 |
 |
Monitor stock and pastures
and prepare feed budgets at
least three months ahead to
manage the balance between
pasture supply and the
nutritional demands of your
sheep
|
|
Focus on seasonal adjustment
of stock numbers to suit the
conditions
|
|
Determine how evenly pasture
is being grazed in your
paddocks
|
|
Consider low-cost options to
achieve more even grazing by
strategic rotational grazing,
boxing of mobs or temporary
subdivision |
|
|
 |
Introduction
The maximum number of stock that
can be carried all year is limited by
pasture availability during the period of
lowest feed supply. This is usually in the
autumn and/or winter in both summer
and winter rainfall zones. It is critical to
get the time of lambing right to optimise
the number of ewes that can be carried
through the period of lowest feed supply
(see procedure 8.2).
Matching feed supply to animal demand
requires a flexible enterprise structure
that allows you to bring in or sell off
stock depending on conditions. This
is particularly important to be able to
respond and capitalise in “better years”.
In this way, the annual stocking rate
may not change but there will be larger
seasonal differences. Focus on seasonal
adjustment of stock numbers to suit the
conditions.
The major risks associated with
increasing stocking rate and pasture
utilisation are:
- Poor persistence of desirable pasture
species
- Bare paddocks
- Reduced stock health
- Damage to sensitive areas such as
water courses and embankments
- More need for supplementary feeding
and
- Increased impact from droughts.
All of these risks are real but they can be
managed using stock assessment, grazing
management approaches, feed budgeting,
and by working towards a more flexible
enterprise structure. The above risks will
be reduced significantly or eliminated,
if stock numbers are seasonally adjusted
at pre-defined trigger points (stock
condition, feed available, ground
cover, etc).
Review the match between your pasture
supply and animal demand curves
then align these curves to minimise
production, financial and environmental
risk. Ask yourself:
- Am I lambing when my pasture
supply is most reliable?
- Can I increase stock numbers during
a one-in-five or one-in-ten year early
break?
- Can I easily sell or find agistment
for the livestock classes I carry through
the months where pasture growth is not
reliable?
- In general, how closely does the feed
demand of my flock match my pasture
growth?
- What options do I have for increasing
feed supply in the slowest growth period,
eg, supplementary feeding, deferred
grazing, etc?
- Can I do anything to lengthen the
periods of good pasture growth or move
them forward or back?
- Do I store enough surplus feed to
cover bad seasons?
The tools that follow will help you
measure, manage and monitor any
mismatch between pasture supply and
animal demand and minimise exposure
to changing seasonal conditions, both
within a year and between years.
They can help you make both strategic
(ie, 1-5 years) and tactical (short term
within the current year) decisions that
relate to managing stocking rates, and
answer the questions like: do you have
enough stock, too few or too many?
Key decisions,
critical actions and
benchmarks
Stocking rate is the major determinant
of pasture utilisation and profitability.
A conservative stocking rate may be
a sound, low risk choice for a sheep
enterprise in a variable climate, but it
may also be less profitable. Sustainable
stocking rates are achieved when animal
demand is actively managed to fit pasture
supply.
Plan your feed year
A feed year plan recognises the range of
stock classes, pastures and forage crops
across your farm and brings all the
annual decisions on pasture utilisation
together in one plan. Tool 8.5 provides a
feed year plan template, and contains an
example plan for the Central West slopes
of NSW.
Develop your own plan using the
template in tool 8.5 to identify in
advance when you will have high quality
feed available on your farm.
Does pasture supply meet
animal demand?
Use tool 8.3 (MLA feed demand
calculator) to assess how well current
animal demand matches your average
pasture curve. You can calculate the
percentage of pasture being utilised and
liveweight produced per hectare, then
test opportunities to better align feed
supply and animal demand, eg, growing
a winter active fescue, running more stock at peak pasture supply periods,
changing your lambing date, etc. You
can have two grazing systems with the
same pasture stocking rate and utilisation
but the system that better aligns feed
supply with animal demand will be more
productive and less risky.
