The challenges to getting high performance from pasture are huge compared to when livestock are kept confined and fed supplements. In this situation the amount fed can be easily measured and controlled. Furthermore the quality of feed can also be measured and controlled.
So in theory, being able to accurately match feed demand to feed supply is possible – yet that is the big failing I observed in these systems. Overfeeding is the norm. Varying the allocation according to the demand of the stage of the production cycle for breeding stock was poorly understood. This was further complicated in cattle breeding systems in which calving was spread at best to spring and autumn but on most farms was virtually all year round. There was the concession that what started as a spring calving morphed into an autumn one as well, which in turn extended to cover the whole year.
This was the result of poor reproductive performance.
So varying the allocation according to the demands of the stage of pregnancy was not practically possible.
Apart from that inefficiency, the performance of livestock in many cases is extraordinarily high. Ewe pregnancy scanning 200% and more is common, weaning 170% is expected, and weaning 70-80kg of lamb per ewe is standard. Yearling bulls killing out at 380kg is commonplace – but all is at a cost.
The feed costs for most farms are massive and soak up most of the profit, but tightening the calving interval and carefully controlling the allocation of feed could reduce these feed costs significantly.
Of course there are farmers doing it well. There was a lot of interest in grazing pastures as a way to reduce costs. My interaction with farmers was in this area.
Still, all is not as simple as it might seem. The pasture resource for most of the farms is not the limitation; rather it is setting up grazing systems, learning how to control the supply and allocation of pasture, and at the same time keeping pasture quality up is the challenge. Pastures also bring new challenges for many farmers. Internal parasites are the big one, along with fungal toxins and trace-element deficiencies.
It was explaining the complications of using pasture that brought home to me how we often do not appreciate or manipulate these complications enough. The variability in supply and quality, and the variability in animal intake and performance did seem complicated when I explained them.
The concept of setting up the spring in the preceding early autumn was a foreign concept for many French and UK farmers, and is still a big failing on many of our sheep and beef farms.
Lessons for those European farmers apply just as much to us. Looking at the cost of production as well as the level of production is a valid exercise even in our pastoral systems.
Putting a value on the cost of pasture produced is much more difficult than when feed is bought. Planning the supply and allocation of feed is not done enough on many farms here. Setting up the spring well in advance is a big weakness. Running out of feed as the spring approaches is as much to do with how much feed was taken into the winter and rationed as it is to do with the weather.
I still quote the spring of 2010 when 30 days of rain in September on thin ewes with not enough feed delivered the worst lambing percentages in years in Manawatu. Yet the Beef + Lamb New Zealand monitor farm at the time had a record lambing percentage in the same rain by aggressively setting up the spring the previous March.
Shifting from having a per head focus to a per hectare focus was a major change by many of those overseas farmers. It surprised me how much this approach was hard to grasp, yet for us it is standard. Lambing percentage is a measure we forever quote, yet it is the number of lambs weaned a hectare that is most closely linked to profit. Lamb and calf weaning weights we similarly quote, yet numbers a hectare are more reflective of profit.
Another feature of difference is the access to resources and the absence of production targets. We are so well served by having easy access to any information about any aspect of farm management, from animal health to crops to fertiliser to name but a few items.
In France it seemed that farmers were isolated from that sort of information. In the UK there was more, but clinging to ways of the past was perhaps a bigger barrier. We do not do benchmarking that well, but it is still a widely used tool to rank, set targets and provoke. I did not come across any benchmarking at all. In fact any measures of farm performance were not evident. Once again it prompted me to appreciate what we do have and do, and to be more of a disciple to that cause.
– Trevor Cook, veterinarian, Manawatu.
