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Lamb Feedlotting

Feedlotting lambs is gaining in popularity and there is every reason to believe the lamb industry will follow in the footsteps of the beef industry where feedlotting has become a large and important part of the supply chain.

By Department of Primary Industries - 23rd March 2005 - Back to News

Continuity of supply of quality trade and export lambs is a big issue for processors and the feedlot industry has the potential to solve this problem.

There are two basic types of lamb feedlots, on-ground feedlots and above ground feedlots.

On-ground feedlots can vary from very low capital cost setups that consist of a self-feeder in a small paddock to a higher cost system involving automated feed delivery.

The low cost operation is characterised by the opportunity feedlotter who drifts in and out of feedlotting depending on the price of grain or the availability and price of store lambs.

The higher cost operator sees a future in feedlotting on an annual basis and has the potential to guarantee supply and negotiate more attractive prices for the finished product.

The major disadvantage of both these types of feeding is that they are weather dependent. If the feedlot gets wet, the lambs get dirty causing major problems for the processor.

Above ground feedlots are not constrained by weather and therefore operate throughout the winter months. The low cost operator uses existing shearing shed holding facilities.

Again these are usually small operators who drift in and out of feedlotting depending on the price of feed and lambs. Feeding can be difficult in these circumstances unless some investment is made to deliver feed into the shed.

There are a small number of producers now investing in permanent dedicated above ground feedlots. These investments are substantial and commit the investor to annual production of lambs regardless of the price of feed and store lambs.

The benefit of this system is that it mimics more closely the beef feedlot system where the guaranteed supply of stock throughout the low supply period puts the feedlotter in a stronger position in price negotiations.

Feedlotting is not for everyone. It requires dedication and attention to detail to maximise your results. It can be very rewarding for the good operator and an expensive exercise for the careless or half-hearted operator.

WOOL BUSINESS BENCHMARKING

Wool producers are being invited to participate in benchmarking the performance of their farm business through the Wool Industry Farm Monitor Project.

An initiative of the Department of Primary Industries and the BESTWOOL/BESTLAMB program, wool producers from across three regions that are interested in benchmarking their business over the next 3-5 years have the opportunity to be involved. This will generate ongoing wool productivity and profitability benchmarks to benefit the broader wool industry.

Participants will receive an individual report illustrating their productivity/profitability performance with key indicators benchmarked against the regional averages for wool and prime lamb enterprises.

Experienced agricultural contractors will assist participant farmers individually with collecting and submitting their farm performance data.

The project will combine the data from 40 farms in Gippsland, 40 South West Victorian farms and another 40 farms from NorthEast Victoria – a total of 120 farms.

The project involves data collectors spending half a day each with growers to collect the relevant information for the analysis, ensuring that data is accurate. There is no cost to growers and they will receive the comprehensive analysis of their wool business in July/August.

Data collection will be done in May. If you would like to take advantage of this offer and participate in the project, please contact Andrew Patterson on (03) 5572 5683 or Craig Bush on (03) 5157 8254 as soon as you can as places are limited, so it will be a case of first in, best dressed.

GET MOOOVING

Get Moooving Dairy Week is rapidly approaching and registration numbers are growing well.

Two of the sessions getting a lot of attention are "Dairy’s Clever Cockies" and "Can We Double Equity in Five Years".

Dairy’s Clever Cockies on Friday 22 April stars fifteen very clever inventions developed by farmers in SW Victoria. During the session you’ll meet a couple of the inventors and see others on film.

Over 60 inventions were entered for the session which range from ingenious ways to reduce labour needs in rotary dairies, through to inexpensive fencing improvements and calf feeding gems to reduce feeding time.

Doubling Equity is a session aimed squarely at all dairy farmer’s central goal of building wealth. Alison Dewes, Tom Walsh and Alan O’Meara are working on three different strategies to take a given case-study farm from equity of $400,000 to $800,000 by 2010. It’s not an easy job trying to drive profits big enough to build equity growth on top of land valuation increases pegged at 3% per annum. Already there is a lot of interest in this session, which is filling the conference slot after lunch on Thursday 21^st April.

For more details on Get Moooving go to www.target10.com.au

Source: www.gippsland.com

Published by: news@gippsland.com