Balancing act in dry calves in drought

As drought conditions continue across NSW, particularly in northern areas, many producers have already destocked, however, some could still sell more.

"A lot of producers have de- stocked as much as they probably would have wanted... but it looks like it will be worse this year with less water and less feed," said NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) beef development officer Todd Andrews.

"There's usually more room for destocking... especially with some excellent cattle prices at the moment."

Mr Andrews said producers should keep good records of when cows calve, and use that information to sell cows that calve late in some years, which could lead to them missing out the next season.

"The later-calving cows should potentially be the first to be sold," he said.

For producers who have already destocked as much as they can, Mr Andrews said there was some good news in that grain prices had recently plateaued.

"Grain supplements are at quite an affordable level, compared to what they have been."

Another option for producers was early weaning for the calves this season, he said.

"I think people would be looking closely at early weaning... about 12 weeks old wouldn't be out of the ordinary."

Livestock officer for North West Local Land Services (LLS) Naomi Hobson agreed early weaning at about three months would be a good option for producers in dry conditions.

"Particularly as we head into summer and there's no soil moisture... so we won't get the pasture growth," Ms Hobson said.

By taking the calves off early and feeding them separately to the cows, producers could save good money on hay, she said.

As a rough guideline, feeding cows and calves together as a unit required 13 kilograms of good quality hay per day.

When they were split up, however, the cow would only need about 7kg of reasonable quality hay and the calf about 3 to 3.5kg of good quality hay each day.

The saving of about 3kg of hay per unit would really add up across a whole herd of cows with calves, Ms Hobson said.

"It does depend on the stock and the quality of the feed, though," she added.

Ms Hobson said creep feeding the calves on oats or other cereal grains while they were still on their cows, but separate for the actual feeding, was another good way to finish them off a bit quicker.

This method should be used only if the cows were holding their condition well, though.

Vitamin A, D and E injections as well as calcium and magnesium supplements could also help cattle in drought conditions, however, the main thing was to make sure you were meeting the stock's energy and protein requirements, Ms Hobson said.

Mr Andrews said there was some hope for NSW cattle producers, even with the ongoing dry conditions.

"Beef CRC research shows... in NSW nutritional setbacks are generally not severe enough to reduce meat quality when the cattle are processed later in life.

"When it does rain again, these cattle can resume their growth."