With greater unpredictability in our weather patterns, managing pastures is an ever-evolving challenge for farmers. This week on the podcast we hope to help with some handy advice from consultant, Darren Gordon.
This week we cover:
Darren emphasises the importance of testing your pastures and feed, including the neutral detergent fibre (NDF). “Just test it, otherwise it's calculated guesswork,” he says. “Test, then test again. And the NDF, especially in your hays, can change intake, especially for younger sheep.”
Knowing the NDF of your feed is vital, as it directly correlates with the digestibility and nutritional value of the feed. Too much NDF can impede digestibility. This leads to reduced feed intake, meaning no matter how good it is, your stock cannot consume enough of it to get the nutrients they need.
Once you know where your feed is at you can allocate it to the most appropriate stock class, where it will make the greatest impact. Darren runs us through different feed type examples and which stock class would benefit most. For example, feeding your lighter twin-bearing ewes in late pregnancy yields some of the greatest returns.
Darren also discusses containment feeding and the benefits to your stock as well as your pastures and soils. If you expect that you may need to contain stock, he emphasises the importance of planning ahead, rather than deciding to do it once your paddocks are already “ruined”.
“Start thinking about it now, make some preparations, look at your water quality, look at your water quantity and what you're gonna need to do if you do have to go into containment,” he explains. “Once it gets under a thousand [FOO], you're only getting two and a half to three ME out of the paddock,” meaning you get immediate returns from containment feeding.
Darren then turns the tables and asks Ferg a few questions about how genetics can also help with managing feed deficits on-farm. You’ll have to tune in for that answer!
Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com.
Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.
These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.
Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE
With greater unpredictability in our weather patterns, managing pastures is an ever-evolving challenge for farmers. This week on the podcast we hope to help with some handy advice from consultant, Darren Gordon.
This week we cover:
Darren emphasises the importance of testing your pastures and feed, including the neutral detergent fibre (NDF). “Just test it, otherwise it's calculated guesswork,” he says. “Test, then test again. And the NDF, especially in your hays, can change intake, especially for younger sheep.”
Knowing the NDF of your feed is vital, as it directly correlates with the digestibility and nutritional value of the feed. Too much NDF can impede digestibility. This leads to reduced feed intake, meaning no matter how good it is, your stock cannot consume enough of it to get the nutrients they need.
Once you know where your feed is at you can allocate it to the most appropriate stock class, where it will make the greatest impact. Darren runs us through different feed type examples and which stock class would benefit most. For example, feeding your lighter twin-bearing ewes in late pregnancy yields some of the greatest returns.
Darren also discusses containment feeding and the benefits to your stock as well as your pastures and soils. If you expect that you may need to contain stock, he emphasises the importance of planning ahead, rather than deciding to do it once your paddocks are already “ruined”.
“Start thinking about it now, make some preparations, look at your water quality, look at your water quantity and what you're gonna need to do if you do have to go into containment,” he explains. “Once it gets under a thousand [FOO], you're only getting two and a half to three ME out of the paddock,” meaning you get immediate returns from containment feeding.
Darren then turns the tables and asks Ferg a few questions about how genetics can also help with managing feed deficits on-farm. You’ll have to tune in for that answer!
Head Shepherd is brought to you by neXtgen Agri International Limited, we help livestock farmers get the most out of the genetics they farm with. Get in touch with us if you would like to hear more about how we can help you do what you do best - info@nextgenagri.com.
Thanks to our sponsors at MSD Animal Health and Allflex, and Heiniger Australia and New Zealand.
These companies are leaders in their respective fields and it is a privilege to have them supporting the Head Shepherd Podcast. Please consider them when making product choices, as they are instrumental in enabling us to bring you this podcast each week.
Check out Heiniger's product range HERE
Check out the MSD range HERE
Check out Allflex products HERE
Welcome to the Head Shepherd podcast. I'm your host, mark Ferguson, ceo at Next Gen Agri International, where we help livestock managers to get the best out of their stock. I want to take this opportunity to thank our friends at MSD Animal Health in Orflex for sponsoring Head Shepherd again this season, and I'm also excited to introduce our mates at Heinegger as brand new sponsors of the show. Msd in Orflex, or perhaps better known as Cooper's Animal Health in Australia, offer one of New Zealand, australia's, largest livestock product portfolios, with a comprehensive suite of animal health and management products connected through identification, traceability and monitoring solutions. Like us, they see how the wealth and breadth of information born out of this podcast can help their men and their farming clients achieve their mission of the science of healthier animals.
