ROADBOSS joins Australia’s most prolific goat carter, Rocky Capisciolto, who moves more than 600,000 free-roaming beasts around ‘The Goat Bowl’ and beyond each year … and he does it for the love of the game
Countless immigrants have chosen Australia for a better life, and one of them is an Italian goat farmer named Max Capisciolto, who walked away from his hometown of Calabria back in 1966.
He packed his life into two suitcases and made his way to the port at Naples, from where he’d spend six weeks traveling to Australia, leaving his wife and first-born son at home. When at the port, two grifters approached Max, attempting to sell him a pair of socks. It was a common scam back then. If you put down your suitcases to feel the socks before buying them, you’d be robbed.
“Do you idiots think there’s anything of value in these suitcases if I’m leaving for a better life?” he asked them, picking the scam from a mile away. “Get outta here!”
In the years that followed, Max worked tirelessly at factories and on farms, saving every penny. A few years after he arrived Down Under, he’d saved enough to bring his wife, Anna, and son, Joe, to Australia where he’d begun building a better life for them.
A chance to buy into a poultry operation gave him a serious leg up, but an even bigger opportunity was on the horizon. In 1973, Max realised there was an abundance of wild, free-roaming goats around New South Wales, near Broken Hill. He knew goats, so spotted the unique opportunity everybody else had overlooked.
I can’t smell ‘em. Soon as I go near people that don’t work around goats, they go, ‘What’s that smell’!?
He bought an International C1600 crate truck, mustering and selling the rangeland goats to an abattoir at Broken Hill, where they were processed and sent all over the world. A few years later, in 1978, his second son, Rocky, was born, who is today Australia’s most prolific goat carter.
We had originally planned to follow Rocky from Broken Hill, where he and his business partner and long-term friend Tony Kairouz co-own a stock yard – which is the site of the old abattoir Max delivered to. Typically, Rocky will load goats from the surrounding stations, before taking them to his yard, and then onto Meatco (also owned by Tony) at Mildura where they’re processed.
But an onslaught of rain made the run impossible, so we instead decide to follow Rocky as he runs an AB-triple load of goats to Mildura after grabbing them from a nearby property. Not to worry, because Rocky assures me there will be plenty of action.
Half-way between Broken Hill and Mildura, the morning arrives with a gorgeous sunrise, cutting through an eerie, entrancing fog that hangs low over the saltbush. As we approach Rocky’s Kenworth, the pungent aroma of 1,200 goats packed into the Truck Art crates stings the nostrils.
Rocky steps down from the cab, dressed more like a farmer than a truckie. Blue jeans, boots, a work shirt and a waxed oilskin vest.
“I can’t smell ‘em,” Rocky laughs as he walks over. He can see it on my face, I think. “Soon as I go near people that don’t work around goats, they go, ‘What’s that smell!?’”
Rocky Capisciolto started Australian Livestock Traders back in 1996 when he was just 18 and it now ranks as the biggest independent goat buyer and carter in the country
He tells me it’s mainly the larger billy goats, who piss on themselves to attract a mate. It’s a difficult stench to describe, but it’s all over Rocky and he doesn’t seem to mind.
He lights a cigarette and it temporarily masks the billy goat musk.
Rocky’s well known around here, but if you aren’t in the meat game you’ve probably never heard of him. His claim to fame is that he carts more goats than anybody else in Australia, by a considerable margin.
He started Australian Livestock Traders back in 1996 when he was just 18, breaking away from his father’s operation to go it alone. He didn’t need to leave the family business, he insists, but he was itching to have a crack himself.
While his father carted serious numbers for the day, moving around 60,000 goats each year, Rocky has drastically one-upped his old man. He carts an incredible 600,000 head a year, all through Meatco. That’s 1,643 goats a day, on average.
“I’m the biggest independent goat buyer in the country,” Rocky says, shrugging. “I only operate in this area though, I’m not going all over the country.”
I’m the biggest independent goat buyer in the country. I only operate in this area though, I’m not going all over the country.
His patch spans what is known as ‘The Goat Bowl’, a region that runs from remote New South Wales across to South Australia, and out near the border of Victoria. It’s a natural habitat perfectly suited to free-roaming goats, as his dad discovered back in the ‘70s.
