valuable role in beef production in Australia by adding some genetic diversity to the ever-growing Australian Angus herd." taken from the Webb Pastoral website.
• Webb Pastoral was a 2,500 acre Farm located in the hills of Victoria, here they ran 1000 breeders 450+ calves and 37 stud bulls as well as steers for sale.
• they also ran 2000 sheep first cross, merino and Aussie whites
• The primary focus was Black Simmentals, but also running Angus, speckle park, and Charolais mobs.
• My time at Webb Pastoral was very different to station life, being hands on with a high performance breeding program involving high quality livestock. all the basic farm Hand jobs were the same but there was a much larger focus on modern technology new infrastructure and a higher focus on animal husbandry. using things like Agriwebb, a very intensive AI program which I partook in, all stud cattle were heavily monitored and a very large focus on the health and well being of each beast was prioritised. I did a lot of administering shots and vitamins both subcutaneous and intramuscular both for general health and the breeding program. feeding bales of silage were apart of my daily routine. monitoring and improving pasture were also apart of my job, clearing tussles and weeds, grazing pressure, spreading of fertilisers. Webb Pastoral were also self sustaining having a few hundred acres of there own silage crops. Lick runs, calf marking, extensive use of the nils system, a large focus was on low stress stock handling with the animals wellbeing always a priority.
• Performed routine maintenance and repairs on farm structures, such as fences and barns.
• Loaded and unloaded trucks with supplies or products from the farm.
• Organized new stock arrivals by size, color and age to facilitate health examinations and breeding program.
• Engaged in land clearing and field preparation activities for new planting seasons.
• Organized storage areas for harvested crops.
• Marked livestock to identify ownership and grade using brands, tags or tattoos.

Eldwick Pastoral comprised of 3 properties all adjoining in the central west Queensland Channel country

Warbreccan station 355,000 acres

Eldwick 155,000 acres

Bancoora Station 50,000 acres

Eldwick Pastoral also ran cattle on multiple adjistment properties in Kyuna, Thargomindah and Eulo all also in QLD

Eldwicks total herd was around 16,000 Head in total

with a further 4000 sheep.

11,000 head were stationed on the main property where I primarily lived and worked.

primarily running Santa Getrudis and Brahmans with some Angus Bulls in a traditional station manner where the bulls were out with the mobs all year round and they

conducted 2 rounds of mustering annually per property.

My day to day tasks on the station were always varied but not limited too loading and unloading decks of cattle, moving cattle from paddock to paddock to improve pasture through grazing pressure, monitor the condition of the mobs and decide if they needed to be relocated, tailing weaners, calf branding and marking, ear marking, dehorning, drenching fencing, welding, improving station infrastructure, maintenance and repairs, maintenance on machinery and equipment, operating all manner of machinery, front end loaders, graders, tractors, bobcats, digging dams and repairing tracks and roads. mustering on 2 and 4 wheel motorbikes using 2 way radios and helicopters, drafting and sorting cattle, lick runs, monitoring of dams and water sources, repairs on poly pipe plumbing. No 2 days on the station were the same and I loved every minute of it.

• Inverness Station 10,000 acres
• Rhyola Station 15,000 acres
• Wetuppa 2000 acres

Inverness and Rhyola stations are adjoining properties owned by a good friend of mine, at various points throughout the last few years weather I've been quiet or he may have needed an extra set of hands I've worked on these properties. Helping with all manner of station and Farm Tasks. much the same as my more permanent fulltime roles.

Running about 1200 head of Angus and Hereford cattle.

3000 head of first cross and merino sheep.

This property differed from the others as it had the capacity for a larger cropping focus hosting paddocks with full irrigation systems supplied direct from the local Forrest Creek. this required pump maintenance, siphoning and monitoring all irrigation systems.