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News from the Department of Primary Industries

By Department of Primary Industries - 16th January 2007 - Back to News

DEVELOPING A FIRE PLAN FOR LIVESTOCK

The Department of Primary Industries strongly encourages everyone to consider all livestock (including sheep, cattle and horses) and pets when preparing and activating fire plans.

A livestock fire plan may help protect livestock assets and welfare and your financial and emotional well being.

It is essential to have a safe, workable plan to protect your livestock that can be implemented quickly and safely when fire threatens. Never assume that your property is free from the risk of bushfire, and always have a fire plan for your stock.

The basis of the plan is to move stock to designated low risk areas when fire threatens. Decisions on when to enact the fire plan will be based on weather, or the immediate threat of fire in your area. Listen to the radio and observe your own environment to decide when to put your plan into action.

Stock on low risk areas will have less chance of being injured by fire. Low risk areas should be in areas that are easily accessible.

Low risk areas can include:

• ploughed paddocks, areas cultivated and kept free of combustible vegetation,
• bared out paddocks, provided they are well defended by fire breaks,
• irrigated paddocks or paddocks containing green summer crops (green feed does not burn easily), or,
• stock yards with bare or ploughed surrounds, which can be wet in advance, however the yards must be well defended as the fire front passes.

If you do not have an appropriate low risk area it may be an option to open internal gates to give stock the ability to move away from the path of the fire. DO NOT open gates onto roadways, as livestock on roads will provide a significant hazard to road vehicles. The CFA recommends that you do not lock gates and that you switch off electric fencing.

Horses should not be locked up in stables. All equipment including rugs, halters and flyveils should be removed as plastic may melt and buckles heat up. Place the horse in the largest available area to enable them to run as free as possible.

If possible transport stock away from the potential fire front.

HOW BIG IS THAT FEED GAP?

Pasture levels are currently very low to non-existent in most areas of Gippsland. Therefore whatever you have been able to purchase for feeding to your milkers up until now plus any home made fodder will be setting the level of production they will achieve until drying off.

If you have not already worked out whether you are going to have enough fodder to feed with the grain until drying off, now is the time. This will be particularly important if you have a July or August calving herd or the so-called autumn break does not arrive until winter.

It is very important that you allow sufficient fodder to be carried through into winter for these milkers and to feed the dries at the end of the lactation. This will mean doing the calculations on what is required to be fed to the milkers until drying off, plus what is required for the dries and any young stock for winter. This figure then needs to be matched up against what fodder you have on hand currently. If there is a shortfall of significant proportions then something needs to be done to correct this situation.

Options to rectify this situation could include purchasing more fodder, offloading more stock or possibly drying off depending on your situation. These options should be costed, so that you make the best decision for your business. As fodder continues to reduce in its availability as time goes on, the cost may go up as well. So the earlier you can identify and correct this shortfall the better off financially and from the feed aspect you will be.

There is no certainty about when the break will come, so it is better to be prepared for the worst case scenario and have it rain than to do nothing. The main thing being that in order to be ready to recover from the dry then the stock need to be in a condition to respond and produce at or near normal levels.

If you would like some assistance in identifying how big that feed gap is then the DPI has a simple form that can assist in doing this calculation. You can contact any of the 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

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