The Pasture Princess

"Meat the Future" day focuses on new technology

Last week I joined Milton and Stan (Chris Adams' sheep farm team) at a Beef and Lamb NZ "Meat the Future" event taking place just down the road from Chris' Brightview Farm. The event focused on using farmer-friendly technology that can be used by sheep and beef farmers to improve on-farm efficiency.

The day began with a presentation from Matt Wyeth, a sheep and beef farmer from Masterton on the North Island. Matt is working as a pilot farm with meat processing company Silver Fern Farms, tagging his 5,000 ewes and 8,500 lambs with EID tags. He believes that sheep and beef farmers need to become more efficient, and told us that what farmers did yesterday is not necessarily what they will be doing tomorrow. Matt tags all lambs at weaning and records if they are a single, twin or triplet (he does not know if they have lost a sibling). After weaning lambs are finished on rape, chicory, grass and plantain, and he is able to track the kill data that he gets back from Silver Fern Farms to the forages used to see any differences in carcase yields. With ewes now tagged, he plans to track ewe performance to compare ewe weights with lamb weaning weights and pull out ewes with poor performance. He has also EID tagged commercial cows and finishing and replacement cattle, and uses the data he collects as a management tool to maximise efficiency of his system.

We were then split into groups of 5, as the next few hours of the day was split into individual sessions looking at weighing systems, useful websites to help with farm production decisions, GPS technology and a session from NAIT learning about the new cattle EID regulations due in November. The one thing I found from the session is that New Zealand farmers are now at the stage that UK farmers were at 2 or 3 years ago when we realised that EID tagging was to become compulsory in sheep. From what I heard at this event, many believe that it is not too far away for sheep in New Zealand too. I'm sure we will know the answer for that one when it happens!

At the end of the day we were in for a treat, with a presentation from the 2010 South Island Farmer of the Year Doug Avery. I heard Doug present at the IFMA congress back in March, and I though he was fantastic! His presentation this time was an extended version of what I heard in March, and even though he ran over schedule and it was dark by time he finished, nobody cared as he was well worth listening to (even Milton who still had mobs of ewes to shift wasn't too worried!). Doug farms in Marlborough, right next to a salt factory! The title of his presentation was 'Beyond Reasonable Drought', and he filled his talk with humour, jokes, the story of Bonavaree (his farm), and filled the audience with inspiration for improving how we farm or generally lead our lives. Doug has found that you have to adapt to situations, and for him one way of achieving this meant moving away from grass and clover that just doesn't cope in the extreme drought he faces. So he began the renaissance of using lucerne; a legume with an exceptionally deep tap root that finds water. The photos he showed us illustrated his point - his farm was green and lush and achieving exceptional growth rates and lambing percantages of 150%+, his neighbours who say they can't afford to change had barren fields, and no stock to be seen. Doug's thoughts on his neighbours comments were - he can't afford not to change. We were told about how the farm has expanded dramatically over recent years, and even this year he has bought a neighbouring farm and leased another. Proof in itself that his policy is working better than his neighbours!

A truly inspirational speaker, and if you ever get the chance to listen to Doug I can't recommend it highly enough.

Not the best photo, but this is one that I took on my travels in Marlborough of a grazed Lucerne paddock. It's either one of Doug Avery's or some of his neighbours are taking a leaf out of his book!

Dairy discussion group a real eye opener

While staying with Chris Adams and family near Nightcaps, Southland last week I joined Chris, Brad and Tracy and other dairy farmers from the area in their recently formed dairy discussion group. Chris is the owner of Brightview Dairy, but the 1200 cows are managed by young couple Brad and Tracy and their team of staff.

The new discussion group, formed by Chris a year ago when the Brightview Dairy business was established is facilitated by Louise, a young Scottish vet based in Otautau. In New Zealand dairy cows are dried off in late May and are wintered on brassica crops in June and July, before calving in August and September and being milked once again. With the exceptionally wet conditions underfoot following days of heavy rainfall, one major question that Chris, Brad and Tracy wanted to discuss and consider with Louise and the group was when and how should the cows be dried off? With 1200 cows split into two herds, one lot milked through a new 54 point rotary parlour and the other lot through the older herringbone, drying off the cows in one go would be a very big task indeed!

