WHEN Coonamble producer Hugh Taylor shifted his lambing ewes onto grain feeders during the dry conditions, he thought the supplements would be beneficial.
Instead, he returned the next day to find 12 sheep dead.
While he initially feared disease, local district veterinarian Jillian Kelly ruled acidosis from overfeeding as the cause.
It’s an issue facing many producers during the sustained dry period.
“I had the feeders too wide, they gorged and I lost 12 straight away,” Mr Taylor said.
“I had no one else to blame but myself. It was hard enough at the time, let alone a bit of human error.
“We struggle away on our own but I think a lot of people have had issues. It’s a really tricky one because we all want our stock to be healthy as possible.”
Mr Taylor runs 2000 Merino ewes on his 3600 hectare property, Ottendorf, crossing them with Border Leicester rams to lamb in April and May. In a good year he would also plant 5500 hectares of wheat, chickpea or barley.
He hasn’t had “a blade of grass” on his country for two or three months with rain missing for the last seven months and now feeds his ewes three times a week.
His on-farm storage of 100 tonnes of chickpea and grain barley was a major benefit during the dry conditions and with feeding advice from Local Land Services guidance, Mr Taylor was able to achieve a 100 per cent lambing.
”I was going quite heavy with the chickpeas because back then it was just graded chickpeas, plus with the lambing ewes, I just wanted to get them all through it,” he said.
“Where I got lucky is we got the sheep through lambing, we got them to shearing, we weaned the lambs, we shore the ewes, we split them and it took an enormous amount of pressure off.”
Mr Taylor isn’t alone in battling nutritional difficulties during this drought.
Having serviced the district, Dr Kelly said it was the worst drought she had ever experienced and grain poisoning was the latest issue facing hand fed livestock.
“It’s amazing how many different ways a drought can present itself on farm, everything from lack of nutrients right through to grain poisoning,” she said.
“Particularly, we are seeing grain poisoning now because cotton seed has got prohibitively expensive and farmers turn to cereal grain, particularly for cattle. Feeding large grain supplies to livestock comes with problems.
“With a chronic lack of proper nutrition we are now seeing pneumonia and scours, all those things that seem to come with drought.”
With feed prices so high, she said it was important that producers were feeding their animal’s rumen as cleverly as possible and weren’t afraid to ask for assistance from their Local Land Services representatives.
“We have got a lot of farmers who are very good at feeding but this drought is challenging everyone because of the length of it,” she said.
“Farmers are often operating in isolation, they are making decisions at home on their own, drought does terrible things to you in terms of decision making.”
Lucy Kinbacher
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
Raised on a cattle property at Biggenden, Lucy Kinbacher has spent 10 years working across metropolitan, regional and rural publications in both Queensland and NSW. Lucy has been the editor of the Queensland Country Life and North Queensland Register since 2021.