Complete regular feed
budgets (measure and
monitor)
Use feed budgets to see if you can
meet your pasture supply targets (and
nutritional demands) for different classes
of stock with your current or proposed
stocking rate. Feed budgets also answer
more tactical (short-term) questions like:
- How long will a paddock last with a
certain number of sheep in it?
- How many sheep can I graze in a
paddock (for a certain length of time)?
Short term feed budgets (daily,
weekly, fortnightly) ensure production
requirements can be met for a given
stock class. Use the pasture benchmarks
in table 8.1 in procedure 8.2 to identify the minimum
pasture supply and quality required by
your sheep classes.
Calculate a feed budget three months
ahead when planning your lambing
or weaning paddocks, or for stock
marketing (forward contracts).
Doing a feed budget for lambing lets you
know if there will be 1,500 kg DM/ha
available for lactating ewes, or if you
should be taking some action now to
meet the nutritional demands from your
stock.
Tool 8.4 sets out how to calculate threemonth
and shorter term feed budgets on
paper. It includes examples to help guide
your feed budget calculations.
Manage the grazing system to
control stock intake
Stock intake can be managed by grazing.
Allocate a certain amount of pasture to
stock, on a daily or weekly basis to:
- Ration intake: transfer feed from
autumn to winter, when pasture growth
rates slow down, in order, for example,
to build up a feed wedge for lambing.
Stock must either be above target
condition when rationed (autumn), or
fed supplements to maintain condition
- Increase intake: rationing intake
by some classes of stock to create an
opportunity to allocate higher quantities
of pasture to other classes, such as
weaners. Preferential allocation of green
feed to priority stock on a regular basis
also gives a better measure of pasture
growth rates and feed consumption. This
is difficult to estimate under set-stocking.
Add or remove paddocks from the
grazing rotation to increase or decrease
paddock rest periods. If pasture growth
rates are fast, speed up the rotation by
moving stock on quickly. Fast moves
during periods of fast pasture growth give
livestock access to the best feed before it
goes rank or hays off. Remove paddocks
from the grazing sequence in spring and
consider fodder conservation options.
When pasture growth is slow, slow
the rotation down, then reduce stock
numbers or supplement stock to allow
time for pastures in rested paddocks to
re-grow before grazing.
Regularly monitor pasture and animal
condition. Monitoring helps you track
changes in pasture quantity and quality
or animal demand to ensure pasture and
animal production targets are met. Tool
7.6 in Grow More Pasture contains
pasture monitoring tools. Tool 10.1 in
Wean More Lambs contains condition
scoring guidelines for sheep.
Manage the grazing system
to maintain optimum pasture
levels
Not detecting a change in pasture
quantity and quality or animal demand
will increase the risk of missing pasture
and animal production targets. Regular
monitoring of pasture and animal
condition is critical to success because:
- An increase in predicted pasture
growth leading to higher pasture mass
and total pasture energy supply may be
wasted if additional pasture is not utilised
- A decrease in predicted pasture
growth, or unplanned events that
decrease pasture availability may lead to
declining pasture mass, lowered intake by
animals and eventually overgrazing
- Repeated overgrazing without
adequate rest can reduce ground cover,
damage soil and reduce the ability of the
pasture to “bounce back” with rain, rest
or fertiliser.
Implement tactical grazing
Tactical grazing focuses on applying
grazing techniques that best meet the
animal, pasture and environment targets
at the time. Consider:
- Set stocking at a conservative stock
density to maximise the intake of quality
pasture by lactating ewes
- Rotationally grazing perennial
pastures to ensure persistence
- Using high density, short duration
rotations to ration intake or control
weeds.
Review the grazing management
guidelines in tool 7.5 in Grow More
Pasture.
Are paddocks unevenly
grazed?
If you can see obvious signs of patch
grazing in paddocks (eg, bare hilltops,
sheep camps and rank grass in other
parts), then utilisation can be improved.
The issue of uneven grazing often has
to be dealt with before stocking rate
is increased. Running more stock will
increase pasture utilisation, but any areas
that are already overgrazed will be grazed
even harder.