Speaker 1:Heinegger will need a little introduction to our audience. A market leader and one-stop shop for wool harvesting and animal fibre removal, together with an expanding range of agricultural products and inputs, the Heinegger name is synonymous with quality, reliability and precision. The Heinegger team have a deep understanding of livestock agriculture, backed by Swiss engineering and a family business dedicated to manufacturing the best. It's fantastic to have both of these sponsors supporting us and bringing Head Shepherd to each week, and now it's time to get on with this week's episode. Welcome back to Head Shepherd. Great to have you listening along. Welcome, sophie. You've got a few tips on how to make sure people can listen in even when they're not hooked to the internet.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've figured most of our listeners are either listening in a track to somewhere or on Panic and there's not often Wi-Fi and on Spotify and any platform the Unicity podcast you can auto download. So just a quick run through if you go through Find Head Shepherd on whatever platform you're on, click the settings, cog and then just swipe auto downloads and they'll be auto downloaded for you to listen to whenever you want.
Speaker 1:Excellent. I probably need to take a few of those tips because I seem to get stuck with that. I'll put my voice on this week on the podcast we're welcoming back Darren Gordon. Darren and I have worked together since the year 2000, which is a while ago now, and so we worked together on what was PVI then at near Hamilton Research Farm and did all the lifetime all research together. And then he's got on to do a lot of lifetime U groups and now works as an independent consultant with Next Gen Agri and helping people with nutrition and breeding plans.
Speaker 1:So this week we thought we'd get Darren back on and have a chat about the conditions that are currently present in Australia and, I guess, some of the decisions that need to be made as we get into what is late summer, early autumn now and when feed quality is really low and decisions need to be made. So obviously we're focusing on Western Victoria, but they're concepts that are relevant regardless of where you are, so I'm sure you'll enjoy this chat with Darren Gordon. Welcome back to HVDarren. Hi, mark, how are you.
Speaker 3:How's the cricket been the last couple of days?
Speaker 1:Crickets been good. Well, half more we'll get slated. Last night would have been good, but anyway, we'll hopefully get it done today. Yeah, so we thought we had a good opportunity to talk through, I guess, the seasonal situations, particularly in Australia, but it's sort of relevant all over the place. We've had all the different parts of the reproductive cycle, I suppose around the place. But yeah, I guess we had a pretty good early summer and now it's finally real summers arrived. I guess now we're into autumn, but that usual deficit of quality and quantity starting to bite there, I'd imagine.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's been a strange one. We had a dry spring and we thought we were going to be 30 for six months. Then all of a sudden, first week of January and a little bit of late December, anywhere between 150-250 millirane, sort of south of the divide. So things changed quickly. So all the perennials went again, which gave great quality feed. That the last two weeks, you know, we've had a lot of weather over 30, 35. So we had two Sundays for 39 degrees with howling winds. So it went from green to dry in three days. So that all disappeared.
Speaker 3:The shoot done really well. I've never seen use look so good through, you know, to further, people join mid-January through and out of the condition score of the shoot, like a lot of stuff, I've seen three to 3.5. So for the earlier joiners, you know, early to mid-June lambors and the early July lambors, like conception rates I imagine, are going to be fairly good. But what's happened now? That stuff that was green went dry. So they cleaned that up. So it went from 70% to 60% to 50% and now all the perennials disappeared. So what's left is the annual stuff from last year and that went dry September, october.