Previously I have only been to sheep and beef discussion groups in New Zealand, which run from 1pm to about 5pm followed with a beer or two! Obviously dairy farmers milk in the afternoons, so the group runs from 10am until about 2pm. As it was raining in the morning the discussions began in the kitchen with a review of the past season for all farmers in the group. This involved sharing all performance indicators with each other, including total milk solids and milk solids per hectare, number of deaths, culls, lame cows and mastitis cows. A discussion was also had as to how the cows were planned to be overwintered at Brightview. In previous years when there were only Inverdale ewes at Brightview, Chris used to grow kale and swedes for wintering dairy cows. Now that they have more land including the milking platform, but less sheep, the land on the sheep farm (and some on the dairy farm) are now used to grow winter brassicas for their own cows and heifers. Chris has enough experience of this, and even though he creates a written feed budget to work out how much crop and silage is needed to keep the cows through the winter, he knows that the best way of really looking after the cows is to go by eye and make sure visually that the cows are not hungry.

Brad and Tracy planned on running groups of 80-90 cows, as the land gets very wet and they doubt that the land will hold any more than this. Louise suggested that 80 cows is not the best number, as this would mean that there would only be one bale of silage for the cows per day break, meaning that 20 of the fattest cows would eat all the silage and would continue to get fatter, while the thin cows would miss out and only get thinner. She suggested that 100 would be a better option as they can have two bales per break. The other thing to consider is how these groups should be made up; should it be based purely on condition score or should it be combined with calving date? One farmer in the group said that he uses 4 or 5 different coloured tail paints on cows due to calf at different times, and groups them accordingly. He suggested that they could do this and then split each group again according to condition. However the cows start grazing crops at the far end of the sheep farm and move closer to the milking platform as calving gets near, so they could always seperate the cows according to calving date later on if needed.

After a thorough discussion and many different suggestions, the weather cleared up enough for us to have a drive around the farm. Some of the cows had already been dried off and were on pads (a strip of a field) with access to silage only. These were looking well and were due to move on to crop over the next day or two. After a good look around the place and discussion of what is happening at the farm, it was back to the kitchen just in time before a thunderstorm broke out. Back in the kitchen, a final discussion was had on different options for the farm in the future. Production at Brightview Dairy was lower for the year than the other farms and on par with some, but this is a large operation on a newly converted sheep farm, so you would expect it to take a while for things to be operating at a top level. Chris being Chris he wants to be the best, and is looking at different ways of speeding up the process of improving production on the farm. Louise believes that this improvement will come from management (mainly grazing the cows correctly so that they have enough feed and leave the right residuals), not genetic merit of the cows at this level of production. One farmer in the group told Chris to stop looking at big expensive things such as DNA testing the cows, but instead to make small, cheap changes that will really make a big difference. This is one point that I think Chris really took on board.

At the end of the meeting, Chris asked if everyone in the group could give two criticisms of him and two of Brad and Tracy, to encourage them to move forward in the right direction. This involved some really good feedback from Louise and the farmers, with some good ideas in terms of management of staff, grassland management and nutrition advice as well as personal weaknesses or things that the three of them can work on, such as improving communication among themselves.

During my three and a half months in New Zealand, this discussion group meeting has definitely been the most educational part of my trip so far, and one of the most enjoyable days I have had. I can't even begin to explain on here how much I learnt from it, but it is definitely one day that I will not forget, and I will take away with me much from the day that I joined in on a dairy discussion group meeting!

A few days in wet Southland!

Following a sunny weekend in Dunedin, on Sunday afternoon I made the three hour journey south, to visit Chris and Sue Adams and family at Brightview Farm near Nightcaps, Southland. The afternoon started well, with a lovely walk along the beach just south of Dunedin on the Southern Scenic Route. I'm glad I got back in the car when I did, as the wind crept up and the heavens opened. Coming over the hill road from Clinton to Mataura, the rain turned slushy and it obviously wasn't warm outside any longer! An hour down the road near Winton, the sky lit up with lightening. and I realised immediately that it wasn't going to be a nice week to be out farming in Southland!

