Drought resources

Beef + Lamb New Zealand has a number of resources to help manage extremely dry weather conditions.

While no one can make it rain, there are management strategies that farmers can put in place to protect the future performance of their capital breeding stock, such as early weaning, body condition scoring and feed budgets.

Most importantly, farmers need to look after the well-being of themselves and their families. As well as making use of networks (friends, family and neighbours, rural professionals) there are local agencies, such as the Rural Support Trust who are there to support farming families. Please don’t hesitate to seek assistance.

Below is a list of ideas, resources and decision-support tools to consider, to help you and your staff manage the dry.

Regional Council Water Use Advisory

Collected here are tips and tricks from farmers and farming industry people, that might help in your situation

  1. Start by creating a priority list for the different stock classes on your farm, which mobs have the highest priority and highest feed demand?
  2. How big is your feed deficit and what can you do to address this? What is your current pasture cover and what do you think your pasture cover should be at this time of year?
  3. Create a plan of action to address the feed deficit. Big feed deficits will require big decisions. A proactive grazing plan will be essential once the feed deficit is addressed.
  4. Use your farm paddock map as a planning tool to create a practical grazing plan. By forward thinking to lambing and calving, you can allocate paddocks to each stock class at that time.
  5. Once you have determined the allocated areas for all stock classes as at lambing and calving you can then work back to the current time and start planning the autumn/winter rotational grazing programme.

Lessons from past droughts

  • When pasture covers are low then pasture-growth rates are also low and so it’s worth remembering the old adage that ‘grass grows grass’.
  • Consider what rotation length is required to build pasture covers. In practice, it can be tough on livestock in the short-term, so you need to keep the long-term goal in mind i.e. creating feed for lambing and calving when ewes and cows will recover quickly and productively.
  • Rotational grazing allows you to ration your feed far more effectively than set stocking.
  • Temporary fencing is a cost effective, practical method of controlling pasture intake for cattle.
  • Nitrogen boosted pasture is the most cost-effective supplementary feed but obviously requires moisture to activate. Theoretically, there should be plenty of nitrogen stored in the soil following drought conditions, but practical farmer experience has shown nitrogen application is a valuable way of getting pasture covers back sooner.
  • The only way for nitrogen to work is when it’s on the ground and not in the fertiliser bin. If you need nitrogen book it in and get it on ASAP.
  • Breeding stock are very sensitive to underfeeding in early lactation, so it is important to plan early. When feed is short, it is better to ration feed before lactation than during lactation.
  • Post-calving feeding is much more important than pre-calving feeding.
  • Once calved or lambed, breeding stock need to be fully fed and will recover quickly and productively.
  • Finishing and trading stock are a flexible stock classes and can take some short-term reduction in feeding or alternatively could be sold store.
  • Once ewes and lambs have been set-stocked for lambing you will have little opportunity to manage feed, but you can manage other classes of stock:
    • Allocated areas for cattle which can be block grazed.
    • Maybe set stock young cattle on the lambing platform.
    • Set-stock single scanned ewes at higher stocking rates or add more cattle to their paddocks.

Quick tips for feed management of breeding cows

  • Early weaning of calves is a good option and especially when combined with yard weaning where weaned calves can be supplemented and cows put on sub-maintenance rations.
  • Pregnancy scan cows ASAP to determine empties for sale and late calvers for sale or extra rationing if required.
  • When planning for saved feed for calving, lock-up 0.4 ha per cow of saved feed by the end of May to achieve pasture covers of around 3,000 kgDM/ha at calving. This will get them through calving up to the inevitable spring pasture surplus. Good planning here will secure good in-calf rates and bigger weaners for next year.
  • Restricted feeding of late calving cows will help you build a feed wedge ahead of the cows.
  • Break-feeding calving cows helps to manage feed and allows you to shed calved cows onto fresh pasture.
  • Underfeeding breeding cows after calving will have an impact at mating – this is especially true for dairy-cross breeding cows.
  • Target pre-graze >2,800 kgDM/ha.

Useful links

Case studies

B+LNZ have a number of tools and resources that might help with your feed planning.

Feed Budget templates 

Courtesy of Scandrett Rural.

Simple Feed Budget software tool

Helps farmers consolidate their thinking and gives them actual numbers to inform their decision making around the management of stock and feed and the use of supplementary feed.

To access the Simple Feed Budget, email resources@beeflambnz.com and request the Simple Feed Budget. A USB-drive will be sent to you.

Some useful podcasts

Body Condition Scoring (BCS) is one of the best and easiest tools to consider to help manage a feed shortage. It helps target feed and make sales decisions.

Dry stock sector – Beef + Lamb New Zealand: 0800 BEEF LAMB (0800 233 352). Email: enquiries@beeflambnz.com