Speaker 3:So I've done some feed tests of late in going to the same property in the residual if there's any residual flair as a right left to sitting like 51, 52%. But once that's gone the tests are showing that the annual stuff is only 40%. So no amount of 40% digestibility feed will put weight on sheep. You're probably looking at I know you've got 1500 fill out in the pad going looking at sort of 5ME. And if you're a 60 kilo sheep you know you're requiring just under 10ME. Or if you're a 70 kilo maternity you're requiring 11ME. So from here down there's going to be a fair bit of deficit. So people are going to have to be on the ball now because sheep do look good and you think everything's great, we're traveling well, but we're just going to. I can see this is getting smashed in the next three or four weeks. So a bit of diligence required, matt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I guess, well, a couple of things. Some people are going to have lambs on board, so they've got a big scanning rate. So hey, for twin bearing use, and the last thing you can afford to do is let them get skinny. And equally, you've got imagine still some August, september sort of lamb is where the Rams might be just in or about to go in and losing weight. I have a joining, obviously the second worst thing you can do. So yeah, I guess that's. So what are we suggesting?
Speaker 3:So the message is now, especially with the folks that are joining now, just maintain them. There's a lot of composites out there 335. So again, through joining we might be able to play the accordion a bit. Let them just post-joining. If you're going to land in August, september, you can probably. Nine times out of ten we're going to have good green feed for late pregnancy. So you probably can lose a little bit of weight now and put it back on when we get some green feed. We've got seven cents a kilo versus turning a sense of kilo grain. So maintain through joining, hold them, let them lose a bit of weight, be confident we can get some green feed and probably save a few bucks doing that With the earlier joined stuff.
Speaker 3:It's maintenance. Or, if you've got a bit up your sleeve, probably looking at it late, mid-april, early-april, scanning, mid-june, learning, that'll be the test of things. You've got confidence in the system and if you don't, you probably have to maintain. You think you're going to get a bit of green feed. You could probably lose a bit, but I'd be saying maintaining through now, especially if you're sub-condition score three. You've got a bit over-condition score three, you can play the game a bit. But yeah, the next four or five weeks will be really, really interesting with how people manage their feed situations. You know land joining is coming up too mate.
Speaker 1:I suppose, yeah, you've got that going on and that's mission critical Normally if it's everything got to go right for those things to work. So I don't know, imagine what. Yeah, I guess some places the economics might look all right. But if economics for you, then joining might not be too flush this year.
Speaker 3:The green feed we got in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the green feed, yeah, and then.
Speaker 3:I was looking November, december, I was saying no, a lot of blokes. I don't think the economics is there. I've only talked in five bucks, 56 bucks for liens at that stage. So you start chucking 40, 50 bucks at a ULAM and you go no to get it up and maintain it through. You know, every March, april, may you start thinking no, I'm not going to do this. Then we've got the rain, so summer crops, the perennials, kicked blokes that had lucerne and something that changed. Like we've done a fair few ULAM wanes last three or four weeks to see if we think we've got a lot used. 44 to 50 kilos.
Speaker 3:So, change the whole thought process and you know, lambs buck up, you can get contracts and drop for a while, but you can get contracts now for a bit over seven bucks, which puts a bit of more confidence in the system. So I think we're going to try with the ULAM. So just working on probably not massive growth rates now because it's coming out of the back of the feeder again probably just looking at 50 to 100 grams a day growth from now through to the end of joining. But yeah, the summer rain certainly volunteered a lot more than I thought we were going to get there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely so. I guess it's easier to ride on the whiteboard sort of maintain weight in the office, but that's obviously doesn't just happen by luck. What are the sort of? What are the jobs they've got to do to maintain weight?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's a good point, Ferg. So first thing is do some pasture digestibilities on your grass I've said there's a range of low 50s which is enough for maintenance, through the 40s, which is only meeting half their nutritional requirements. So test your pasture. There's some cuts. How much food you've got out in the paddocks and anything you're feeding with it be hay, silage, grain. Get a test on that and just try and be as accurate as you can Look.
Speaker 3:So the variation intake sheep is going to be huge. You've got some things you can feed a lot less, some lead, not more. So just working on average principles here, with feeding sheep and as I said before the 60 kilo marinos, maintenance is about 9.6. In your maternal sheep it's about 11 ME. So just trying to match those two things up You're going to get some variation. So drafting off your lighter ones probably should have been done by now, but with scanning, say, four to six weeks, that's probably a big opportunity. There's nothing that's a little bit lighter draft off, especially your light twins, mate. The light twins are, as you know, the ones that give us the grease and have the lower lambing percentages. So if scanning, you probably do a really good draft just as you're going into the lambing crate. Put your hand on scanning crate. Put your hands on them and anything sub three in the twins. Yeah, it'll require a bit more management.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess, sort of while you're rattling off those ME numbers, most people can't do that, so it's about working out what maintenance is and then going through the calculation of how much they're going to take out of that pasture. Then how much needs to get thrown at them. There'll be some people, I don't know, not a whole heap of silage made last with a relatively short spring, but same deal there. If that hasn't been tested, you're sort of absolutely guessing. So people need to be in when they're, in addition to testing the pasture, testing what they're feeding.
