Weaning on gut feel
- By: "Farm Tender" News
- Ag Tech News
- Nov 16, 2017
- 862 views
- Share
Australian livestock farmers are faced with difficult decisions every day, but some can have more of an impact on a season’s bottom line than others. Weaning is one of these decisions that can have a major bearing on this and next season.
Whether you are weaning lambs or calves, there are many decisions that have to be made around this critical period. . . so what are the most important questions to be asked and where can the answers be found?
Best practice and/or general knowledge would dictate that a simple balancing act be maintained to ensure success for this and next season. A balancing act that includes getting your lambs or calves onto the best feed possible so that they can reach their sale weight quickly and efficiently. All the while ensuring there is adequate feed available to carry your ewes into the next season in a condition that will enhance their chances of conceiving and conceiving multiples.
Even during an ideal season this is easier said than done!
With a dry season this balancing act can become increasingly difficult and at times incredibly costly.
Selling lambs or calves at an inopportune time can lead to money being left on the table or weight being left in the paddock. However holding lambs or calves to long can mean a decrease in the quality and/or quantity of feed available for your ewes or cows.
However it would seem, that after speaking with Dr. Rick White, (Far right, Above) Chief Livestock Agronomist of Grow™ (a division of Bayer Animal Health), that there are steps producers can take outside of this balancing act to improve both the present and future seasons.
Dr. White indicates, during an education session on best weaning practice, that many producers focus solely, and for seemingly good reason, on putting their lambs and calves on the highest quality feed possible to ensure that they’re able to put weight on efficiently. A potential issue arises because the very same high quality feed that weaners are put onto to ensure their growth isn’t stunted, can also be feed that is quite challenging for the weaner to process contributing to critical weeks of sub par or even negative weight gains.
Now . . . Don’t lose me here, it’s worth it! While Dr. White can explain this in far more detail and clarity the overall concepts are sound:
As a lamb or calf at foot, the main “engine” (as Dr. White would put it) for the production of energy and protein, the rumen, has not had the chance to fully develop the population of bacteria needed to efficiently break down this high quality feed.
The weaner is taken from it’s mother and put onto what is assumed to be the best pasture to jump start weight gain. However, with the critical bacteria, and the rumen as a whole, being underdeveloped (the engine still at 1000 RPM) in these first few weeks of feeding, weaners can struggle to gain or even maintain weight. All due to the fact that the weaner’s under-utilised rumen simply cannot break down feed efficiently.
I asked Dr. White what his advice would be to combat this paradoxical relationship between providing exceptionally high quality feed and ensuring the weaner is able to use it.
While Dr. White couldn’t stress enough that as each pasture is different the best way to get a handle on what’s best for your weaners is to fill out an Operational Plan, hosted on the AgriWebb platform, he did indicate that;
“To help a weaner maintain high growth rates after weaning it’s important to ensure that the animal is in good health, the rumen is able to rapidly adapt to the new diet and the rumen architecture is developed as quickly as possible. This means attention to all appropriate animal health treatments, and supplementing the pasture to meet the nutritional requirements for both the rumen’s microbiology system and the animal.
Starch in the diet always gets the attention because it’s the key driver of fermentation in the rumen, however it’s always about the balance of the whole diet.”
Weaning represents a key point in every livestock producers year where significant gains can be made and profited from, if the correct decisions are made.
Unfortunately, it would seem as if livestock producers must add “Bacterial Growth Expert” to their laundry list of professions to ensure they get the most from every weaner, their pastures and their farm as a whole.
Fortunately, there are professionals like Dr. Rick White that are passionate about passing along their years of knowledge to assist producers all across Australia!
Share Ag News Via