The proof is in the paddock....we hope!
Tomorrow is the start of the weaner muster here at Annaburroo Station. This years' weaner muster is particularly important for us all. Why you ask? This year Shane and I will know if what we are doing with our cattle management on Annaburroo is working or not.
Shane and I moved to Annaburroo Station and took over management in late October 2009. The decision to accept the position of Managers at Annaburroo Station was an easy one for us both. Greg and Maree, the now sole owners of Annaburroo Station, have so much passion for their land and cattle, that it makes you want to strive to see the station excel. Their long term goal for Annaburroo Station is a simple one - to see it economically self-sufficient.
When we took over as managers you could say we walked into a 'cattle producers worst nightmare'. The weaning percentage was well below Territory average at only 34%, the paddocks were overstocked, weeds had replaced pastures, bulls to cows ratio was unsustainable being well below National average let alone Top End average, the overall quality of the breeding herd was poor and the overall health of the entire herd was not good. Unfortunately for Greg and Maree, who had after 19 years just become the sole owners of the Station, we had to break the news to them that they had been mislead by previous management and that the state of the station was worse than they had realized.
"Where to from here" was the question we all asked. For Shane and myself the decisions we needed to implement seemed the most logical and practical but were they achievable and more importantly sustainable? Our short term plan (2-5 years) was based on applying good cattle management practices. And for this to work, we were going to have to ask Greg and Maree to have faith in our decisions and trust in us, as we were going to dramatically cull (sell-off) their breeding herd in order to lift the quality and production of their herd. With sound knowledge, hard work, good seasons and a strong live-export trade, surely we could turn things around, right? The following is the list/plan of what we believed was compulsory to do over the initial 2-3 years for Annaburroo Station to lift the herd productivity and quality.
Cull (sell on) barren cows - cows that were dry (not raising a calf) and pregnancy tested empty (had not gone in calf)
Cull (sell on) on bad temperament and colour - cows that had 'bad attitudes' basically. Cull cows that have a low grade content of grey Brahman. Temperament and colour is an heritable trait
Cull (sell on) for bad udder conformation - cows that have bottled (too large) teats make it difficult for young calves to get sufficient intake of milk. Udder conformation is a genetic trait.
Cull (sell on) for size - very large framed (skeleton size) cows require too much nutrition to survive in the Top End and too small framed cows produce smaller calves who in turn take too long to grow to export weight in the Top End.
Cull (sell on) on bull breeding soundness - bulls that have abnormal scrotum circumference or tone, poor semen motility, undesirable conformation or temperament traits, and /or too old (10 years and over)
Increase the bull to cow ration to 1:20 - a fertile bull can impregnate (pregnant at day 42 of gestation) by natural service at least 60%and 90% of 20 normal, cycling, disease-free females within 3 and 9 weeks, respectively. This rate is much higher than average due to the amount of surface water at Annaburroo Station
Seasonal joining - mating cows with bulls for a set number of months per year only, instead of leaving bulls to mate with cows all year
Raising the heifer joining weight - not mating heifers (young female cows) until they had reached the desired weight range of 320kg to 340kg
Provide lick all year round - provide specific mineral supplement blocks to cattle all year. Urea based lick blocks during the dry season and phosphorus based lick blocks all year round
Implement a rotational grazing program - destock paddock (muster all cattle out of a paddock) for certain period of time to regenerate pasture and move cattle to fresh paddock (paddocks with new regrowth of grass)
Apply all same principles as year 1 with the addition of
Push cow fertility - identify and segregate cows that are wet (raising a calf) and pregnancy tested in-calf at weaning.
Push bull fertility - cull for poor semen morphology
Cull (sell on) on low fertility - empty cows (not pregnant) that have gone into calf late in the wet season
Introduce peti-virus vaccination program - the entire herd was vulnerable to pesti-virus
Wet season burns of paddocks - cool fires to suppress weeds
So how has things been going you ask? Let's just say that the past 2 years have been some of the most testing that Shane and I have faced in our careers. First we had the dilemma of "if we cull any more cows there will be none left!" We identified just on 700 cows that needed to be culled - and most were barren, too old or bottle teated.
Secondly, and this had a huge impact financially, was the regulation of the live-export weight restrictions to Indonesia - nothing over 350kg could be sent live-export to Indonesia. In past years, NT cattle producers relied heavily on selling their cull cows to Indonesia. With the weight restrictions now being enforced, what do we do with nearly 700 cull cows? No one was wanting to buy empty cows (non-pregnant cows). We did try selling cows to the meat works in Southern Australia but this proved too costly. Basically we were getting paid on cows being weighed in Alice Springs some 1600kms away. The shrinkage (weight loss from being transported such distances) of the cows relegated half the consignment back from $1.10/kg to $0.90/kg. We have since gone to sending the cull cows down to a property in Wee Waa in north west NSW, where they are either fattened up and sold or joined with an Angus bulls, let calve out and then sold as cow and calf units.
Our third dilemma was an above average wet season in 2010/11 in which 1850mm of rain fell from the end of September to the end of April compared to an average wet season rainfall of only 1000mm for the same period of time. This caused excessive flooding of paddocks, rank grass, poor weight gain in cows, calf losses and a delay in 2011 weaner muster due to flooding. The delay with the muster then meant that cows were having to rear calves for longer before they could be weaned, which led to wieght loss in the cows. Despite this though the 2011 weaner muster weaning rate was 78% (remembering though this was based only the cattle that were kept for being in calf or wet). On the downside though the cows themselves performed very poorly with only 75% of the dry cows pregnancy testing in calf and only 3% of the wet cows testing in calf. The 3% of wet cows meant that only 3 cows per 100 were able to produce a calf every 12 months. Not good.
The fourth dilemma came in June 2011 - the temporary suspension of the Live-export trade imposed by the Australian Government. Although not directly affecting our cattle sales for Annaburroo Station at that time of year, it did cause some dramas with obtaining flood plain aggistment for the sale cattle. This then led to overstocking on Annaburroo for a 3 month period, which saw the rapid decline of pastures due to the extra grazing pressure. Our hard work - weed control, cool season burns, planting, spelling paddocks, rotating mobs - down the tube so to speak. We were back to square one in terms of our pasture management and available nutrition for the cattle.
Things haven't gone to plan over the last 21 months for the cows to perform as we had been hoping for. We have stuck to our guns though and followed through with our plans, based on advise and feedback received from expert industry sources and more importantly from produces who have dared to push for better herd fertility in the Top End. So with the 2012 weaner muster starting tomorrow, I write this today with some anxiety in my heart and ponder the question - are we really improving the fertility and performance of the breeder herd?