- Fence paddocks to land class to reduce
the variability within them. Land classes
are based on soil type, slope, aspect and
land-use (see tool 6.1 in the Healthy
Soils)
- Reduce selective grazing by either
reducing paddock size and/or using
bigger mobs to graze the paddock in a
rotation. ‘Boxing up’ existing mobs and
using existing paddocks for rotational
grazing is the cheapest way to get
started on evening up utilisation within
paddocks.
Uniformity of pasture utilisation is
affected by:
- Paddock size: smaller paddocks are
generally grazed more evenly than large
paddocks, but there is no ‘rule of thumb’
for optimum paddock size as it depends
on flock size, the livestock production
system and other factors (such as
cropping requirements)
- Paddock uniformity: flat paddocks
will be grazed more evenly than hilly
paddocks, north-facing slopes will be
grazed harder than south-facing slopes,
saline areas will be preferentially grazed,
etc
- Grazing method: using large mobs
of stock for short periods in a paddock
will reduce the opportunity for selective
grazing by stock and result in more even
utilisation, but may lower performance
per animal
- Type of stock: sheep are more selective
grazers than cattle and they tend to create
bigger camp areas. Cattle can be used to
complement sheep grazing
- Watering points: pasture utilisation
will tend to be highest close to watering
points. This is especially noticeable in
large paddocks with a single watering
point.>
Compared with set-stocking,
implementing a more intensive rotational
grazing system will give more precise
control of stock intake and more even
pasture utilisation. Tool 8.7 outlines a
method for getting started with rotational
grazing and is further developed in the
MLA Tips & Tools “Getting started in
simple time-based rotational grazing”.
Intensive rotational grazing systems
can help you implement a simple four
paddock rotation (see signposts).
Increase pasture utilisation
on part of your property
When trying to increase pasture
utilisation, start off with one or two
paddocks as a trial, to practise pasture
and stock assessment skills and feed
budgeting. It may be the better land
classes, or paddocks where there are
obvious signs of poor utilisation (too
much dead pasture, poor legume
content).
It is often best to make incremental lifts
towards your stocking rate target, which
will allow you to increase confidence
and build skills. For example, you might
decide to increase the stocking rate
in winter by 10% this year, based on
analysis of the average pasture supply
curve and the amount of dead pasture
left in paddocks. One option could be
to retain an older age group of ewes or
more wethers, rather than purchasing
stock if the risk of introducing disease is
a concern.
Plan for drought
Determine what constitutes a
‘drought’ or a dry year for you in your
environment. For example, it may be a
failed spring followed by a failed autumn.
Set trigger points for action. That is, “If
certain weather conditions occur, I will
take this particular action now” (sell
some stock, for example).
Be ready for a drought/dry year. This will
include keeping adequate feed reserves,
having containment areas/drought lots,
and a plan to determine which stock will
be sold and which will be kept and fed in
the drought lot. Decisions about which
stock to keep or sell will depend on their
value at the time, the probable cost of
feeding, the value of any production that
would be gained if they are kept and
their future replacement value, should
that be necessary. There are a number of
publications and tools which can help
you prepare such a plan (see signposts).
Signposts  |
Read
Analysis of the profitability of sheep
wool and meat enterprises in southern
Australia: includes guidelines for
optimising the time of lambing. Follow
the links to publications on the Sheep
CRC website: www.sheepcrc.org.au
Towards Sustainable Grazing – the
Professional Producer’s Guide: a collation
of proven best practices for modern
grazing enterprises in southern Australia.
Order your copy from MLA by:
MLA Tips & Tools:
Tactical grazing to maximise whole
farm pasture and animal productivity
Get the best out of set stocking
Getting started in simple time based
rotational grazing
Intensive rotational grazing
Get your free copies of these MLA Tips
& Tools by:
Attend
Stockplan®: a workshop to help
sheep (and cattle) producers explore
management options in the preliminary
stages and during drought. To find out
more, visit the NSW DPI website: www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/agriculture/profarm/courses/livestock/stockplan
The MLA EDGEnetwork® program is
coordinated nationally and has a range
of workshops to assist sheep producers.
Contact can be made via:
View
GrassGro®: a decision support software
tool used to examine variability in
pasture and animal production for sheep
and beef enterprises. GrassGro® can
be purchased by contacting Horizon
Agriculture on www.hzn.com.au/grassgro.php
|
|