Monday morning arrived and I got kitted up ready to go out moving stock with Stan, Chris' farm worker. That was just as well, with overnight snow fall down low on the local Takitimu mountains. Despite the wind and rain, it was a good experience of moving electric fences and shifting mobs of ewes and dairy heifers. The majority of sheep farmers in Southland and Otago shift ewes on a daily basis at this time of year, either in a rotation that will see the ewes being grazed on grass right through the winter, or on grass to see them through to late May/ early June before they are grazed on brassicas, mainly swedes. This is something that I have heard much about over the past few months when I have been out on farm looking at feed budgets and rotations for the winter. However, it's a different thing seeing it in practice, and not something that I have ever seen to this extent at home.

Unfortunately, due to the wet weather and muddy hands this morning I wasn't able to take any photos. If the rain eases over the next few days (I don't think it will!), I will try to take some photos to put on here. The ewes do a fantastic job of taking down grass cover in the paddocks and eating out any rank material in the bottoms, which you don't want to be there come spring. This year in particular (especially in central Otago) has seen plenty of rank, dead material as grass covers have been so high through the summer and stocking rates have not been high enough to graze residual covers low enough.

After an inch of rain fall yesterday it's not surprising that the paddocks were pretty muddy this morning. Having said that, the ewes were content enough and the paddocks will wash clean once the ewes have been moved on to the next break. There is still some grass growth at the moment as is evident from the green re-growth in some of the breaks eaten out over the past week.

Let's hope for better luck taking photos for you when we shift mobs of stock and electric fences again tomorrow!

Dairy conversion underway

On Tuesday I accompanied Simon Glennie to a discussion group meeting near Balclutha. The last farm I visited with this discussion group was at a cross roads as to where he should be going in terms of ewe breed on his farm. The host of this months meeting has gone a step further, and is following the trend of converting his sheep farm to dairy.

The 800 ha farm had obviously been well farmed, and was in a very nice location with flat land in the bottom leading to slightly sloping land. Until recently the 6,000 Tefrom ewes (Texel, Fin and Romney composite) and 1,500 hoggets had consistently been achieving a scanning percentage of 185-190% and lambing percentage of 150%. Trading lambs were also purchased, and this year with the high lamb prices a margin of $69 was made on 1,600 January bought store lambs (previously 3,000+ store lambs). R1 (rising 1 year old) Hereford, Angus and Jersey bulls are also purchased, grown on well and leased to dairy farms on contract as yearling bulls. Once returned to the farm, the bulls would be grown on to 2 year olds and sold to dairy farms.

Over the past few months they have been exceptionally busy converting 300ha of the farm into the milking platform, with the intention of calving and milking 800 purchased Jersey cows and heifers this coming spring. The remaining 500ha will continue to run around 3,000 sheep and act as the dairy support unit. A discussion was had amongst the group to see where everyone thought the farm would be heading in two or three years from now. Half of the group considered sheep to be valuable in terms of complementary grazing management and their financial return but anticipated cow numbers rising to  1,000, while the other half of the group thought that the sheep would all be sold and 1,200 or more cows would be milked. The farmer's current intentions are to increase cow numbers to around 1,000 and continue with the sheep, as he is a sheep farmer at heart and believes he will always want to see sheep on the farm. Only time will tell!

A few discussion group members in a paddock of fodder beet

Mixed age Tefrom ewes running with terminal sire rams (second cycle)

BPP Annual Field day a big success

Yesterday saw the first ever Annual Field Day for the Southern region Beef Profit Partnership (BPP) group. Hosted by Peter and Nellie McNab at Lochindorb near Balclutha, the day was a great success with a turnout of around 100 farmers and industry representatives.

Host Peter McNab and BPP Southern area facilitator Simon Glennie

The day began with a tour of Lochindorb. The weather couldn't have been better, with fantastic 360 views from the top of the farm. Peter gave an overview of the 2,300ha farm, the beef, sheep (and deer) enterprises, and how he sees himself being able to meet the BPP target of increasing profitability within the beef herd by 5% year on year.

