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One of the key challenges during times of low pasture growth and seasonal variability is meeting livestock nutritional requirements in the most sustainable and economical way. Securing quality nutritional fodder by conserving excess pasture production and/ or growing crops during favourable conditions to meet requirements is one strategy.

South Coast NRM is assisting Western Beef Association through delivery of a series of “Better Hay and Silage workshops” funded by the Federal government through the Future Drought Fund. These workshops across the South Coast region will assist livestock businesses fine tune the skills needed to understand livestock nutritional requirements, to meet required production levels and growth stages, and use information acquired from feed tests to calculate if feed –

 

  1. Will meet livestock requirements,
  2. How much to feed, and
  3. Make early and forward decisions, building resilience to when unfavourable and prolonged climatic conditions present.

Workshop participants will learn how to share research and industry information to support high quality fodder,take representative fodder sampling techniques for nutritional analysis, and assess the economic cost and benefit of different fodder conservation scenarios.

A few take home messages from the workshops include –

  • Energy is the major requirement of ruminants for maximising production, followed by protein.
  • The Dry Matter content (DM – what remains after moisture is removed from conserved feed) is the proportion of feed the stock gain nutritional value you from. We can then use this information to calculate the energy (MJ/Kg) and protein % components.
  • Understanding the expected water-soluble carbohydrates and buffering capacity of plants/crops and appropriate moisture levels required will help to produce well fermented, quality, longer lasting silage.
  • Turning fodder into silage and wrapping it in plastic does not increase nutritional value. It is about trying to grow high quality feed and then retain that quality during the conversion to silage.

To learn and understand more on fodder conservation please register to attend additional workshops in the region supported by your local catchment and grower groups and South Coast NRM. Workshops will be held in Albany Wednesday 4th September and Borden Thursday 5th September. To register, head to Better Hay and Silo Workshops 2024.