IN THE past three years, growing sheep feed and increasing pasture production has helped Eudunda farmers Barry and Marie Hines improve their sheep a hectare ratio from two to five.
Moreover, Barry said the better pastures meant their lambs were getting to a marketable state in a shorter time.
"Because the feed is of better quality, we can get lambs to market by October or November ," he said. "We used to have to hold onto those lambs, shear them and take them through to January or February."
On his 800ha property, Barry sows a mixture of Winteroo oats, Rasina vetch and medics.
"We sow that because the oats are out of the ground early and give a good, early growth for grazing," he said.
"Later on into the year, when the oats are starting to dry off, mature and aren't so palatable, is when we have the medics that start to flourish for grazing."
Later in the season, the vetch becomes good for grazing. It is 23 per cent protein with the bonus of putting nitrogen back into the soil for the following cereal crop.
"It is all about extending the growing season for the pasture so we can hold our livestock in the paddock a lot longer," said Barry, who is a member of the Eudunda and Roberstown Sheep Producers Group, founded a year ago.
The group works with Rural Solutions SA, Jamestown, and has secured funding from the State Natural Resources Management Program.
It is focused on growing biomass and then utilising it efficiently while maintaining surface cover targets for soil erosion prevention and sustainability.
Workshops are being delivered by the Department for Environment & Natural Resources, in partnership with the SA Murray Darling Basin Natural Resources Management Board and Sheep Connect.
"It started with a grazing winter cereals and ground-cover management workshop," Barry said.
The group visited the Hines' property to access a sown feed paddock and took plant cuts to work out feed on offer, dry matter/ha, stocking rate, daily feed intake and rate of pasture decline, and finally calculated the grazing days for the paddock.
In February, they looked at confinement droughtlot and paddock management when the group revisited the Hines property to review last year's sown feed paddock, assess stubble paddocks for feed quality and quantity, and work on some feed budgets.
"We also condition scored the ewes to work out their energy needs for feeding," Barry said.
"It gave us confidence in the workshop material to see that the estimated grazing days and dry sheep equivalent worked out at our August workshop was almost identical to the actual grazing days achieved."
The group also has a demonstration site where 30 trial plots have been sown to assess cereals, legumes, medics and canola for grazing.
"We have done the first cut to work out dry matter production and now we are grazing those trial plots with sheep to replicate a farmer's natural system," he said. "Another couple of times in the year we will do cuts to work out dry matter production further.
"Basically it gives us a whole range of different crops and then the farmer can go back and determine what fits his situation in terms of growing more feed.
"We have been able to work out DM/ha, the DSE/ha and the kilograms of meat/ha we made from the prime lambs," he said.
"We also worked out gross margins achieved in the pasture paddocks compared with the cropping paddocks.
"The gross margins from the cropping can vary from $0/ha to $600/ha depending on input costs, commodity prices and rainfall, while the gross margins from the livestock operation will only vary from $300-$500/ha.
"Some years when you have a dry year on the farm you will make no money out of cropping, whereas the sheep will always give a return, as we always seem to get good winter feed, even in the driest of years," Barry said.
"On the whole our sheep and lamb enterprise would be 60pc of our income."
* Full Livestock report in Stock Journal, August 26 issue.
Email a friend