Speaker 3:Especially haze and silages make the variation Like the lati you cut your silage and the lati you cut your hay. For that same thing, the more quantity you get. But also the quality comes down to getting more roughage within the fiber, more stems instead of leaves. So good for bulk, great for cattle and probably heavy use. But if you want some quality you've got to cut a bit earlier. So just test it Like got some stuff from Green and Gold down our way on the variation in some of their hay. Some hay out to 10 in E, some down to 5 in E. So 100% variation Same year. So just pretty big on measuring things, testing things. So makes us look a lot smarter too. By the way, pretty accurate with our feed buddy. Otherwise it's calculated guesswork. It's the old days run the grain trail out Every year, use on it and go for another five seconds after that. I think we've got to be a bit better than that. So test again, mate.
Speaker 2:And the.
Speaker 3:NDF, like our mutual detergent fibers, especially in your haze, can really change intakes, especially for younger shoots. The more high that NDF figure is, the less cheaper we add intakes. Once again. Probably get away with it with cattle and heavy use. But if you're looking into your red tags or trying to, you know last year's U-Lanes and we didn't have a spring there, the ones that are going to be back behind the eight ball a bit.
Speaker 3:The red tag is this year. And if you're joining U-Lanes, you know just, you couldn't test up 10 ME. But the NDFs, you know 60 plus. You know their intakes only going to be five or six ME. So they're a long way behind the ball, even though it could be 18% pro to 10 ME, because the NDFs, oh, they just can't intake enough. So you get a feed test, you get that measurement, then we can work out what's actually going to happen. So just allocate your feed source to the right animal. So the silage to test up really well might be only good enough for the from a few years base on the NDF figure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's one of the tricks. For young players, old NDFs, it can be a great test. But if they physically can't get it out, the back end of the room and then it doesn't matter what it does. So we're not talking Big investment to get some of this testing done 60, 70 bucks for free test or something.
Speaker 3:It's a quick test where every 66 bucks yeah, it's a cheap investment. Yeah, looking on a hay, anywhere between two, 20 and 300, depending on the quality Graying on farm, probably still 300, 305 for for free barley. They look at 30 cents a kilo there. So just just test it, mate. This isn't be smart, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, even though we are, when it seems like these numbers are robbery likes of, it's amazing how, when you've been doing it for a couple decades or longer, but it's amazing how I, using those simple tables and relatively simple tables, obviously based on some pretty good science, but, yeah, even though it feels like they're sort of robbery numbers, I that's amazing how, how predictive you can be and how accurate can sort of get with with feeding sheep.
Speaker 3:Yeah, man, no, I think I think we touched on before. You know, if you just this, quite variation in intakes, huge, as you know, within the population. So if you can draft off the lighter ones and do something different with them, they'll go. That'll help no end. Yeah, I've got a question for you now. So, yep, so that muscle. So we've been able to store the spring feed. So this time of year, high fat, high muscle sheep say two muscle, one fat, versus a Point five muscle neutral for fat. What's that? What's that going to do as far as sheep holding condition through this period?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a good question and I'd probably don't have enough Accurate numbers off top of my head, but I guess what we see happen is that generally that reflects through to their conditions caught the end of this period, so they will maintain weight more efficiently. So the yes, but I can't give you any exact exact number around that. But what we do see happen, as a sheep that have been bred to just thrive, I suppose, or bred with a bit of conditions, go on the back of the ones that will come out of any period in in better condition, and that varies between places and, but we do know that that'll line up. And so essentially, you're either you get two different ways to make money out of that situation. You're either you either you can start feeding later, because you can let them drop back down to three, and I'll take a bit longer to get there, or you can feed them less over that, over that period, and they'll, and they'll reward you through not not losing as much weight. Or you can, I guess, on a on a systems basis you could be running more of them because you make make more money out of those sheep because they're actually yeah, by maintaining a high condition score at any given way.
