Global ovine
Member
- Location
- Central Otago NZ
Not necessarily .
If it means they can be run mostly on grass and negate a lot of making/ feeding of fodder, and concentrate feeding, it can make a huge time difference.
Absolutely.
With the benefit of hindsight look at what happened in NZ when farmers were peering over the cliff of doom.
Most cut back their stocking rates in an attempt to cut costs such as; less winter feed to conserve, less root crops, less fertiliser to apply, lower health bills and lowered labour requirements. If they did not change their management systems these reductions had no effect on profit (in the minus at that time) because costs per sheep stock unit (SSU) remained the same. Unless they were previously over stocked, their gross income per hectare was slashed accordingly.
Farms that did not keep up their maintenance fertiliser soon became evident to people who were not colour blind. Production plummeted.
Fortunately farmers had the emerging choice of breeders within their preferred breed between traditionalists and those using programmes designed to change sheep genetically for less cost and more production. These were very commercially farmed. Labour requirements went from 1 man to 500 SSU in 1980's to now at around 4000 SSUs.
Also about that time rotational grazing was being promoted in all its regional variations to gain efficiency of use and increase production.
The net result was farmers ran higher stocking rates because the grazing management grew more feed for more stock and better quality to take lamb weights higher. Fertiliser bills increased but became a smaller proportional cost of profit per stock unit.
More grass carried into winter reduced the hay/silage conservation costs and area needed for root crops. This had immediate savings in plant replacement costs and led to more reliance on contractors to carry such costs.
Grazing management led to less replacement pastures as pasture quality improved due to seasonal hoof and tooth treatment by larger mobs grazing for short periods.
Over the last 30 years, much of the flatter heavier soils have changed to dairying. Despite this the hill country has maintained the rate of improved production and profit as grazing management has become more precise locally and sheep genetics have opened up opportunities previously considered unbelievable, despite having the same breed name.
Farmers now are more business minded and consider change as normal as global market returns fluctuate Nobody owes farmers a living.