Mr Bloodworth had about 80 per cent of his 160 hectare Dadswell’s Bridge property burnt out by a bushfire three weeks ago, forcing the early sale of his cattle.

He had been negotiating to lease his crop-beef property when the fire struck and was intending to sell the cows at a suitable Horsham market sale.

Instead Mr Bloodworth trucked the cows south to Warrnambool for the feature female sale last Friday, just down the road from Mortlake where they were bought as unjoined heifers several years ago.

Mr Bloodworth’s first pen of 15 Te Mania-blood Angus cows with 16 July-August calves made $1200 at the sale, selling to Tarrington producers D. and M. Meagher. Mr Bloodworth’s 16 fourth and fifth calvers, Te Mania and Whitfield blood, also with a calf each, sold for $1060 to an Elders Mt Gambier client.

Mr Bloodworth’s stock agent Merv Tepper from DMD Murtoa estimated the cattle would average around $1050 which wasn’t far out from the $1030 average received for the 31 cow-calf units.

The sire of the calves, a rising four-year-old Mountainview-blood bull from Stawell, also sold well at $2600, $1000 above expectations.

Mr Bloodworth said he would now concentrate on a home and farm maintenance service for country properties he had been building up. This involved specialised maintenance on investors' properties around Horsham and on larger farms in outlying rural areas.

"It pays a lot better (than beef returns) at this stage of the game," he said.

See a complete Warrnambool Feature Female Sale report on page 58 in Stock and Land this week.