Speaker 1:They're sort of actually reducing their, their standard reference weight. They're actually by breeding them. All the breeding values are corrected for live, obviously. So as you increase fat and muscle, increase condition score and, and we know that standard reference weight is calculated, condition score three. So by definition, you actually reducing the standard reference weight of that animal, which, yeah, you can then milk out by having a few more of them running around, because we know that stocking rights king for for making money. So, yeah, they're, they're. I don't I should have the numbers exactly how much better they'll be, and maybe Tomo would be better off to answer that. But yeah, we know they'll be better.
Speaker 1:And and that's really where the value of that, those particular traits, and why we bang on them out of a bit, is, is it this time of year where things are and in in Australia it is probably that autumn period where things are as tough as it gets and then in, alternatively, in New Zealand, where some people will be listening, it's a small that, particularly the South Island where you get a hundred day winter, that's when that those differences come out, where you're trying to feed animals under a Under a fair bit of physiological pressure from being fairly, fairly chilly out and about and and the quality Basically gets frozen off.
Speaker 1:So there's not a lot of, there's no grain growth and and the quality can drop away and what was green and autumn will disappear. So yeah, there's different parts of the world where they have different stress, but that's why we've been pretty hot on bringing those animals that will just end up Coming through those periods in in slightly better condition and that sort of flows through to kind of things like wormbird, which I'd be interested to know how, how you're traveling on that front. A nice kind Winter is summer has been awesome for sheep, but I imagine it's well been awesome for parasites.
Speaker 3:It's a good question. I've had three years of when we haven't had good chills because we haven't had a decent hot, dry period, but we've had one the last five or six weeks and then saying that like we get some, I'm just gonna mark them up computer now, some worm test back now, not now a couple of days ago, and still having Hoggits. So blue taggers that were drenched five weeks ago, up to five, seventy worms again. So what I'm expecting now and well, probably need clarification with that but I imagine the last four or five weeks with this dry weather We'll actually get some really good kills with the next, like a lot of people been holding drenched, holding drenched, holding drenched, especially in the mature sheet and the numbers have just come up against hit them.
Speaker 3:Now We've had a dry period, so that should kill a lot of the worms on the ground because Temperature and sunlight are the two biggest killers of worms. So imagine we're actually gonna get a really good clean out around now. I might be told differently, but it looks like it'll be a good one. We haven't had that for years. We just been these mild summons we've had in late springs and earlier starts. We actually haven't had a great bloom kill, so expecting some good stuff to happen, even more. So if you got, you know we can. You're in your brooding objective. You'll be getting paid for that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah. So yeah, I guess that that will. If you have got drenched resistance happening, you have to be careful with your family grim shoes, because these, when you do get a good kill, obviously all the worms are then in the shape right now, and so by having a good kill means you put a lot of selection pressure on your drench or against on the worms, that against the drench. So yeah, I guess another, another reminder to be doing those drench reduction tests and stuff. If you don't see, if you don't get a response like you think you should, particularly now when it's dry, then we're gonna be checking out our actives and that's gets a bit scary.
Speaker 3:We're very lucky in this area because that David Rendell done so much good work the last 20 years on efficacy and you know what's happening with your drenches and you know some places have been able to get drenched some of the Some of the wild quality cheaper drenches back into their system because you know they've managed it well. So I've been more lucky with having David in the area for that one. So not looking to have a pro-strench resistance goes with and my, I might be biased, mate. There's not probably work with people that have worked with David, so I might be seeing a bias sample. But yeah, some of the drenched resistance stuff's been coming back pretty good. So go back to the genetics again. So this time here when feeding goes up. So Summarizing your stuff very quickly the tougher the conditions, the more important. Muscle and fat is, so Important they're worm air camps with less drenching. So some of that stuff, the resilience stuff, becomes very important when things get tough.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I guess these times it is the tough times that would sort of building a sheep to be ready for and then and also obviously want to make the most of the good toms by having that reproductive ability, the growth and stuff that we want to breed into them and the Will cut it out a good micron. But yeah, balancing that out with a good where man count, a good, a low dag school breeding value and and good resilience to Nutritional restriction and I guess your muscle fat where me count bag of things that we're working pretty hard on with our, our clients, and now I guess the other one that's sort of relevant is Working on wall color and fleece rod as well. And when you do get these summer events and you get the last thing you want Is then a fly strike as a result of sort of warm, warm summer rain is great for a bit of bacterial growth on susceptible sheep.
