It’s been a pretty busy two years for me as the Nyngan District Veterinarian, with floods and footrot taking up the majority of my time over the last 18 months.
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Things have settled and to keep everyone up to date with what is going on around the area, I have teamed up with the wonderful Nyngan Observer to write a fortnightly article on the latest animal health and management issues in our district.
Stating the obvious, it is very dry around Nyngan at the moment and without a decent Autumn break predicted over the next couple of weeks many producers are at decision time.
If you’re not 100 per cent on top of where you stand, a good start is working out what feed reserves you have, is there less than 70 per cent ground cover?
How much supplementary feed do you have on hand? Weigh or fat score your stock, record this for comparison in coming weeks.
If you’re visually assessing them every day, it can be easy to miss a drop in condition until it is too late.
Check your water, is there algae or high sediment? Remember that stock will drink more water when their feed is dry and fibrous. Make a list of the stock you have on hand and identify which ones to sell now, which ones you can sell if it remains dry and which ones you will keep and feed.
Remember that what you’re feeding in drought are genetics, you want to identify which animals have poor conformation and add them to the list to sell.
Pregnancy testing cattle and sheep is even more important when there are hungry mouths to feed, you want to be keeping those girls that get in calf or lamb even when it’s dry as they are your most productive animals.
A couple of handy hints for those feeding stock- make sure you have lime and salt out available. If you are looking to feed cottonseed now that the gins are up and running, as it is oil based it can’t make up more than 30 per cent of the ration.
Depending on how much starch is in the other feed they have available, you may need to shandy the cottonseed with a cereal grain such as wheat/barley/oats. This is because the rumen ‘bugs’ can only live off starch and not oil as their energy source.
Because of the dry conditions I’m starting “smoko” sessions – a two hour period between 9am and 11am every Tuesday where landholders can call by, have a cuppa and bring their stock health and nutrition queries.
If you have a neighbour or friend that might be struggling with feeding or making drought decisions why not ask them to come along with you to the LLS Office at 58 Cobar Street (diagonally opposite the post office).
For those of you that can’t make it and are tech savvy, there is a very useful feeding calculator app called ‘Drought Feed Calculator’ that may be of help, otherwise feel free to give me a call on 0438 842 365.
Dr Erica Kennedy BVSc
