A DECISION to prioritise pastures during drought has helped one Walcha producer reestablish his stock numbers much quicker than expected.
It was during the early months of the drought, which ravaged much of the state, when producer Rob Mulligan decided to take the plunge on confinement feeding on his 2100 hectare property.
It was the first time the operation run by Mr Mulligan along with his wife Anna and three daughters Olivia, Sophie and Isobel, had tried confinement feeding, a risk that proved worth taking.
"We have some friends in Victoria who have been doing it for quite a while so they really helped us out," Mr Mulligan said.
"I think it was probably about a third of the way through the drought that we set up the confinement feeding. It costs so much to sow pastures here, we are fully improved and we didn't want to have to re-sow anything, so looking after our pastures was our top priority.
"Although we probably had a bigger feed bill, we've come through with better quality pastures at the back end and in turn have been able to transition out of drought quicker than if we hadn't done it."
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From the property's first big rain event in January last year, Mr Mulligan said it took 12 months for stock numbers, which consist of joining 14,000 Maternal Composite ewes, which includes a large number of ewe lambs, and 1000 trade cattle, to return to 100 per cent.
"Before the drought we were about 50-50 with breeding cattle and sheep, however, we sold all of our breeders during the drought and we had a plan, which we followed all the way through that drought period because it went for so long," he said.
"We decided to forgo our breeding cattle and kept our main core sheep, feed them in confinement off the pastures, let the pastures do their thing and now with the composites we breed, our sheep numbers are back up to about 80pc.
"Now we just trade that extra 20pc with cattle, so in the future we have a bit of a valve we can release if we have another dry time.
"We join our ewe lambs at seven months old, retain a lot of ewe lambs and we got to 100pc stock three months ago, after being down to 50pc in drought, so to double our stock in about in 12 months was really good.
"The ratio between sheep and cattle is probably a little bit higher in favour of sheep at the moment, but it seems to be a good thing so we'll stick with it at the moment."
Mr Mulligan credited having a drought-management plan as a key reason for his outfit's progress.
"We allow for one dry year in every four and we know the most recent drought won't be the last, hopefully it won't be as bad next time, but it really did teach us a lot," he said.
"To me, it is all about having a plan, sticking it to it and using the people around you like your bank managers and farm advisers. With the assistance of farm business consultant, Sam Newsome from Newsome Ag, we had a constantly evolving plan.
"There really is no right or wrong answer when you're in a drought because you don't know how long it's going to go on for, but having a plan is critical.
"You do it as part of a team with your family, agronomists, farm advisors, staff and bank managers who all come together to help make it happen."
Despite stock numbers returning to pre-drought conditions, Mr Mulligan was now faced with a different form of pasture challenge.
"Feed utiliastion is our biggest thing at the moment because we got some compensatory growth from the drought and the feed did take off," he said.
"As a result, that feed got to a reproduction stage, the quality came off the boil a bit and in the end that was probably down to not having enough mouths on the ground quickly enough.
"It's a good problem to manage and overall, I think the recovery of the pastures was a lot quicker than I was expecting."
The property, which is nestled halfway between Walcha and Nowendoc was first established by Mr Mulligan's parents Fred and Barbara, who purchased the land in the mid-1970s' before helping to turn it into one of the bigger lamb operations in the district.
"Our key profit drivers are lamb survival and kilograms of lamb per hectare, that's what drives our business," Mr Mulligan said.
"I'm a big advocate of trying to get quality feed because we are a fat lamb operation and quality feed is the key to getting ewe lambs up to joining weight.
"I brought the genetics in from leading studs in Victoria, from there we started a stud, used our ram lambs to push our genetic gain in our commercial flock, recording ASBVs and pushing MCP+ indexing has allowed us to track our progress.
"Since my parents purchased it, we've just been tweaking it with more fencing and more water just so we can get our grazing management right."
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Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