Speaker 3:And then yeah, anything with a bit of wrinkle, bit of staying, bit of day, especially some of the color too. So I don't like something, I won't say it. Older traditional styles have been hit pretty hard with flies, you know four to five weeks ago, and probably something a bit of stripping on some of the chemicals to. Some of the Heavy-duty chemicals have been putting on have been stripped out in two or three weeks and they're getting struck again.
Speaker 1:So is that identified as resistant, or is that?
Speaker 3:Well, I've said some stuff away, since some maggots way to have a look at off a place stand towards too long to see what's happening there. But basically they went three weeks beautiful and then got started getting struck again in numbers. So I'll follow that along with a bit of interest, that one. But once again it's a Come and I keep coming back. I'll keep talking about and you bang on it. Well, I'm truly better than me about the genetics. You know, get rid of those things out of the system. They don't become an issue or less of an issue.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think we've got, yeah, a lot of these the seasons. I guess we're being told we're gonna. We should be expecting more, a bit of well, expect the unexpected, I suppose, in terms of what, look, what's happening with the, in terms of when it's gonna rain and how much it runs, and so, yeah, I guess we've got to set ourselves up for a sheep that can handle some of these so summer rainfall events, and and again, when you get yeah, you can go through four or five years where you don't get exposed to that pressure and then all of a sudden you get. You get the seasons along. That's the beauty of the sort of breeding mode, I suppose, is you can keep.
Speaker 1:Even the people think, like we know, sometimes we rock up to do a bit of fleece rock scoring and they sort of look at your sideways saying they got no fleece rock. But but you can often see a band that Like, if you look hard, you'll see the odd one. You find a band and that obviously sheep. But even though there hasn't been a lot of conditions conducive to that, that outcome, the you still see it in some of those sheep and you'll see others that are absolutely perfect still. So it's, it's just trying to find that variation, even though it's harder to see some years and then, as other years like this we sort of have, those susceptible sheep will open up and they'll be sort of good Aussie green and gold colors, but but yeah, it's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess all this, these things come together and you want to shape that is there for all seasons, not just for the good ones and Parts of season. I suppose, as always doesn't seem to get too many years where you don't have somewhere some pinch period or or or a challenge period, either from fly or worms or or from nutritional restrictions. So you're kind of gonna have those bases loaded on those fronts to keep people farming sheep. I suppose that like the yeah, we hear it all the time, but yeah, it's not not that easy to get people on farm to do those pretty ordinary, ordinary job. So it's, I guess we're pretty, pretty kind of a shape that you, when things go against your bed, it's not the first to pack up, it's still there fighting, working for you, not against you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and one of the other things going to pop up this year ground cover mate. We haven't really had paddocks flogged out like this for three or 40 years. There's a lot of paddocks starting to get down around at 12, 1300 food now and if you're at 40% of gest, well, you're probably only talking at 30. If you're in nutritional requirements and it's get under a thousand, probably only look at two or three coming out of the food. So it might be a year for containment feeding this year, depending on when we get the break. But I think we presented I think it was up at Bulls Place five or six years ago some really interesting data. It was out of New South Wales DPI.
Speaker 3:Actually, you know when it blows in. We've had a few blows here this year where the winds picked up and the dust has come out of the air and it's gone off the ground that you start blowing and you start losing around 50 bucks a hectare and lost. You know NPK and S, you know nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, so off it, just disappearing into the neighbor's paddock or a bit further. So probably need to start thinking about if it's our pigs are getting bean out. So I think the rules of thumb is that for sandy soils you don't want to go below a thousand food, and for your heavier, heavier soils, your clay, your heavier clay soils, you can probably get down to about 800 food in the pigs before they'll start to blow.
