Brickhouse Station

In 2020, Thompson Longhorn supplied cattle equipment to Harvest Road Beef during the redevelopment of yard infrastructure at Brickhouse Station, in Gascoyne, WA. After drought-breaking rains, the 225,000ha station functions as the backgrounding property for cattle before they are transferred to finishing properties in southern Western Australia.

The yards include horse entrance through a curved bugle through to the 360-degree manual crowding yard. The crowd is fully sheeted to prevent cattle baulking from external distractions and is always supplied with an operator’s catwalk. The design ensures the safety of both the animals and the handlers, reduces the stress on the livestock, and increases efficiency.

From the crowd leads out into the lane, with the option of a loadout gate for cattle to exit through a straight lane to a single deck loading ramp or continue forward into a vee profile curved lane. The vee style profile accommodates various sizes of livestock as it helps to prevent cattle from turning their bodies around in a lane.

The chosen restrainer for this set of yards is the Monarch MKII, as it gives operators the ability to operate the pneumatic functions with ease and remotely using a handheld control. This allows the key operator to move efficiently around the processing area and operate slide gates, yard gates, and the draft remotely while carrying out other tasks, which is time-efficient and less labour intensive.

A 6-way drafter allows livestock to exit 6 different ways from the Monarch. This was important for the yard operators as there are a wide variety of cattle that have to be sorted when processing. This creates a time-efficient sorting process for all types of operations whether it be for breeders, trade cattle or routine weighing. A pneumatically operated drafting unit can be automated through a PLC based control system that integrates with herd management software to selectively separate animals based on pre-determined criteria.