Charlotte Varcoe
FEEDBASE management, nutrition and animal health management will be showcased at the Mount Gambier Attamurra Golf Course on Monday as part of a Livestock SA presentation.
The Livestock Strategies for the Next 100 Days aims to help navigate the challenging season and hear from industry experts on strategic approaches for beef production.
Speakers include Ask Wachtel, Doctor Andrew Hoare and Rick Jordan with a complimentary dinner and networking opportunity to be held after.
Livestock SA project manager Pene Keynes said they had done a number of the sessions across the state.
“It really is in response to ongoing challenges that our livestock producing businesses are facing across the state,” Ms Keynes said.
“The program was developed with farmers in mind and what their requirements are and what they are facing.”
She said early on it was about matching feed requirements and being able to get farmers and producers through the period.
The session has now moved on to include weaning as well.
“It is about being able to really match the requirements of what an animal needs to be able to do, one to produce a lamb and then wean the lamb and get it going as productively as it can,” Ms Keynes said.
“It was about having the animal health components in there but also really important for people to think about what the animal health issues might present out of the ongoing feeding because they have had a challenging year.”
She said the main thing was to provide the producers with the support, knowledge and skills to be able to maintain high productivity results and profitability while being able to remain resilient and understand what needed to be done.
“It really is more about getting through this season and setting up for next, having all of the skills and knowledge they need to be able to achieve what goals to set and achieve,” Ms Keynes said.
“We are relying on spring and it would be a good time to get some more rain and have a nice spring and be able to have a good season going forward.”
Ms Keynes said she would not say the season was over and hoped to get more rainfall with the current season still a challenge.
“Having that late rain means growing conditions have not been ideal and it means the feed has been growing a lot slower than we typically see at this time,” she said.
“Supplementary feeding strategies and things like that have had to be considered this year and it has it has been a challenging season and producers have really had to continue feeding when they may not have had to so I know a lot of farmers out there are quite tired of that,”
Ms Keynes said she believed most farmers were pretty strong and resilient and thought farmers were focused on what they needed to do to get through.
“The other part we really like to focus on is the social side of things,” she said.
“When things are hard, being around like minded people that are going through similar things it really helps and we have seen that.
“Producers learning from producers is almost just as good as having a presenter up the front talking so the knowledge in the room is really where I think we see a lot of benefit from these kinds of workshops.”
Those interested are encouraged to register in advance on the MacKillop Group website.