“You go over the border at Wentworth, you go about 150 kays to your left and you’re into South Australia,” Rocky explains. “Then, you go right up north of Broken Hill, you go to Bourke, you come back to Cobar, Ivanhoe … this is ‘The Goat Bowl’.”
Out here, the rangeland goats live freely and aren’t farmed in the traditional sense. They roam stations and multiply rapidly, eventually needing to be culled. Station owners muster them into yards and Rocky takes them away. He buys them at a flat per-kilogram rate, which he tells me is currently $7.80, before he on-sells them to Meatco where their primary use is as export meat, but the skins, fur and horns are also used.
Rocky has four trucks, which he says is all he needs. In fact, he isn’t interested in expanding the business further, suggesting it’s reached a sweet spot. “It’s big enough mate, it’s big enough,” he says.
The fleet consists of two Freightliner Cascadias used for the on-road work, and two big Kenworth T909s for the rougher farm runs. His favourite is a 15-year-old 909 that he recently stripped down to the chassis, spending a cool $250,000 completely refurbishing it after ticking over a million kilometres.
“I love this truck, mate, I bought it new and it’s got everything I need,” he says. “And, I’ve never had to do a door seal, so she’s dust-tight unlike everything else I’ve owned.”
Rocky Capisciolto’s fleet consists of two Freightliner Cascadias used for the on-road work, and two big Kenworth T909s for the rougher farm runs
“Will you ever replace it,” I ask, thinking the answer is probably going to be a decisive ‘no’. “Bloody oath mate, yeah,” he responds. “When they bring out a new 909 I will, for sure. I hope they do.”
It’s not like he’ll have to wonder what happened to it, though, because he tells me he’s kept every truck he’s ever owned.
Poke around the sheds at his property and you’ll find a few Mack CLR Super-Liners, every Toyota he’s ever owned (all HiLux’s and LandCruisers) and an assortment of other relics.
Watching Rocky unload the AB-triple at the Meatco yard is an enlightening, but exceedingly smelly, experience. He throws on his gumboots and lets his workers loose. Six working dogs, kelpies and one sharp-eyed border collie, are muzzled before he lets them go.
“Dogs are a critical part of the job,” Rocky says, watching them circle the yard. “You couldn’t do it without them … at least I wouldn’t want to.”
He breeds the best of them once a year, keeping one from the litter before giving the rest away to his customers. “They can use them to muster, then,” he says. He tells me he keeps 20 dogs at any one time, rotating them based on the job.
I love this truck, mate, I bought it new and it’s got everything I need.
The dogs scurry up and over the fences, bounding across the goats’ backs to get behind them. Rocky is in amongst the action, too, alongside Meatco’s stock handler Carlie who wields a large shaker bell to coerce the herd through a maze of gates.
Rocky’s voice drowns out the bleating, sounding across the yard. “Enough … get out of it you lot!” he yells, as the dogs get a little too boisterous. They’re absolutely in their element.
When the goats are mostly unloaded, it’s time to reign in the dogs. “That’ll do, that’ll do,” Rocky says.
“I’ve lost dogs,” he tells me, as he waves his loyal workers out of the pens. Suddenly, a couple of the dogs scurry back up and over the fence to stand off against a billy goat who is refusing to move.
“C’mon Rob, get in there Rob, get in there boy!” Rocky shouts, corralling one of the dogs as he faces off with the grumpy billy goat. The goat, to my surprise, backs down when Rob gets up in his business.
I’ve seen plenty of dogs used for mustering, and it’s always impressive, but goats are more aggressive than cattle. They’re wilder, really. The dogs work hard and don’t back down when the big, grumpy billies carry on.
Dogs are critical to the business. Rocky breeds the best of them once a year, keeping one from the litter before giving the rest away to his customers
Once unloaded, I wander over with Rocky to meet a well-dressed fellow by the name of Joe Kairouz, who’s a big deal in the meat industry. He founded Cedar Meats, a family butcher-turned-processing operation out of Melbourne.
He, like Max, is a first-generation immigrant. And, like Rocky has done with Australian Livestock Traders, his son Tony has built a separate empire of his own with Meatco.
“Are you Italian, too?” I ask Joe, who has a warm, welcoming demeanour.
