Take advantage of the Government's 50% Investment Allowance for Small Business

The government has announced an expansion of its investment allowance which is aimed at assisting businesses invest in new tangible assets. The additional tax deduction for small businesses has now increased from 30% to 50%. The tax deduction for general businesses is 30%.

A small business generally has a turnover of less than $2 million

• The Tax Break is available for businesses that undertake new investment in new tangible, depreciating assets – that is, plant and equipment – for which a deduction is available under Subdivision 40-B.
• Livestock handling equipment and yards are depreciating assets under Subdivision 40-B, accordingly they do qualify for the Tax Break.
• Capital works covered by Division 43 will not qualify for the Tax Break. Capital works covers buildings, sheds, etc.

Why is this important?

The measure will encourage businesses to continue to invest for the future, in an environment where they might otherwise defer or cut back on planned capital investment.

What is the timeline for the initiative?

The investment allowance will be available for new assets which are acquired, held under a contract or constructed from 13/12/2008 and before 31/12/09 for small business, and the between 13/12/08 and 30/6/09 for general business. . These assets need to be installed and ready for use by June 2010 in order for the investment allowance to be claimed.

Benefits of this initiative?

The measure aims to encourage businesses to undertake capital investment. This investment stimulates business activity which has positive macroeconomic benefits

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http://www.abc.net.au/landline/content/2008/s2663959.htm

Designing better balanced yards by Fiona Cameron

WHEN it comes to cattle yards, an animal-friendly facility is also a people-friendly facility.

Getting the first part of the equation right requires a combination of successful facility design and handling techniques, as more than 350 producers saw firsthand when they attended a field day recently at the state-of-the-art cattle yards on John and Pam Seccombe's property, Kenya, near Muttaburra.

The event was organised by ProWay Prattley Livestock Equipment and hosted by the Seccombe family to give an informative and practical demonstration of modern methods of livestock handling and current advancements in yard design.

The event attracted a crowd of producers from across Queensland and interstate, who were eager to hear a presentation by guest speaker and international livestock handling expert Dr Temple Grandin.

The Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University is a world leader in the design of livestock handling facilities and presented information on low-stress handling and yard design principles, many of which the Seccombes have incorporated into their operation and facilities.

Dr Grandin shared with the audience her designs for curved chute and race systems that are used in cattle handling facilities worldwide, along with handling techniques to improve animal welfare and productivity.

Her presentation at the field day focused initially on cattle behaviour principles, low stress handling using flight zones, and removing distractions from handling facilities that may baulk or obstruct animals, such as shadows, reflections, changes in flooring, moving objects and the incorrect positioning of people in the yards.

She then discussed design principles for maximising stock flow and facilitating low stress handling to ensure operator and animal safety in the yards.

Dr Grandin took the audience through several examples of curved yard layouts that are designed to manipulate natural stock flow.

She emphasised the correct use of solid sheeting in facilities, particularly on the outer radius of single file races and forcing pens to reduce flight zone and touched on common problems and incorrect design applications that could lead to an ineffectual handling facility.

"Equipment is one half of the equation and animal handling and management are the other half.

"A good facility will make handling that much easier," Dr Grandin said.

The field day provided the opportunity for producers to see Dr Grandin's theories in practice during a working demonstration of the Seccombes' state-of-the-art cattle yards.

Construction of the yards was completed in May 2008 to meet the new requirements of the Seccombe's operation, as they moved from predominantly a sheep and wool enterprise to beef production after purchasing their breeder block, Coralie Station near Croydon. The property's existing cattle yards, though still functional, were no longer sufficient to handle the stock numbers that the Seccombes were hoping to process at any one time, as they brought the progeny from their 3000 breeders at Coralie to Kenya for backgrounding.

The new yards are capable of holding up to 1400 head and processing 450 head an hour using only minimal labour.

The facility is designed to make cattle handling quicker and safer, incorporating features that promote stock flow, labour efficiency and operator safety, such as bugled yards that curve and narrow using a compression ratio that encourages animals to comfortably move through the processing area, the use of sheeting and curved races, elevated walkways and a cattle free working area that separates operators from stock. Prattley's Queensland designer, Damien Halloway, who designed the yards to meet Mr Seccombe's specifications, walked the crowd through the facility's design features that manipulate natural stock flow principles and facilitate low stress handling.

He said the Kenya yards were a good representation of how and why these principles work and a true advertisement of what Prattley had to offer northern livestock producers.

