Furner prime lamb producer Richie Kirkland has gone back to basics, mixing his own trace mineral blend on-farm.
He believes he is reaping the rewards with a healthier flock and impressive lamb weight gains of up to 500 grams a day on pasture.
Mr Kirkland and his wife Nikki and their children Tahlia and Brody, along with his semi-retired parents Don and Joanne and brother-in-law Shane Walker run 8500 maternal composite ewes.
Their aim is to turn off about 25 kilogram carcaseweight lambs at about four to five months of age.
About half of the flock are mated to maternal rams from Chrome stud, Hamilton, Vic, to breed replacement ewes and the other half are mated to White Suffolk and Poll Dorset rams.
Mr Kirkland says he first got the idea to mix his own blend about 15 years ago after seeing some Merino hoggets on a property near Avenue Range that had access to a home-blended mix.
After some internet research he put some out in a few paddocks to test it.
Blood tests also found that like much of the South East flock, the Kirklands’ livestock had low levels of copper, cobalt, zinc and magnesium.
Plastic tubs containing mineral mix have been placed in every paddock near water troughs.
He acknowledges there are good liquid mineral supplements on the market but says his sheep are getting what they need from the ad-lib minerals, and for about one-third of the cost.
“There are plenty of mineral drenches and injections but I prefer to leave them in the paddock and keep handling to a minimum,” he said.
He says the sheep and lambs consume the most when they are on dry feed from summer through autumn.
“Dad’s uncle used to mix up copper, cobalt and salt in a scrub mix, so I guess we are just going back to what they did 50 or 60 years ago,” he said.
“For a while there we were getting it in the fertiliser but in the last 20 years people have moved more to single super.”
He suggests anyone developing a trace element blend conduct blood tests on a few animals in their flock first.
“It is no different to croppers doing soil and tissue tests – if you don’t test your livestock it is a guessing game,” he said.
CUSTOM MIX
Dolomite: 25kg
Kelp (provides Vitamin A, D and E): 4kg
Copper sulphate: 1kg
Zinc sulphate: 1kg
Magnesium sulphate: 1kg
Elemental sulphur: 1kg
Handful of cobalt
Stock salt: 15kg
Blend in 3-4 tonne quantity
Available to sheep ad-lib
Kirklands keep track of ewe lambs by introducing electronic tags
With as many as 100,000 movements of ewes and lambs through his Te Pari Racewell sheep handler each year, Richie Kirkland says it has been a valuable investment.
He bought one about a decade ago and has just upgraded to a new model, adding a set of Tru Test scales and a panel reader.
“That first year we gained $5 a head from getting the weights tighter and hitting specific markets better and that was when lambs were only worth about $60,” he said.
Mr Kirkland says it makes life more efficient for a range of jobs, being able to drench about 500 sheep an hour and weigh 600/hr.
Unlike bulk handlers which immobilise a number of sheep, he says he is able to easily check udders and feet on individual ewes in the Racewell.
“We can crutch lambs in there and you can get a decent look at the sheep without being beaten up being in the race with them,” he said.
The ability to weigh draft sheep three ways is also important.
“When we wean our lambs they are pretty young, so we can take off the tops, middles and bottoms and put them in separate paddocks so they don’t compete,” he said.
Mr Kirkland says they have started electronic tagging their ewe lambs to collect individual data on their reproductive performance.
“We really want to track those twinning ewes to ensure they have more feed through the year,” he said.
On the 2000 hectares the Kirklands own and another 250ha leased, they also crop 780ha of canola, broad beans and wheat, along with summer fodder crops and hay.
