Farmers — time to prepare for winter

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 2, Issue 42, 9 April 1985, Page 12

Farmers — time to prepare for winter

Farmers in the Waimarino are now at the stage where they should be planning feed supplies for the long winter months ahead. From the pasture growth sites, monitored for the past . three years, it is quite evident that farmers can't rely on a lift in autumn growth to build up pasture reserves for the coming winter. The attached graph illustrates the growth pattern, emphasising the fact that growth peaks in December, and declines rapidly to. June/ July. For this reason a number of management decisions need to be made now, to ensure sufficient autumn and winter feed supply. 1. Destocking of trading stock. By trading stock I mean lambs, cull ewes and older cattle. Weaner saies are dictated by sale yard dates.

From now on trading stock will be competing with breeding stock thus affecting next year's production. Every dollar made on lambs, for example, may be reducing potential liveweight gain on breeding ewes thus reducing lambing percentage for next season. I appreciate the difficulties of trying to get killing space for lambs and old ewes, in light of past industrial action, but every attempt should be made to plan killing space over the next 2-3 weeks. Delaying sale until May might catch potentially high prices for lambs in the store market, but is disastrous in terms of trying to carry sufficient grass reserves into the winter. It is for these reasons that farmers should aim to be down to their winter base stock numbers by early April. 2. Controlled mating management ewes. Flushing ewes in an uncontrolled manner, namely spreading them over the property from 3 weeks prior to mating until 6 weeks after the rams have been out can result in a major use of winter feed reserves. Using rotational grazing

and harnessed rams not only reduces autumn feed requirements, but the efficiency by which stock use the feed is increased. On properties currently using these techniques, ewes are flushed well for 3 weeks prior to rams being introduced. Once mating starts, after every 7-8 days ewes marked are withdrawn from the tupping mob. Marked ewes then put on a maintenance ration with chaser rams in case any return to cycle. A saving of 4-6 weeks of winter feed ration is made using this management technique. Well worth trying. . 3. Early use of supplements. For some years now I have been advocating the early use of winter supplementary feed. Reasons for this can be easily explained by referring to the pasture growth pattern. It can be seen that growth in May is greater than in July. Hence if. stock are restricted to small areas, say on crop in May, then the remainder of the property is free to accumuate greater feed reserves for use later in the winter say July/ August. But this management technique should not be used unless an effective

rotational grazing system is used for the remainder of the winter to ration feed reserves that are built up. Some reserves of hay should be kept in case of snow in the late winter/ spring months. In support of the early use of supplements, especially crops, is the quality aspect. Crops are generally of much better quality in May than in the late winter. Crop used in July/ August, have lower leaf content lost through frosting, often have bacterial wet rot infection and in some cases have begun to seed. With ewe demands increasing due to foetal demands, it is common to hear of animal health problems arising from feeding off crops in the late winter period. Generally speaking the long winters in the Waimarino can be easily managed with some form of forward planning of feed supplies in the autumn. Coupled with an effective rotational grazing system to ration out those feed supplies the pressure of winter feeding of stock is eliminated.

Will

Wilson

Farm Advisory Officer Waimarino County