One topic I have previously mentioned on my blog that is being considered by the BPP group is worm burden in calves. Greg Mirrams of Techion Group presented information on the FEC samples collected by group members from February through to late April, with the majority of calves being weaned in April. From the FEC samples collected from the 12 participating farmers, it was evident that calves are affected by worms, and that the challenge varies between farms and within farms, depending on such things as season, environment, management and previous grazing history. Peter McNab had FEC results of 370 epg in calves in February (>150 epg considered  to be a high burden in calves), and decided to randomly drench some of the calves and to leave some undrenched. The calves and their mothers were all run together and treated in the same way up until they were weighed in April. The drenched calves had gained an average 2.7kg more than the undrenched calves (72g/day), and at a weaning value of $2.60 kgLW for 650 calves this increase in weight gain equated to $4,563 (approx. £2.250). This goes to show that undetected parasite burden will cost calf performance, and depending on the level of challenge drenching will generally pay. It is important therefore to monitor what is happening in different calf groups on your farm, as it is not reliable to depend on monitor farm results or even what happened on your farm last year.

Two other areas that the group has been looking at is over-mating heifers and once-bred heifers. Heifers can still be classed as such up until 3 years of age, and will receive a premium slaughter price if sold as heifers as opposed to cows. This has led to some farmers calving all their heifers at 2 years old, and then selecting which heifers they want to keep as replacements once they have calved; hence 'over-mating' as more heifers have been mated than are needed to enter the herd. Once-bred heifers refers to the poorer heifers that calve as a two year old, rear their calves until weaning and are then culled (or sold elsewhere). Jason Archer from AgResearch Invermay talked about once-bred heifers, and some members of the group discussed how they are now once-breeding heifers to still attract a premium price for the heifer, with the added benefit of having a calf from her. Jason discussed some of the key issues, including having to treat the heifers as finishing animals so feed quality must be good, and being prepared to put extra labour input into calving as 8-10% of heifers (generally) will need calving assistance. He also considered suggestions that overmating and matching calf to heifer to select replacement heifers is a strategy to increase genetic gain. Jason's answer to this suggestion was No it doesn't stack up, as heritability is low and repeatability of weaning weight is also low. In his opinion (and all at the field day), for genetic improvement the best bet is to buy a good bull with EBV's.

In all, it was a fantastic Field Day to attend, and having heard so much recently about breeding bulls for the dairy herd and meeting the needs of dairy herds it was nice to hear so much focus on beef.

 Mixed age Hereford, Angus and composite cows at Lochindorb

 

Discussion group focus on wormer resistance

On Tuesday I accompanied AbacusBio sheep and beef consultant Simon Glennie to a discussion group meeting that he facilitates near Lawrence, Otago. This is the third time that I have been involved in this particular discussion group, and once again it was a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon.

The 1000ha (effective area) farm is divided into 400ha of cultivated land and 600ha of gullies. Current stocking levels on the farm comprises of 5,000 ewes, 1,800 hoggets, 70 cows and 190 calves; 120 of which have just come onto the farm as a share farming partnership to be grown on over the winter. One question the farmer posed to the group was 'should I be increasing my stocking rates'? On a year such as this where grass growth has been phenomenal (in an area that stocks relatively low due to summer drought), the obvious answer was 'yes'! The majority of the group suggested that the farm could be running more cows, as they can as such get lost in all the gullies on the farm. However; it was appreciated by the whole group that this year has been exceptional, and now is not the time to be making such decisions.

