SUMMARY
- 200+ heifers on a 90ha oat crop
- Extensive timber belt in paddock with significant clover
- Using bloat oil in troughs to manage risk
- From July weight gains began to drop coinciding with period of warmer weather
- Water trough identified as cause, and once cleaned, cattle were back on track
- Effective intervention and real-time monitoring of management response
Background
A client with one of AHN’s hired Optiweigh units experienced the benefits of real time weight monitoring first-hand.
The unit was situated in a 90 hectare oats crop stocked with 277 heifers. The paddock had an extensive timber belt in the middle of the paddock with lots of clover.
Due to this risk the decision was made to put bloat oil in the water troughs through winter.
The Optiweigh showed the weight gains were tracking along well at 1.6kg/day ADG, since the unit went into the paddock in July.
In August, weights began to drop off significantly indicating a problem.
Analysis
At 4am, as often happens, Dr Kelly had an epiphany … the water troughs. She suspected that during winter, the cattle had been living off the water in the plants and not going to the trough.
“When it got unseasonably hot and their water needs increased, and the mob was forced to drink, but were turned off the trough water, or maybe the troughs were just dirty,” Jill said.
“Dehydrated cattle eat less and gain less weight.”
Management Response
At 6am, Jill rang the client, suggested dumping the water and cleaning the troughs. Immediately weight gains went back up to 2kg/day in the following days, ‘like magic’.
Jill then we shared that info with her WhatsApp group clients so that the benefit was shared across her network.
She suspects there was ”a lot of trough cleaning going on that day”.
“We worked out that the client was losing around $1200/day in lost weight gain across the whole mob.
Thanks to the Optiweigh unit we worked out the problem in a few days rather than waiting a few weeks until the cattle looked like they were doing poorly.
The Optiweigh just paid for itself over and over again.”
Dr Jillian Kelly, AHN Consulting
PO BOX 100 Coonamble NSW 2829
Ph 0408 331 166
Email [email protected]
