Making More from Sheep on Irrigated Pastures
| Project start date: | 20 August 2012 |
| Project end date: | 09 December 2015 |
| Project status: | Completed |
| Livestock species: | Sheep, Lamb |
| Relevant regions: | Southern Australia |
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Summary
Central Murray (Victoria) farm enterprises typically consist of a mixture of dryland grazing through to irrigation-based annual clover/rye pastures and crops (cereals, rice). Few fodder crops are grown specifically for grazing and many producers attempt to finish autumn/winter drop lambs on stubbles (with supplements) or within grain-based feedlot systems with varying degrees of success, questionable profit margins and high risk.
This Producer Demonstration Site (PDS) aimed to develop practical, profitable systems that identified and utilised a range of pasture species to meet lambing ewe and weaner feed requirements; maximise pasture production water efficiencies and improve sheep enterprise profitability's.
The cost of pasture production and benefit/costs of the same in terms of finishing Merino and Prime Lambs is heavily influenced by input costs, particularly irrigation water, infrastructure and pumping costs.
Objectives
The objective of this PDS was to develop systems to maximise water efficiency use in pasture production and develop more profitable sheep enterprises utilising irrigated pastures.
Progress
Economic analyses suggest that under current store lamb and irrigation water prices the profitability of finishing lambs on irrigated pastures within the Murray Irrigation region is relatively risky. Profit margins depend heavily on the starting lamb value relative to finished lamb returns; purchase and delivery costs per Mega litre (ML) of temporary water; pasture quality; irrigation layout; fertiliser history and irrigation efficiencies – particularly the Dry Matter production achieved per ML of water used per hectare.
The analysis showed that profit margins in excess of $10 per lamb were only likely when producers could produce in excess of 2 tonnes of Dry Matter per ML of water (all costs borne by the lamb finishing exercise) OR1.5 tonnes of Dry Matter per ML if half of costs can be attributed to the ewe flock and when(for both scenario's) temporary irrigation water costs were less than $175 per ML.