Speaker 3:People will probably say, no, I think about that. Am I going to set up containment? Don't get to the middle of March, april, june. I need to start putting my sheep into containment now. Start thinking about it now. Make some preparations, look at your water quality, look at your water quantity and what you're going to need to do if you do have to go into containment Now. As I said, once it gets under a thousand and they're getting two and a half to three in many out of the paddocks, so containment areas you pick up about a 10 or 15% efficiency just on that alone, because the sheep aren't walking around paddocks. So what do you think you're saving out? And by feeding them out in the pig, picking up a bit of air may out of there, you're actually losing anyway. So you're probably better off in containment when we get down to those levels.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was where I was going to go next, I'm glad you brought it up. So it seems like a year where containment is going to be pretty handy and obviously might depend on the break. But even now, as a minimum, you'd be thinking sacrifice, wouldn't you? If you're already down to low food, you'd be saving.
Speaker 3:Spot on Mark, yeah. So especially with the bullies that have got a bit of cropping and stuff, they're starting to use some of those paddocks before they start getting stuck into it, which won't be far away Well, it's nearly mid-March next week. So, yeah, the main thing is think about a process and how you're going to do it. Don't leave until the last moment. So start setting yourself up what you're going to need. And the last few years we've had straw test up.
Speaker 3:Really well, You're getting some straws. You know six to 70 me. So if you're your biggest sheep, you know that's probably enough to maintain them in the containment area. So they're probably 2% of their body weight. So, looking at 70 kilo a year, they're like 1.4 kilo a day. So you're looking at you know you get 9, 10, 11 me out of that, depending on the test. But the main thing is get it tested so you can do it a bit cheaper than you think. I think. Straws somewhere between 150 bucks a ton, probably 180 delivered on farm. So just start thinking about now, about your options, before everyone else is thinking about it. Everyone goes to the market at the same time and buys some. I'm going to guess what happens to price mate, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, it's good to have like 3000 people today, it'd be good. Yeah, I think that's a great point on. Particularly some of your barley straws and stuff can be really really quite handy. So yeah, and I guess that's the game really, isn't it Like for adult sheep? It's kind of doesn't matter what form the energy turns up in, it's just as cheap as ME, as you can get your hands on as long as you're watching those NDFs. But there is just an ME or SANSPA ME sort of game. It doesn't really matter what it is, it's just as cheap as you can get it into them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly right. Yeah, just don't take much sitting down with the calculator and the you know the pin and, being half smart, I guess different for young sheep?
Speaker 1:Well, like your lambs and stuff, where you've anything growing, you've got to look at protein as well. But for older sheep they tend to be just a straight ME equation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, keep it simple with the older sheep mate, just the ME. Look, I haven't seen NDF. Look, I've seen NDF, which is extreme Now 70 kilo a year will still get probably 80, 90% of his herd ration out of a 6, 7 ME straw.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I guess we're talking about all this stuff and it's about making sure we maintain condition and meeting the needs of sheep and it'll be people out there going. What does that matter? And obviously you've worked with hundreds of producers now and I mean what we're on about really is maximising the harvest, something maximising that lamb weaning this year and setting the, making sure that you end up through the season ready to go again in the next year, like it's. We're talking real money, that, or real numbers of lambs which turned into real money.
Speaker 3:Yeah, such a good point, mate. That's why the containment will be probably important this year. So we can. We get a rain in April, you know. Get your think about where your lambing pegs are, be especially your twin lambing pegs. We can get sheep off there and get some grass growing. It goes back to our lifetime, wool days, mate. That's 24 years ago, mark, we did that.