Another key area that the farmer has had to tackle this year is that of worms and wormer resistance. The young farming family came back to run the farm last year having been away for several years, and found this year that he had difficulty finishing lambs, particularly on young pasture where you would expect the lambs to be achieving high growth rates. Working closely with the local vet practise, the farmer wormed his lambs using the usual combination drench (white & clear) and did a Faecal Egg Count (FEC) 10 days later, to discover exceptionally high worm burden of 350 eggs/gram! The local vet was in attendance at the meeting, and she talked about how larval cultures were taken from FEC samples from lambs to discover which worm species were present and in what proportion. She showed the group the FEC reduction test results, which showed the percentage reduction of the individual worm species to different drench types, including Albendazole (white), Levamisole (clear), combination (white & clear) and Ivermectin. For all four drenches, Ostertagia worms were only reduced by 54% - 92%, meaning that each drench type failed, and ostertagia worms on the farm are resistant to all four drenches. Trichostrongylus, Cooperia, Oesoph/Chabertia and Nematodirus worms were also monitored, with Cooperia failing to be reduced by Ivermectin, and Nematodirus failing to be reduced by Albendazole and once again Ivermectin. These results highlight that the combination drench being used was not reducing Ostertagia - the worm that had been identified in the larval culture as being one of the biggest problems on the farm this year, probably due to the wet, moist conditions (usually a spring problem).

The results and future options on the farm led to some great discussion from the group, almost becoming heated at times! Recommendations from the vet were to use Switch or Zolvix or bionic capsules (Albendazole & Ivermectin combination delivered at a controlled rate over 100 days), with the farmers suggesting to either use the bionic capsules or a triple drench. The farmers in the group also highlighted the use of cows grazing lamb paddocks to ingest the worms, thus reducing the worm burden on the paddock before lamb finishing.

Unbelievable amount of grass at 1000ft in early May (equivalent to November in the UK)

Farming photos from Canterbury and Marlborough

I mentioned last week that I would be on a trip around the north part of the South Island over the Easter break. Along the way I took some interesting photos, from vineyards, lucerne paddocks and salt factories in Marlborough to deer, irrigation systems and lavender in Canterbury. Here are just a few of them.....

Irrigators in Canterbury

Central pivot and border dyke irrigation near Mt Hutt, Canterbury

Lucerne paddocks in Marlborough....

and Canterbury.....

Deer farming in Canterbury

Alternative farming in Canterbury

Farming lavender and goats on a lucerne and plantain break

Salt factory in Marlborough

Vineyards in Marlborough

Bee keeping in Marlborough

A talk on Inverdale from a UK perspective

Accompanying Simon Glennie at a discussion group meeting near Balclutha yesterday gave me an opportunity to discuss Innovis Breeding Sheep, and how we are using and managing ewes carrying the Inverdale prolificacy gene in the UK. The host farmer for the day has 300 Inverdale carrying ewes on the farm, a number that has been reduced dramatically over the past year, and these remaining ewes will soon be sold. Despite the Inverdale gene originating from Romney ewes in New Zealand, the management of ewes carrying the gene has not been controlled here in the way that it is in the UK. From my time spent working with Chris Adams and visiting other farms in Southland who are running Inverdale ewes very effectively, it is apparent that this success has not been replicated across all parts of the South Island. I personally believe this is due to inadequate advice from industry (or breeders etc.) on the nutritional management of the ewes, the breed of ewes carrying the gene not being suited to all systems and locations (as you would expect) and due to fears of infertility in ewes that carry two copies of the gene.

The latter problem cannot occur in the UK, as no rams carrying the Inverdale gene are sold, meaning that Innovis has control over which ewes are mated to Inverdale carrying rams and assuring that no Inverdale carrying ewes are mated to Inverdale carrying rams. We are fortunate in the UK that we have a very efficient stratified sheep system that Innovis takes advantage of in the 'Aberdale' (Inverdale carrier ewes and rams) breeding programme. This allows Innovis to lease Aberdale rams to producers to be mated to hill ewes, with all ewe lambs from this system carrying the Inverdale gene and being grown on for Innovis through a contract production system. These ewe lambs are bought back by Innovis following the SQQ lamb price, and sold to lowland farming systems where the ewes will be mated to terminal sires to produce fat lambs that will all go to slaughter. This is a neat system that compliments Inverdale gene expression, and the farmers at the discussion group were impressed with how the gene can be controlled, and cross breeding used to make the most of hybrid vigour and producing quality lamb that the market demands.

