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AgNews Column

Tuesday, March 22, 2010

By Department of Primary Industries - 23rd March 2010 - Back to News

Sheep benefit from early seasonal break

A key ingredient in getting Merino weaners through their first autumn is adequate protein in their diet. The green grass vigorously growing across Victoria this autumn will have lifetime benefits for sheep.

Department of Primary Industries (DPI) Sheep Disease Project Leader Robert Suter said the Sentinel Flock Project found ewes were too light throughout pregnancy last year due to the poor autumn and failed spring in 2008.

"Having good conditioned ewes has ongoing benefits for their lambs, with increased survival at birth, faster growth to weaning and better wool production," Dr Suter said.

"This green flush will help top up the body condition score in mated ewes.

"Ideally ewes are in body condition score three throughout pregnancy, even more at lambing for those carrying twins."

Dr Suter said fatter ewes at lambing will have a greater chance of being in good condition at their next mating and conceive more lambs.

"For autumn lambing flocks, the rain has been a blessing, meaning there is a chance ewes can be lambed onto pasture with substantial amounts of green feed ahead of them," he said.

"Grain growers could capitalise on the good start to the season by grazing germinated cereals with weaner Merinos or mated ewes rather than spraying."

Flexible extended lactation

Dairy farmers are using extended lactation (EL) in many and varied ways to suit their farming systems.  Split calving systems in particular are well suited to the use of EL as the majority of modern cows will maintain a lactation cycle for an 18 month calving interval with very little loss of milk solids.

If you have a seasonal calving pattern and carry cows over for a 24 month calving interval, you will find that as many as half will be able to maintain solids production over the period.

Listed below are some of the reasons people have given for using EL:

• A preference for a tight calving pattern without using induction. EL is used to move late calving cows to the start of the next calving period.

• To retain cows with the best genetics rather than lose high producers which are not in calf.

• A preference for two tight calving periods rather than one drawn out calving period.

• The ability to join everything to AI and not run bulls with the herd.

• Retaining more high producing cows to allow selection against other things such as high cell count.

• With changing weather patterns and water availability EL can be used to move the calving pattern, for example, from spring calving to autumn calving by having a once-off 18 month calving interval.

Those farmers who are using EL successfully have established a few rules for their system regarding mating decisions and which cows to carry over.

One example is the farmer who will continue to join them during every mating period up until a 24 month calving interval (this may be two, three or four opportunities depending if they have a seasonal or split calving system). After this point, empty cows will be sold when their production drops below a certain level.  Some people have a cut off for joining or selling and these rules can be used together, for example:

• If a cow is doing less than 25 litres, she doesn’t get joined.

• Keeping a cow will in the herd until she drops below a production threshold and more than a set distance from calving (assuming she’s in calf).

• Selling a cow, if she is more than 100 days from calving and her production drops below 1kgMS/day.

Some high production herds have rules such as:

• If my cow is doing more than 44 litres, then I won’t join her this time and I’ll carry her over to the next group.

• A cow must have been calved at least six weeks before I will join her.

• Everything is joined for the first time for a 15 month calving interval (three-way split calving herd).

Some farmers are concerned that they may be breeding for infertility if they continue to join cows that are not conceiving and calving within the traditional 12 month calving interval. However, if the maiden heifers are still getting in calf, then the fertility problem in the herd is not inherent infertility.  The later in the calving period a cow calves, the less chance she has of getting in calf for the same calving period next year. Results from an InCalf project showed that cows that calved in the first three weeks following the planned start of calving had a six week in calf rate of 71 per cent; while cows that calved six to nine weeks from planned start of calving had a six week in calf rate of only 51 per cent.  A cow that has more days open (days since calving) is more likely to be cycling and therefore get in calf. Whereas, cows calving late have less days open before the mating start date and therefore have less chance of getting in calf early in the mating period.  Many people are using EL successfully in their herds. They find it suits their system and it allows them to meet their goals.  More information on extended lactation can be found at www.dairyextension.com.au  Applications for irrigation financial incentives close soon

Applications for irrigation financial incentives in the Macalister Irrigation District (MID) will close on Friday, March 31, 2010.  Interested landholders are encouraged to submit their application as soon as possible.  Further information can be obtained from Sarah Killury at the Department of Primary Industries Maffra on (03) 5147 0800.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com