With pasture condition and quality a key factor in an enterprise's success, the ANFD Livestock Field Day 'Turning Pastures Into Profits' at Borenore, NSW, was a very relevant event.
The day focused on important issues like pasture establishment and maintenance, feed assessment, live cattle and sheep assessment, reducing restocking risks, and managing foot diseases.
The NSW Department of Primary Industries and Central West Local Land Services experts conducted workshops to help producers get the most out of their enterprise.
Speaking to the group of assembled producers, Local Land Services Officer - Pastures, Phil Cranney said that in today's climate it is imperative to get the most out of pastures.
"When it comes to pasture, no one size fits all as each person needs to see what works best for them," Mr Cranney said.
Brett Littler, Senior Land Services Officer - Livestock, Central Tablelands Local Land Services demonstrated some of the secrets to live cattle assessment and spoke about the correlation between livestock assessment and pasture assessment.
"After predominantly being about sheep, we felt the need to incorporate cattle into this day to fit in with what we find in the Central West," Mr Littler said.
"We wanted to provide the information relevant to what we have seen on farms in the area.
"The theme 'Turning Pastures Into Profits' looks at what we have been through in the past few years.
"We discussed whether confinement feeding was suitable or de-stocking was the way to go, depending upon the circumstances.
"We looked at pasture and livestock benchmarking and ways to maximise pastures to maximise livestock production.
"It is important for producers to correctly assess their pasture and how that affects their livestock benchmark.
"They need to be aware of how many kilograms of dry matter they have and, depending upon what pasture they have, what that means.
"We spoke about the difference in pasture species and how to get the best performance out of them.
"By not looking after pasture, and not assessing properly, it directly affects a pastures ability to rebound.
"The livestock demonstrations were about showing producers how to correctly assess fatness and animal condition.
"From a reproductive perspective, no conditioning means poor pregnancy rates.
"Producers need to get their assessments right to know what sort of pastures will work best with their livestock.
"Anyone not assessing their pasture and just putting livestock in a paddock is just throwing away money."