First, the eyes on farming are everywhere. These eyes often do not know much about farming and make judgments on an anthropomorphic basis.
Such alerts can trigger a cascade of events that can take over the farm, the people and the animals.
My recent experience was a case in point, but I kept thinking that keeping up appearances is important to minimise wrongful accusations. I was aware of other farms that were not that much better but the visual picture was not so bad.
This is not to say that animal welfare transgressions should be hidden, but because more often than not those people making the initial judgment are not familiar with the boundaries of what is normal.
We do underfeed stock at times and sometimes it can be uncomfortable, but that line beyond which it is a welfare issue is to some extent subjective and is seldom crossed. First, it is not economically sustainable to underfeed to that extent, and secondly, it is psychologically hard to watch.
The other aspect of being involved with this investigation was the professionalism of the Ministry for Primary Industries, the body that responds to animal welfare reports and charged with resolving the situation. I was impressed with the focus on relieving the suffering rather than heavy handedly pursuing the legalities.
It did strike me how relatively easily a farming system can slip into a bad state and the way out becomes a too big a hurdle to contemplate, let alone implement.
Many farmers this spring have ended up with less feed than is comfortable.
Despite a good winter the slow early pasture growth rate has been a problem. Our dependence on increasing spring pasture growth rates is fundamental to our systems, and when they do not occur they can put a lid on potential production.
In sheep systems that managed the feed supply up until lambing and have body condition on their ewes, that lid is much higher. Sheep are ruminants and can accumulate body condition to use when the feed supply is insufficient.
Because many of these ewes have more than one lamb that ruminant model is not so reliable.
That multiple lamb energy demand before they are born is often more than the fat can provide. Hence the need to manage pasture up until the ewes lamb.
I was impressed with the focus on relieving the suffering rather than heavy handedly pursuing the legalities.
After that they turn into full-blown ruminants and can use their condition to fuel early lactation. The unreliability of the spring pasture supply can be buffered by the management of feed up to lambing and having body condition on board.
Cows on the other hand are more the classical ruminant. What is surprising is that they have a higher lifetime performance if they do lose some condition over winter. But as with ewes, losing condition coming into calving puts a lid on their performance.
The resurgence of the “respect” given to beef cows has reinvigorated the discussions around management systems and feeding levels. An acknowledgement of the true value of the cow in a hill-country grazing system is behind this renewed enthusiasm, fuelled by better beef prices.
A topic that seems to be being examined more these days is calving systems. Putting the cows out with the lambing ewes has worked well for many for a long time. Without question cow performance is compromised and probably more variable as these variable springs intervene.
Since the profitability of a breeding cow is largely driven by her ability to wean a calf, managing calving to support higher calf survival is attractive. To do that in many systems requires quite a rethink of spring management. The attraction of the cows with their calves being on the hills but calving in a “safe” environment is the challenge.
Even the benefits of late calving are being questioned. The better fit with the feed supply, less metabolic disease risk, and being more compatible with being with the ewes are all outcomes from calving being a month later than lambing, but that better feed supply translating into higher calf weaning weights is too often not the outcome.
In a lot of cases the rejigging of the calving system goes hand-in-hand with calving earlier. This is a slow process, though, and can really alter the spring feed balance.
Tinkering significantly with calving and lambing dates should not be done lightly. The impact on the spring feed supply demand has to be looked at closely.