The crowd also had the chance to see the latest autodrafting, weighing and animal identification technology in action during the demonstration.

The Seccombes required a facility that was animal friendly, with nothing that would injure or bruise cattle, but labour efficiency was also paramount for the family run enterprise.

Efficient design and labour saving equipment has achieved this objective and it now only takes three people to work 1000 head in the yards, using remote controlled automatic handling technology to process animals through a pneumatically operated working area and auto-draft module that allows the operator to draft up to five ways on a range of indicators, such as weight, sex, sire, or origin.

Over 10,000 head of cattle have been processed through the yards since construction was completed.

Mr and Mrs Seccombe´s son Geoff, who runs Coralie Station with wife Taryn, said the facility was crucial to their cattle enterprise as the main processing centre for the two operations.

"All our weaners are processed here and we´ve been able to design the yards from scratch to meet our own needs," he said.

"The facility has made a huge difference because we don´t need to employ any staff to make our operation work. Because we can now handle 1000 head in a day, we can bring the whole mob in, work them and get them back out and into the paddock eating.

"And, as Temple said, they flow through the yards and they´re stress-free. You´re not taking weight off your cattle with a good set of yards like this."

Geoff said the practical nature of the field day was the key to its success.

"Everyone saw the cattle work through the yards and I think the live, working field day and Dr Temple Grandin´s presentation were real drawcards for so many people."

Reference: Queensland Country Life
Source: http://www.queenslandcountrylife.com

What's in store by Don Story

SPEAKING of Euroa, they’ve just finished installing two new Pratlley-designed curved-race cattle ramps. And they worked a treat in their first real hitout last week.

The solid-walled, curved (bugle) feed design with a round force pen and non-backing swing gate operated from a raised walkway that runs the entire length was hailed a winner.

Livestock transporter Dom Shanahan, Wodonga, said he loaded a B-double in half the time it would normally take.

"For a saleyard that has a sale once a month, this is fantastic," he said. "The bigger centres should come and have a look and follow Euroa’s lead. These ramps are tremendous."

Watching the loadout last Friday, the new design takes a little getting used to because transporters and drovers no longer have to get in with the cattle. Once the concept of separation of man and beast is understood, the cattle flow nicely.

Reference:
Written by Don Story
Markets "What's in Store"
Stock & Land
Issue 2nd July 2009

Producers embrace low-stress handling

TEMPLE Grandin thought Texas was big. Now she’s seen something bigger. The international livestock handling expert was blown away by the vastness of Western Queensland’s grazing country when she guest starred at a cattle handling field day near Muttaburra on Monday.

"Texas is tiny," Dr Grandin said, still surprised by the fact after more than 24 hours in the outback, and followed up with a statement that was music to the ears of the 350 producers who travelled from across the State and as far as South Australia to attend the event.

"There’s only one thing that you can do out here and that’s raise livestock."

The Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University and world leader in the design of livestock handling facilities drew a large crowd to the field day, which was organised by ProWay Prattley Livestock Equipment and hosted by the Seccombe family at the state-ofthe-art cattle yards (pictured lower right) on John and Pam Seccombe’s property, Kenya.

Dr Grandin shared her theories on modern methods of livestock handling that improve animal welfare and productivity and discussed her designs for curved chute and race systems that are used in cattle handling facilities worldwide. She took the audience through several examples of curved yard layouts, designed to manipulate natural stock flow principles and facilitate low stress handling, along with common problems and incorrect design applications that lead to ineffectual handling facilities.

Dr Grandin has also developed an objective scoring system for assessing livestock handling at processing plants to improve animal welfare, which she uses when auditing animal handling systems and facilities of some of the largest processing plants in the US, Europe and Australia, including McDonalds. With principle breakthroughs in livestock handling and yard design now widely practiced, she said the next area of development would be in these systems of handling scoring.

The field day provided the opportunity for producers to see Dr Grandin’s livestock handling principles in practice during a working demonstration of the Seccombes’ impressive cattle yards. Prattley’s Queensland designer, Damien Halloway, who designed the yards to meet Mr Seccombe’s specifications, walked the crowd through the facility’s design features. Construction of the yards was completed in May 2008 and Prattley consider it the flagship of their yard designs in Queensland.

The facility is capable of holding up to 1400 head and processing 450 head an hour, using remote controlled automatic handling technology through a pneumatically operated working area and auto-draft module that allows the operator to draft automatically up to five ways on a range of indicators, such as weight, sex, sire, or origin. Tru Test rep, Steve Eussen, demonstrated the latest autodrafting, weighing and animal identification technology used in the facility.

