Today was another really educational day. We started off the
day by having a bit of breakfast at the hotel. This morning we all phoned home
from the Ipad’s since we had free internet connection. It was good to at least
say hi . We headed out and went to the sale yard in Wagga Wagga. The sale yard
was definitely different from America. The auctioneer didn’t really auction
anything. They more screamed out numbers. The buyers all had desks with phones
too. Like I said, it was an extremely different set up. They can run 500 head
of cattle through the yards in an hour. They were very efficient. The data was
all up electronically, so they didn’t say much about the animals they just sold
them. This picked up the speed on how fast they sold each lot. I wish I could
say more about the sale yards, but I was in the back and couldn’t really hear
the guy that was speaking with us.
Something that was cool about today was that we got to see a
completely integrated system on all different levels. These steps were all the
way from the feed yard to the packing plant. After we went to the sale yards,
we went across the street to the Cargill abattoir (in American terms a
slaughter plant). JBS (the slaughter plant we visited a couple days ago) is Cargill’s
biggest competitor. Cargill is an American company, so it was interesting to
see the comparisons between the two slaughter houses. One thing that was really
weird was that they process the reticulum and omasum. Delicacy! They also
process a lot of tongue and tail. I
would say more technical differences, but just like I did with JBS I want to
respect Cargill’s privacy. This tour
worked out a lot better because they were able to break us up into small
groups, so that we could hear the tour guide. They employ around 4,000 people
and have 600 at the Wagga Wagga plant.
After visiting the plant, we headed to have a nice lunch in
the town of Temora. I had lasagna. Delicious! We got an hour to do a bit of
shopping. That would have been really cool had there been any shops in that
town. Anyways, after eating we headed out to the Cargill feed lot. We all felt
at home at the feed lot. The cattle were being treated with HGP and operated in
the way that a Kansas feed lot would be ran. It was mostly black cattle which
is different than the farms we have went to so far. They were running 15,000
head with a capacity of 17,000 head of cattle. Something that is very different
is that feed lots are required to do a
washing process. This gets most of the mud off of the animal before being
processed. If we did that in America, we would be scrubbing for a while! Haha
No they just spray them down with a couple hoses before slaughter.
Tomorrow we head to Sydney! It is a 5 hour drive, so the
blogging will probably be limited again with no WIFI. Until next time good day
mates!
Katelyn
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