“No, close by,” he says. “I’m from Lebanon, but hey, you need to talk to the big boss here, Tony.”
Rocky takes me to Tony’s office, after I finish chatting with his father in the yard. Talking with Tony, he’s well-spoken and incredibly candid in his responses. He shows me a photo of the little butcher shop his father ran with his grandfather, in a little mountain town in the north of Lebanon called Bsharri. “That’s my grandfather,” he says, showing me where it all began for his family.
He and Rocky seem more like brothers than business partners when they interact, and I’d believe they were related if they told me.
It’s all I know, and I love it. My earliest memories are carting goats with dad, so I just wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want fancy things, mate. I like trucks and I like goats. That’s all I need.
“It’s funny you say that,” Tony laughs, “because when we bought the stock yard at Broken Hill we didn’t even do up a contract. We just bought it. I guess we are brothers, honestly.”
Tony handles the export side of things, shipping Rocky’s rangeland goat meat to the US, China and the Middle East, where it is favoured for its lean composition.
“A lot of the Caribbean population in America uses goat meat for stews and curries,” Tony tells me. “They don’t want it to have that fat layer because they’re slow cooking it, so they like our lean rangeland goats.”
Apparently, only two per cent of the goats butchered in Australia are kept for local consumption. Overseas, though, it’s a delicacy.
“I eat it about once a week,” Rocky tells me. “The Italian way is we’ll roast a leg or do an entire animal, like you’d do any other roast. It’s beautiful.”
Rocky saw his father work hard to build a life, starting from nothing when he arrived in Australia. While he’s both broken off, so to speak, and built an empire of his own, the same values apply and family is at the centre of it all.
Rocky and business partner Tony Kairouz, who jointly own the stock yard at Broken Hill. Tony handles the export side of things, shipping rangeland goat meat to the US, China and Middle East
Rocky’s father, Max, still runs cattle feedlots in Shepparton alongside his son, and his mother, Anna, makes sure the family is fed traditional Italian food made the old way (with love). Rocky’s sister, Melanie, handles the books for Australian Livestock Traders.
His brother, Joe, is somewhat of an outlier, working as a mechanic and tinkering with his collection of classic Ferraris, among them a F355 Berlinetta, an F12, and a model Rocky can’t quite place beyond the fact it “has a glass roof”.
Which raises an important point: the family has done well for themselves … really well. “We bought a lot of land around Melbourne at the right time, and we developed 900 homes with one of the properties,” Rocky tells me.
That’s why it’s even more impressive to me that Rocky has spent so much of his life carting goats, which is not an easy gig. “What would I do with a Ferrari?” he shrugs. “I’ve got a LandCruiser, that’s nice enough for me.”
“He doesn’t need to work, mate,” Tony reiterates. “He does it because he loves it, which I love. And, he’s loyal like me which is why I think we’ve always clicked.”
I ask Rocky why he built the goat business when he could have done literally anything. He laughs and gives another of his dismissive shrugs.
Dogs are a critical part of the job. You couldn’t do it without them … at least I wouldn’t want to.
“It’s all I know, and I love it. Look, my earliest memories are carting goats with dad, so I just wouldn’t have it any other way. I don’t want fancy things, mate. I like trucks and I like goats. That’s all I need,” he says.
Rocky doesn’t have children of his own, so the future rests with his nephews, Anthony and Luke Chincarini – his sister’s sons. After their father passed away a decade ago, Rocky took them under his wing. Today, they drive for Rocky and the three of them also co-own a trailer fabrication and crate remanufacturing business in Melbourne, specialising in livestock crates and goat-specific modifications.
“They’re bloody hard workers,” Rocky tells me. “Seriously, these guys don’t have to do it either but they’re working 16 hours a day, seven days a week and they love it. They’ll take over when I can’t do it anymore.”
As my time with Rocky draws to an end, I genuinely wish I could spend more time with him. I’m fascinated by his work ethic because if I didn’t have to work, I’m not sure I would.
“We do a proper job,” Rocky reflects, when I ask him what separates him from the other goat buyers around here. “I’m available 24/7. We run the best service, and we aren’t corporate so if you call today, tomorrow, anytime, it’ll be me that answers.”
Now, I’ve got to get to the airport … but I smell like a billy goat.