Of all the talks I have given to date on Aberdale ewes, this had to be one of the most challenging as the host farmer had little confidence in Inverdale ewes, as the ewes he had did not fit his farming system. The important thing to remember is that 'Inverdale' is only the gene, it is not a breed of sheep and the mothering ability or lamb growth or any other trait is not determined by Inverdale (other than the increase in lambing percentage, as it is a prolificacy gene!). A large focus of my talk was on work done by Innovis alongside nutritionists at the Scottish Agricultural College on how the management of Inverdale ewes needs to differ to that of conventional ewes due to their genetic make-up and lower progesterone levels meaning that ewes do not need to be nutritionally flushed pre-mating, as they naturally produce enough eggs. It was obvious from the feedback I had that the majority of farmers in New Zealand knew that ewes were not to be overfed, but had little idea as to why or when this should be applied. From my experience of managing Inverdale ewes, this knowledge is crucial to make the most of the ewes, and a lot of what I have learnt about these ewes has come from New Zealand (from Chris Adams and others), so it is a shame that this knowledge is not being widely shared.

My first experience of a South Island Field Day

Another cold, wet day in Otago yesterday meant another day out on farm! This time I accompanied Simon Glennie and Peter Fennessy of AbacusBio at a Beef and Lamb NZ and NZ Herefords organised field day near Roxburgh, Otago. The bitter cold, rain and snow on the hills however did not put off the 150 or so farmers and industry representatives from venturing from across the South Island and beyond.

The day was held at Limehills farm, the winners of NZ Hereford 'Herd of Excellence' Award in 2010. An introduction to the farming enterprise set the scene for the day. A 2,924 hectare farm made up of 6 seperate blocks of land, varying from native tussocks at 1000m to irrigated flats at 100m. The farm runs 4,850 ewes, 1,300 hoggets as replacements and trading lambs, along with 350 breeding Hereford cows. For the past 30 years they have had very successful bull sales selling their homebred Hereford bulls, and we were able to see the bulls that they have ready for their sale this year on the 31st May.

I was very impressed with the turnout at the event, and we all jumped into 4WD's for the farm tour. There were several stops along the way, but the bad weather made it difficult for the guest speakers to talk once we had stopped. The Beef and Lamb NZ representative who organised the day, the farm owner and guest speakers (including Peter Fennessy) all shared one vehicle and talked about the farm and the operations as we travelled accross the farm. The other vehicles (of which there were many!) were able to tune into the radio to hear what was being said; a system that worked very well and proved to be very effective.

The breeding ewes at Limehills are a split flock, half of which are Romney and half are 1/4 Finn, 1/4 Texel, 1/2 Romney. Limehills operate a cross-breeding programme, which is actually quite rare in New Zealand as many farms use stable composite breeds (for example Perendale). At tupping Romney rams are used to keep the purebred Romneys, and 1/2 Finn 1/2 Texel rams are used to breed replacements.  Dorset Down terminal sire rams are then mated to the Romney/ Finn/ Texel ewes. Dr Peter Fennessy gave a talk (when we were back in the warmth of the village hall) about the use of crossbreeding to maximise hybrid vigour. He explained that a 10-15% increase in lambing percentage can be achieved from cross breeding due to a reduction in embryonic loss and improved vigour at birth leading to better lamb survival. Higher lamb growth rates are also seen, with more lambs being finished straight off the ewe. Obviously this is nothing new to us in the UK, as cross breeding is used extensively. But it was very interesting to hear about cross breeding in New Zealand; how farmers are realising that there are gains from it but that it does complicate things in large systems where labour is in short supply.

A guest speaker for the day was a beef farmer from South Australia. He has a herd of 5,000 Hereford cows, 1,000 heifers, an elite herd of 500 females and a stud herd producing his own bulls to put over the elite herd, before selling them all at his annual bull sale. In addition to the Hereford herd he also buys in and finishes 20,000 cattle a year through a feed lot system. They are generally Hereford or Angus cross heifers (although he is buying steers now as heifers are too expensive) bought in at 13 to 14 months old at around 400kg. They are kept in the feed lots for 70 days before being sold to the supermarkets at a target finish weight of 580kg, on a diet of 70% grain (oats, lupins, barley) and 30% hay. A Hormone Growth Promoter (HGP) is used on all heifers to increase weight gain and reduce fat. The talk was extremely interesting, and one thing that particularly interested the farmers I was sat next to was that Australian farmers are now (cautiously) able to go to the supermarkets and set the price they want to be paid. Last week for example, he was offered AU$4/kg, and when he said he wanted AU$4.40 he got it. This is one way that he thinks farmers can take advantage of the fact that beef is in short supply, but it is a product that is very much in demand.

