NAME: Will Scott
PROPERTY NAME: Wynyangoo Station and Narndee Station
PROPERTY LOCATION: Mount Magnet, Western Australia
PROPERTY SIZE: 387,200ha
NUMBER OF GOATS: 25,000 – 45,000
MAIN GOAT ENTERPRISE: Meat
TARGET MARKET: Export trade – live goats and carcases
Will operates a free-range grazing system. The herd is dominated by females, with the exception of kids and 5% breeding males.
Internal fencing is a thing of the past. Stock are now controlled by the strategic establishment of watering points, with trap yards located at water. The watering points have been located to encourage even grazing across the property. Over the course of a year, goats will usually travel within a radius of 5km of water, and it was with this in mind that Will planned the layout of his water supply.
Will has found that the grazing behaviour of female goats has facilitated the regeneration of many rangeland plants. He explains that with the removal of bucks, females become more territorial and less inclined to mob together, reducing the grazing pressure on a given area. Females are much less destructive than male goats and tend to graze more at ground level. They are gentle grazers, sampling from a wide range of plants, without stripping individual plants. This allows plants to set some seed, thus facilitating the renewal process. Will contrasts this with his experience in running a sheep enterprise on this land, where the sheep ran in mobs and tended to overgraze particular species.
Will believes that the key to sustainable management of the rangeland environment is monitoring and balancing fodder availability and stock numbers. If the system is in balance, the enterprise can function profitably and sustainably.