Speaker 3:But the difference in pasture growth rate between having, you know, putting the it's a bit of green out there, put the sheep on it, you know it will grow. You know 50 to 70% less at, say, six or 700 than it does at 1100. So you can actually set yourself up for the winter if you get just especially twin paddocks. Get them off, let the grass grow, and grass grows grass. You know the more solar panels will put up, even in winter, you know it will grow quicker than it's at five or 600, you know just the green look but not much substance in it. So start thinking about that. You know which ones we can do if we get a break, which pegs we're going to set up for our twins, because they're your harvest, you know they're the ones that set up your lambing percentage. The singles can only go backwards to twins, you know, at least we can get some more stuff on the ground if we manage them right. Post scanning.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and we see some I don't know. We're starting to see some pretty impressive numbers around the place, that big commercial scale where we've got like all the things we talk to coming together, where you got that sort of management of management of the you, management of the genetic program where they're, we're breeding them to be productive and and efficient and resilient and but, yeah, matching that with the feeding. I suppose we the old, when we first started the old breadwell feds, was all about the need to get both those those things right and it's probably it's got an additional sort of manage well or whatever around that these days with things like mob sizes and stuff in addition to just how well we feed them. So it's, yeah, but you're kind of it's a bit of a team sport. We need all the bits going together to get that good outcome at the end of the year.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think Tom, I produced a great graph on food and twin lamb survival. You know the difference between a lamb a you, that's say 2. A you, that's 2.7 to 3 lambing on 1100 to comparing lambing on six or 700 is about 30% difference in lamb survival month. So once again, one bit of Tom. I was work but just showed you know if you can get sure can, if you don't get everything 100% right and you use not in perfect condition, score by having decent food in her lambing paddock, we can sort of get out a jail card, but it certainly will help.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you remember these ones. When we're doing the lifetime, we're doing the lambing around the. You know the lighter end of the food paddocks, like the maternal behavior of the you changed massively. Yeah, when it was low food, like just lambing and walking looking for a food, you know her prime and drive for self preservation, sort of overgave and trying to look after that lamb. And then we look in the next paddock and we had 1500 food. Here's a you sitting, sitting with the lamb, cuddle into it because she's had food. She knows you can get a food. Just changed the dynamics massively.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was yeah, I think it burned in our memories A lot of things, those three years, some good, some bad, but the yeah, it was amazing to watch that how, and it makes sense in that you don't have haven't got time to maternal, while you're worried about yourself and they're just seeing those, just that shift in behavior when there's nothing different other than their nutritional management. And well, two things their prior nutrition and their current available nutrition were, yeah, were have, a massive impact on how that, on new behavior and maternal instinct, and then plus lamb birth, what? And all the rest of it, so um, so um.
Speaker 3:Remember I think it was the third year that we had lighter use and we put that lighter use on the lower food and lighter use in on to a thing was the 13 to 1500 food and even though late pregnancy they were on lower condition score fee, we just put them at the pine whamming onto the high feet. Maternal behavior changed yeah, just by having food around and say, as I said before, you can get out of jail with not completely, but it'll certainly help. And this could be one of those years for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, excellent mate. Any other tips for the good folk out there?
Speaker 3:Good folk. I'll just give one of the team at next year in a ring if you want to talk about food, about something like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good point. And, uh, getting these things, often it's can sound overwhelming, but it's, yeah, with a bit of support you can get get through the. Get through these things and get them done. Get them done efficiently. Work out what you're feeding, work out what the lambing parakeets are going to be and, and, uh, do those food budgets and get the right one. Yeah, yeah, excellent, all right, thanks, kat. Good to have a chat.
Speaker 3:No worries mate. Back to the cricket today, or having a day off.
Speaker 1:No, I think I'll watch it on the box today. That's um, gonna be get ready for get ready for the week and probably can't can't justify spending five days at cricket, unfortunately, but it's been. It's been good. It's good while it lasts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it should be. A should be every three years. We go over there this time of year I reckon, uh, I'll be doing a muffin to cricket. I don't think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been great weather for it.
Speaker 3:So look, people don't say to be rugging up till at least three o'clock in the afternoon, which is probably nice for Christchurch, is it?
Speaker 1:That's right. Yeah, exactly, cool mate. No worries, mate. Thanks again to our mates at Heinega, her proud world leaders in the manufacturing and supply professional sheep shearing and clipping equipment. They understand that their customers rely on the quality and performance of their products each and every day. Also, thanks to our friends at MSD Animal Health in Orflix, they offer an extensive livestock portfolio focused on animal health and management, all backed up by exceptional service. Both of these companies are wonderful supporters of the Australian and New Zealand livestock industries and we thank them for sponsoring the HLP podcast.