The day finished with a demonstration of how to prepare beef and three different meals that could be cooked on the barbecue by a Dunedin chef that has been chosen as one of five Beef & Lamb NZ Ambassadors for 2011. We ended the day sampling this wonderful New Zealand beef, a great end to a great day.

Hereford Heifers at Limehills - a photo I managed to take between the rain showers!

Some of the Hereford bulls for sale this May 

Autumn has arrived in the South Island!

Yesterday I joined AbacusBio's sheep and beef consultant Simon Glennie at a discussion group meeting that he facilitates near Lawrence, Otago. The previous day had been a harsh reminder that Autumn is on it's way, with torrential rain for much of the day. We were fortunate to have a mostly dry day for the discussion group meeting, but the bitter wind and cold temperatures were constant.

Farmers in Otago have benefited from exceptional grass growth this season, and the higher than average rainfall over the summer has provided fantastic growing conditions for brassica crops that are essential winter feed on sheep, beef and dairy farms alike. The past two weeks however has seen a drop in temperatures, and pasture growth has declined as a result. Despite this, the majority of farms have sufficient pasture cover to see them through to the winter, and farmers are now deciding on how to manage this surplus over the next six to eight weeks.

The host farmers for the discussion group meeting were husband and wife Paul and Lisa Wilson, who farm a 410 hectare farm with Paul's parents. They currently run 2400 mature ewes and 880 hoggets with 93 mature cows, 41 two year old heifers and 43 heifer calves. On a tour of the farm, it was clear to see that the family were doing an exceptional job of running the farm. We saw some Perendale hoggets (see picture below), which were probably the best hoggets I have seen since I have been in New Zealand, and some two year old Perendale ewes that were to be mated to Coopworth X Texel rams. The farm has plenty of pasture to allow the ewes a rising plane of nutrition in the 10 or so days pre-mating, which should help increase his scanning percentage this year.

One question that Paul posed to the group was what his options were for the cattle in the future. They currently make up 30% of his stock units due to being down on sheep numbers (after the storms last year); he would be happier if this was at his normal level of 25% or lower. After a visit of the farm and a discussion about Paul’s enterprise, the 12 or so farmers involved in the meeting had a discussion with Simon (the facilitator) about what options could be available to Paul. Once three or four options had been considered, the group split into two smaller groups to discuss the different options in more depth. A summary of the discussions considered how much extra profit could be made from selling calves and replacing with dairy heifers, selling the cows and buying in calves to sell at either 20 or 26 months, or buying 100kg Hereford-Friesians and using a growth hormone promoter (still allowed in NZ unlike Europe) before selling at 26 months.

It was agreed that keeping the current system of cows and calves would only offer a return of 8c/kgDM, which is lower than for any other system including sheep. Grazing dairy heifers could offer a return of 17ckg/DM, considerably higher than that of the cows. However, it would mean having to build a good relationship with a dairy farmer, wintering would be on brassica crops at a higher expense than what it costs with the cows, if he were to keep the cows there is a potential risk of Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD) from the dairy heifers resulting in dry cows, and the system offers him less flexibility in hot dry summers where he has to keep the dairy heifers on. Having the cows and calves also offers Paul other benefits as a grazing tool alongside the sheep; to sweep up some of the worms on the pasture and saving labour and money as Paul did not need to mechanically top any fields the past two years (he did this year due to the exceptional grass growth). What was clear from this meeting was that c/kgDM is extremely important, but farmers are also considering what is important to them and what makes management easier on their farms. Despite the group coming to a consensus that keeping cows and calves is likely to be the best option for Paul, no doubt he will weigh up and review his options over the coming years to make sure that he is making his system pay and work for him simultaneously.

Perendale hoggets (ewe lambs) on young pasture before tupping in two weeks time

Some of the cows and calves