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Ag News

29/01/2007

By Department of Primary Industries - 2nd February 2007 - Back to News

FIRE SAFETY FOR YOUR FARM

It is important to prepare and keep a ‘fire and evacuation’ plan for your farm to protect your assets and livestock in the event of a fire. Tips for safety on your farm include:

1. Cultivating a fire break around haystacks, rolls of hay roll and silage.
2. Don’t stack hay along road sides and under trees, these are often the first to burn.
3. Decide where the dairy herd is safest in event of a fire. For example, is it in the laneway, a secure paddock or in the dairy yard with the sprinklers going?
4. Have access to a back up petrol driven water pump and fire fighting hose, as the electricity supply is often lost during bushfires.
5. Move the tractor and farm vehicles to a safe location, and don’t leave the cattle dog tied to the hayshed.

If your property is impacted by bushfire, contact your nearest DPI Rural Recovery Coordinator - Daniel Miller at DPI Swifts Creek on 5159 5134 or David Shambrook at DPI Leongatha on 5662 9900.

REMINDERS FEBRUARY 2007

Calves and young stock

• Keep your calves up to date with worm drenches and vaccinations.
• During dry periods calves and young stock require a high protein diet to assist in growth and development.
• Pregnancy test heifers and cull those not in calf.
• Check young stock twice a week for pink eye, consult your vet on the best treatment. Avoid dusty yards and unnecessary yarding, treat calves early with ointment and eye patches.

Water Supply

• Check water supply for blue-green algae, if contaminated prevent stock access, avoid using water, get the algae tested to check if it is a toxic species and contact your vet if you see any adverse symptoms in stock.
• Use effluent ponds to fertilise and water crops.
• Clean out runoff drains to maximise catchment of rain into dams once the rain arrives.

Cows

• Regularly check cows and heifers on agistment properties to ensure they have adequate feed and water.
• Prepare a feed plan for dry cows to get them through to autumn calving.
• Identify cows that are empty and decide whether you are going to cull them now, alternatively if they are milking well you may decide to milk them through on an extended lactation.
• Water misters, fans, bait traps or repellents all help to reduce flies in the dairy.
• Keep your cows’ protein and fibre balanced, log on to the Target 10 website www.target10.com.au to access the diet balance calculator.

Pasture

• Try not to eat your pasture into the ground, set up a sacrifice system so that grass can respond to any rain.
• Use paddocks that you plan to resow as sacrifice paddocks.
• Order you pasture seed in advance ready for the autumn sowing of pastures.
• Rye grass leaf appearance rates for mid February will be restricted by the hot dry conditions but is estimated to be around 12 – 20 days for each leaf to emerge to its full length. Excessive daytime temperature as well as obvious lack of moisture will suppress grass growth rates.

For more information, contact your nearest Dairy Extension Officers at DPI Leongatha on 5662 9900, DPI Ellinbank on 5624 2222 or DPI Maffra on 5147 0800.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com