Feeding Grain on Grass

Summary

This producer demonstration site project will demonstrate that the use of forage and grain feed tests to develop a grain ration to supplement feed livestock grazing forage crops will lead to an increase in live weight gain enabling improved production efficiency and increased profitability for producers in Central West and Northern NSW.  

Objectives

By November 2024, in the Warrumbungle shire in Central West NSW: 

1. Demonstrate the use of supplementing grain while grazing forage crops to increase: 

   • Live weight gain/head/day by 20% 

   • Carrying capacity due to faster stock turnoff by 3.5% 

2. Demonstrate the use of supplementing grain while grazing forage crops to maintain carcass quality and market specification while decreasing grazing days by 13% 

3. Increased awareness of the use of feed tests to determine feed quality by 100 percent of core producers and 25% of observers 

4. Increased awareness of the use of carcass feedback to ensure adherence to target market specifications, by 100 percent of core producers  

5. Increased skill of 75% of core producers to formulate a supplementary feeding ration by using a feed test. 

6. Conduct eight cost benefit analysis to determine the economic impact of supplementing grain and evaluate at what crop growth stage feeding grain is of economic benefit. 

7. Produce 4 producer case studies documenting producers experiences supplementing grain on forage crops 

8. Conduct an annual field day (3 in total) to showcase the demonstration sites and encourage the use of feed tests and grain supplementation on forage crops with 50 observer producers attending one or more of the sites  

9. 70% of core producers and 20% of observers indicate they intend to take up grain supplementation 

Progress

The Warrumbungle mixed farm producer group (WMFPG), located in the central west of NSW, is an informal group with the aim of increasing the knowledge and skills of individual members using joint learning and experience sharing.

These producers are typically utilizing dual purpose cereal crops and cereal grazing crops through winter as well as tropical pastures over summer. Due to the drought, many producers have invested in grain feeders and feed mixers, which are now being under-utilised or not used at all. In this region, most graziers are also grain producers and therefore have grain on hand.

There is an opportunity for these producers to utilize feeding equipment and on-farm grain stores to increase weight gain of both feeder cattle and lambs on forage/dual purpose crops and/or tropical pastures. By utilising a small amount of low value grain and/or supplement, producers will be able to turn off stock quicker and therefore increase carrying capacity without increasing the cost of forage production, thus increasing profitability.

As the project moves into the final year, the producers of the WMFPG will turn their focus onto lessons learnt and the suitability of incorporating the supplementation of grain as a tool to increase productivity and profitability. The demonstrations from year 1 and 2 have been able to capture commercially relevant scenarios where seasonal conditions have been quite variable.

The demonstrations have shown that it is possible to increase production (weight gain) of weaner/yearling cattle with the addition of a grain supplement on grazing crops and tropical pastures. However, the associated costs of labour and supplementary feed, combined with the fluctuation in the livestock market, mean that it may not be financially beneficial to undertake every season.

There may be certain scenarios where the importance of an increase in liveweight gain may be placed above the immediate direct financial cost, an example of this may be if producers have critical production targets that they are wanting to achieve by a predetermined date (critical joining weight for heifers). In these scenarios producers may decide the increase in cost of production may be justified.

The recommendation is that it may be best for producers to undertake some basic calculations to ensure that there is a financial benefit to supplement livestock before commencing.  Factors that would need to be taken into consideration would include the costs of supplementation (commodity prices) and livestock prices (current and future).