Paying a price for perfect pasture

Rapidly improving pastures and wet, warm weather often lead to animal health problems, including foot abscess in sheep and cattle poisoning.

Those who have been in the game a while will often say you will lose more stock in a good season than in a dry one, and this year is shaping up to be one of the best.

Central West Local Land Services (LLS) veterinarian Greg McCann said while the change in season was mainly good news, livestock producers had to monitor some issues.

Dr McCann said while improved pastures would always make more money from mud than dust, farmers needed to be on the lookout for foreign plants in their paddocks.

“With the turnaround in the season, depending on how bare people had country, we are seeing a risk of poisoning because of growth of plants that don’t normally grow,” he said.

Pastures needed to be monitored for nutrient value before being grazed.

“We need to look at the body condition and feed availability especially with lambing ewes with the idea of watching out for pregnancy toxaemia, keeping in mind if they are twin baring or aged, it becomes more of an issue,” Dr McCann said.

Department of Primary Industries (DPI) grazing systems technical specialist Phil Graham, Yass, said foot abscess would be prevalent due to the rapid weight gain of some pregnant ewes.

“If you have sheep that are a fat score two now you will be OK, but anything higher than that puts them at a larger risk of foot abscess,” he said.

Boorowa farmer Stephen Hewitt, “Yundoo”, is lambing 1000 ewes and works at Thompsons Rural Supplies Boorowa.

He said while he expected toxaemia, foot abscess was now the biggest concern.

“It’s affecting 30 to 40 per cent of lambing ewes,” he said. “It’s a bit hard to treat when they’re lambing.”

Dr Graham has also seen more cases of Barber’s pole worm than usual and wants producers to be wary of drench resistance in their sheep.

DPI Armidale veterinary parasitologist Stephen Love warned about Barber’s pole worm, saying there was a common misconception cold weather would kill the eggs.

“Larvae, which have hatched during warmer weather, can survive into winter even if the eggs aren’t still hatching,” he said.

Mr Love said lamb producers needed to ensure proper paddock preparation to ward off worms, although if graziers had waited until now it was too late for this season.

He said May was the best time to drench for liver fluke, though drench resistance was an issue.

Parkes stock agent Geoff Rice, Langlands Hanlon, said the odd lame sheep had come through the yards, although cases had been minimal.

“We have seen foot abscess and lameness in the sheep coming through, where they have been in paddocks up to their bellies and haven’t seen hard ground for a while,” he said.

South West LLS veterinary specialist Alexandra Stephens said the area had had some cattle lameness.

SOME farmers in the north of the State have received less than half their average rainfall for the year to date.

“Jeogla station” and “Wallamumbi station” managers Richard and Katherine Braham, will have to supplementary feed their livestock through the winter for the first time since 2002.

The couple run an Angus and Shorthorn breeding herd on 13,354 hectares near Armidale.

With an average rainfall of 950 millimetres a year, the Brahams have only received 168mm so far.

This year, feeding breeding stock towards the end of winter and the start of spring in time for calving will be a must.

Cattle numbers usually sit at 16,000 head during the summer and about 11,500 head during the winter, but this year the Brahams will destock to 7500 breeders for the colder months.

Mr Braham said the load had already been lightened to make room for spring calving.

“We sold weaners earlier than we would have liked late last year, due to seasonal conditions,” he said.

With one bad year in every seven to 10, they will always budget for fodder at “Jeogla” and “Wallamumbi”, growing hay most seasons to reduce the cost of buying it in.

“Sorghum provides a good amount of roughage while pelts provide protein as does cottonseed; it’s a good combination of both roughage and protein.”

Mr Braham said they based their decisions about what feed to use on would get them the most for their money.

“Ideally cottonseed is preferable but due to price, and what else is available, that changes.”

Mr Braham said when they last fed in 2002 cottonseed cost between $200 and $230 a tonne, but export demand had driven the price up to more than $500/t.

Earlier in the year, the Brahams tried grape marc because it was cheaper than cottonseed, and while it kept the stock going Mr Braham said in the long run better quality feed was preferred.

– KATE PEARCE

BINALONG producer David Sykes, “Glendalyn”, (pictured) is experiencing the best autumn break he has seen.

“Given average rainfall from now until the end of spring, we will have an exceptionally good clover seed set in the spring, producers will be able to turn stock off at good weights with minimal to no supplementary feeding, and it should help producers run a profitable year,” he said.

And while Mr Sykes is far from complaining about the current conditions, they have brought with them new management hurdles.

Running 5000 Merino ewes, 2500 weaner sheep and about 350 head of cattle on 1650 hectares, Mr Sykes, who farms with wife Robyn, is seeing foot health issues in his sheep and cattle.

“We have cattle grazing triticale and some have come up lame because their feet are wet all the time,” he said.

“At the moment we are keeping an eye on it and treating anything that is adversely affected.

But the foot issue is actually a bigger issue in sheep than cattle, as some of the pastures have extremely high clover content, and that with the fact that they are wet all the time has been causing problems with benign foot rot or scold.

Looking further ahead, Mr Sykes said one of his biggest problems will be lambing difficulties with Merino ewes joined to Terminal rams.