Fodder flow planning for success

In order for beef farmers to remain profitable in terms of cow calf operations, it is critical to manage costs on farm level, says Henco Leicester of Cargill Animal Nutrition.

- Henco Leicester

One way of managing cost is to increase the output at the same cost and thus generate higher income, or to reduce cost and maintain the same level of output. You can also look at finding the in-between to make sense.

My concern as a farmer is that most of us cannot do this. If you can’t quantify your cost of production and you don’t measure on-farm performance, you can’t predict or measure the outcome of your changes. In order to start doing this, you need to quantify what each decision is going to cost you and measure the improvement in performance or income.

Fodder flow is one of the key aspects in your farming enterprise that you need to consider, because every large stock unit will consume about 3,4t to 3,65t of roughage a year. This is why it is important to map out the different available fodder flow options.

For example, if you have 500ha of farm available, it is important to know what number of hectares is natural grazing, planted pastures, and maize residue. From this, you will then be able to calculate your monthly and yearly yield of forage available, and you can plan and calculate when you need to bank fodder and where to utilise the banked fodder for optimal production based of your herd structure requirements.

After this, it is important to set out a flexible supplementation system to fit in with your fodder flow to always try and maintain the ideal body condition score (BCS) in your herd depending on the stage in production cycle, season, and fodder available. BCS is directly correlated with fertility, as seen in the figure on the following page.

SUPPLEMENTATION 

For effective fodder flow supplementation, you need to consider fodder flow, grazing capacity, season, and grazing strategy.