Colanya

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Property Name: Colanya

Location: Longreach, Queensland, Australia.

History:

Colanya was a block drawn in a Ballot in 1954 by James Hegarty (Senior). The land was originally part of a larger property called Corona which was owned by the Australian Agricultural Company. When acquired, the property had a Boundary Riders hut, one dam, and one sub-artesian bore for stock water. There was no shearing shed and the sheep were shorn next door at the Corona shed. When James acquired the land he walked 1500 ewes over 700 kilometres from Cunnamulla to Longreach to stock it. In 1996 the current owners (Pat and Sue Hegarty) purchased an additional 8000 acres, making the total area 33000 acres.

People:

Colanya was first owned by James Hegarty (Senior) and his wife Marion. James originally came from the Toowoomba area and Marion from Cunnamulla. They had four children, one son and three daughters. The son, Pat, is the present owner of the property with his wife Sue. They have two children James and Emma. Both children love the land and livestock and will eventually take over the management of Colanya. Sue was a city girl from Newcastle and went teaching to Queensland where she met and married Pat and settled into country life at Colanya 140 kilometres from the nearest town, Longreach. We have always had sheep and have always strived to improve our stock and our property. The better the sheep get, the keener we seem to get, especially now that our own children are expressing a lot of interest as well. Our philosophy is to do the best we can with what we have.

Sustainable Production:

By sub dividing more paddocks over the years, we have got to a point where we can now rotate stock around a lot more to spell country periodically. By using the agistment cattle to eat off a large body of grass to a more usable level for sheep we then move the cattle on to a fresh paddock and put the sheep in behind them. From the original 7 paddocks, Colanya is now 18 with two more paddocks earmarked for sub-division in 2011. We ceased mulesing in 2006, which we consider one of the best things we ever did, from a management point of view as well as the animal welfare aspect. As a result we now use a lot less chemical treatment.

Benefits of SRS®

I first attended an SRS® workshop in Blackall Qld in 2000. At the time I was very disillusioned with where my sheep breeding was going. I could hardly wait to get stuck into my new found direction. The most noticeable difference initially was the reduction in micron. We used to be around 22.5 to 23 micron but our flock average is now 19.5. The wool was really harsh with a big blocky staple, and a lot of discolouration. Our sheep were also carrying a lot of skin and big necks which I hated. I did my own crutching for 20 years and couldn't see any reason to have wrinkles on them. Now, 11 years on and we have very plain bodied sheep, that are bigger, do not require mulesing and have softer wool of 19.5 During our recent wet season when we had 27 inches of rain from September 2010 to March 2011 we had less than 1% fly strike. The lambings have improved by 30-40 % and we very rarely see any “Tail” on our mobs of sheep. In the old days we always had a lot of sheep with poor constitution.

Contacts:
Name: Pat & Sue Hegarty
Address: Colanya Longreach Qld 4730
Ph: 0746589163
Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.