Key industry issues were also on the agenda at the event. MLA general manager for marketing, David Thomason discussed the Beef Levy review and MSA livestock supply coordinator Mark Inglis looked industry issues associated with minimising bruising and dark cutters.

The day concluded with the AgForce Cattle Board open forum, chaired by AgForce cattle president, Grant Maudsley and driven by producer’s questions on issues such as the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, rail access, leasehold land management and rent, animal welfare, tick management and AgForce’s lobbying for improvements to be made to NLIS.

    

Reference:
QLD Country Life
Issue Thursday 2/7/09
Article and photo by Fiona Cameron

Towards the end of 2007 ProWay was approached by the new owners and managers of Pooginook Merino Stud at Coleambally to design, manufacture and construct new sheep working yards. The aim was to have two separate working areas that could be used independently to facilitate multiple tasks. As Pooginook already had some existing strong (but not as functional) yards we tried the best we could to utilize these and create the best outcome, but not be too influenced what was there.

The two areas designed are;

1. Typical drafting and working race area featuring
   • Bugle design
   • 4 way draft
   • Raised double working race with 3 way draft at the end.
   • Roof over draft and working races
   • 2 diamond yards for catching sheep or going from one pen to the other, designed in a way that if one pen gets full then it should be able to spill into another that is empty.
2. Goose neck working area featuring;
   • Curved lead up
   • Rotary force that keeps crowding sheep towards the race entry.
   • Adjustable curved lead up race.
   • ProWay 5 way autodrafter, including classing box.
   • Recessed ‘pit’ for classer to stand in to get a good view of the animal being classed.
   • Roof over rotary force, race and autodrafter.
   • 5 yards that sheep can be automatically drafted into. Animals can be drafter by weight, micron, sire groups, comfort factor, sex etc or what ever live data that you have collected. The antenna on the side of the autodrafter read the electronic ear tag which can recognize that animal and automatically draft to whatever the desired field is.

The system of integrating the ProWay autodrafter, Tru Test XR3000 indicator and Allflex panel antenna is a tried and true relationship of equipment that will work.

This is the third set of stockyards we have built for Pooginook over the last eight years. ProWay would like to thank them for their repeat business and putting the trust in is to built a state of the art system for handling sheep.

ProWay was chosen to supply and install the new sheep loading ramps and drafting races at the recently opened Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange.

The ProWay ramps were chosen because of their superior design which maximizes operator safety and stock flow.

These ramps are from the ProWay saleyard range which are extra heavy duty to handle constant use. Some of the ramp features include a walkway that goes right to the end of the ramp, this maximises operator access. A truckie access allows quick access to the ramp and stock crate from the walkway.

The ramps were designed with input from major livestock carriers; because of this ProWay ramps are the preferred loading ramps of many carriers.

  

A recent ProWay project has been to design, manufacture and install new horse holding facilities at the new state of the art Charles Sturt University Equine Centre.

The work includes mare holding pens, stallion holding pens, under cover mare yards, teasing facilities and loading and unloading facilities.

The yards were designed to maximize safety of the horses. The yards have a smooth top rail and oval cattle rail rails to ensure horse safety.

This work follows on from the cattle and sheep complexes ProWay have built at Charles Sturt University.

 

ProWay designer Damien Halloway and yard foreman George Wittacker with the 1450 head capacity cattleyards sold to John Seccombe of Kenya Pastoral Company, Longreach. The yards represent state of the art design with pneumatic drafting systems which improve stock flow and reduce labour requirements.

 

ProWay have recently installed five under and over cattle ramps at the new Central Tablelands Livestock Exchange (CTLX).

These loading ramps represent the latest in safe livestock loading and unloading.

Elevated walkways and gates with special catches that can be operated from walkways mean operators and stock are separated. Most injuries occur in forcing yards that is why it is so important to separate cattle and drivers.

The ramps have a hydraulically operated deck height adjuster. The ramp floors can be adjusted to suit different crates.

Operator access is a feature with walkways and steps or both sides of the ramp.

ProWay has incorporated feedback from major livestock carriers in the design of truckie access doors. We have also included a sliding gate at the truck end on both decks. This means that the driver is totally isolated from stock when closing the truck door.

Many livestock carriers regard ProWay loading ramps as the best available.