WHEN it comes to paddock management and maximising animal performance, livestock consultant Dick Richardson urges farmers to be clear on their desired outcomes and to take steps to move their farm’s ecology in the right direction.
Mr Richardson was a guest speaker at the recent Scratching the Surface: Soil Biology in Agriculture forum in Currency Creek, which was attended by 160 people.
Formerly from South Africa, Mr Richardson presently runs his Grazing Naturally business from his Tungkillo property.
He urges producers to build production systems that suit their environment and to look at different phases in a season.
“An open season is when people are managing an unknown time of growth, a time when you don’t know what quantity or quality of the feed you’re going to produce,” he said.
“In that period, put grazing in rather than taking it out.
“An example of this is creating feed of high quality in an area for young stock to wean on to, by grazing those paddocks more frequently through the growing season.
“In an open season, also consider the time to look at what you want paddock quality to be at the end of the growing season.”
The other extreme of management is a closed season, when there are sabbatical fallows of paddocks.
“In a closed season, once growth stops, you then go into different thinking, taking feed out of the paddock and dishing it out to livestock for the best performance and ecological outcomes,” he said.
“It means taking feed out based on best outcomes for the stock, while making sure you have the capacity to get through to the next season.”
Key to this is managing each paddock and matching the right type of feed to the right type of stock, while also matching carrying rates to carrying capacity.
“The key thing is, you’ve got to know what you’re trying to achieve with a paddock,” he said.
Mr Richardson also recommended producers spend time observing their stock, including their faeces.
He said the faeces score indicated whether the animal’s diet was high in protein and low in energy, or vice versa, and whether the stomach was alkaline or acidic.
Noticing behaviour was also important as any change could be one of the first signs of stock issues.
An example was stock drifting to and from water all day, rather than coming in and drinking together and camping near a water source.
Dung beetles were a good tool for boosting soil condition.
But, the use of a “dump” paddock after drenching was recommended so chemicals were confined to one area, reducing their impact on the beetles.
Diversity key with stock management
CREATING more edges in a paddock is a tool for boosting performance and soil health, according to livestock consultant Dick Richardson.
Mr Richardson said the most diversity was found on the edge of communities in the soil.
“When a community changes, there will be increased diversity in that paddock. Each community feeds in with others,” he said.
Mr Richardson said that repetition in a paddock simplified biodiversity, but having variation increased it.
“There is so much more life along the edge of a community,” he said.
Mr Richardson said the edge effect increased diversity both above and below ground and also allowed stock to self-medicate on the edge areas. He said diversity of plant types went a long way to improving soil biological activity. “So in laying out landscapes, you want to do as much as possible to put edges in them,” he said.
“Say if you had a block covering 100 hectares and there was 50ha of timber and 50ha of grassland. The edge is only as long as that division between the two.”
But if a chequerboard pattern of different variety types is used across a paddock, it creates a massive amount of edge, therefore boosting soil activity and performance.
While litter in a paddock can offer some benefits, Mr Richardson said producers could have too much.
“Litter allows the biological community to handle hot and cold conditions but it can also be a limiting factor,” he said. A layer too thick leads to large amounts of rain being needed just to wet the litter, therefore not allowing water to enter the soil.