Last month we spoke briefly about checking your winter feeds, so I’ll continue on that theme now that winter has started arriving with a few wintry days of rain, cold southerly winds and even a bit of snow further south.

Having put together a plan of attack regarding capacity numbers you are able to take through the winter, it is now time to look at putting your feed budgets in place.

Generally one of the first strategies of this is slowing up your rotations of paddocks to match your pasture growth.

Sometimes this means reducing the feed intakes of your livestock to the minimum amounts possible.

Obviously if your feed supply allows, the more they can get the better for growing weight gain and finishing, however, maintaining small liveweight gains in young livestock so as not to effect growth, through to maintenance feed amounts only in older livestock, so as not to lose any condition, will need to be used to get the most out of your properties carrying capacities. The old “numbers game”, helps you achieve the maximum returns per Ha possible.

To help achieve this, the good old electric fence strip grazing and or reducing your paddock sizes will now start to come into effect. By doing this you can slow up the feed use to match both growth in some cases and or feed intakes as mentioned above to match your required growth and maintenance levels of your livestock.

Also the use of supplements like hay, silage etc will now be in use to help with both your livestock’s feed requirements and the need to reduce pasture intake to match growth rates of your pastures.

Remembering also that you don’t want to damage your pasture areas by causing too much pugging. Pugging will only cause more headaches getting your pastures back into shape in the spring.

Damage to your pasture by animals standing in one area  or moving around in the one spot pushing what grass there is into the ground making mud and holes into the surface of your paddocks which allows the rain water to settle there and not drain away is what is commonly known as pugging.

When this happens not only does it make it harder in the spring for new grass to grow, it can be very hard to walk on or drive over.

“Murphy’s Law” will most probably turn up someway along the way now also with fence’s coming under pressure from your livestock wanting to push the limits they are allowed, as the saying goes “The grass is always greener on the other side”.

So now is the time to walk your boundaries and internal fence lines to check for any weaknesses, check your electric fence units, replace any batteries and check your electric tapes, reels and fence standards to make sure they are all in good working order and not producing any faults. 

The last thing you want is for your feed stocks to be eaten too quickly by livestock getting through to any surpluses being saved for use later on, or at the worst getting out on to the road and causing a major accident or incident.