Stock Priorities

It’s important to consider the changes in season and have a plan for  rains, evaluate your breeding stock, reassess feed demand after pregnancy testing, evaluate remaining summer crop yields, and think about autumn pasture renewal or autumn feed crops where applicable.

Understanding what the priorities are for your farm and how to achieve these will make these decisions easier.

Many farmers still rely on the autumn period to generate a significant part of the year’s revenue but forecast profits can often shrink if finishing stock fail to grow at budgeted liveweight gains or the low store market prices for unfinished lambs and cattle last longer than anticipated.

So, how can you identify these priorities?

- The focus in autumn is reaching average pasture cover and stock condition targets ready for spring.

- Focus on leaving consistent post-grazing residuals.

- Body condition score your stock for proactive feed management.

- Complete an autumn & winter feed budget to identify feed shortages.

- Ensure any pasture renewal is a quality job, target pests where possible.

Most farm systems are based on a plan and policies that are repeated each year, for example, a breeding ewe policy.   These policies tend to be based on a farm’s pasture curve and medium-term market signals.  To be profitable they also tend to rely on the well-coordinated balance of livestock coming and going. 

This means if your feed budget required some stock to be sold to allow other stock to hit winter weight targets, then that stock must be sold.  If the desired sale weights aren’t achieved, then you need to check if your farm system/plan is right for your farm.

Farmers with breeding flocks often make more money out of breeding lambs (to weaning) than finishing them.  By autumn, feeding trading stock at the expense of breeding stock will not work in your favour. You need to decide where you get the most value from the feed which will eaten.  Assessing your stocks’ condition determines if actions are required and helps plan for each season.

You should have a clear date that your farm needs to reach winter stock numbers by.  This should be based on an understanding of the required starting pasture covers, likely winter and early spring pasture growth rates, any supplement and crop on hand to use, what level of spend is possible on nitrogen, and the expected feed demand of the stock to be on hand.  This will be different for every farm and will vary from year-to-year.

The best way of developing this understanding is a feed budget:

- estimate the number of stock grazing days in a paddock from pasture quantity assessment and animal feeding needs;

- establish rotations for controlled grazing management; and

- compile a whole farm feed budget to find periods of feed deficit or surplus and help with animal feeding decisions.

Following this budget/planner for your farm will assist in planning out how much grass can be utilised each week of autumn & winter to keep priority stock out for as long as possible while also having enough grass cover in spring so as to allow you to decide to turn out in August and September should the weather and ground conditions allow.  For farms with a number of different land blocks, some of which may be of varying soil types a number of autumn & winter rotation planners may be needed to be completed.

Good grazing management is about maximising the pasture you grow and utilise balanced with allowing pastures to recover following any dry periods in the summer.  If it’s still dry in late summer, manage for over-grazing.  Start thinking about pasture renewal early so paddocks can be properly prepared.

After autumn rain and very rapid pasture growth there is the opportunity to increase pasture cover by keeping on a slow rotation. Do not speed up the rotation to fully feed stock as this will not allow pasture covers to increase.

Going through this process may identify things in your system that need to change in the coming season which is all part of the value of the planning cycle. 

By now you will have likely  reached average pasture cover and stock condition targets ready for spring.  Make sure your systems provide you with the best plans for a success year.