FutureBeef is a collaborative program between MLA and the governments of QLD, NT and WA, working together for a profitable and sustainable northern beef industry.
Wonderful flow of information and applied knowledge. Based on quick googling - the lector runs a 3000 heads "only" feedlot, that limits the experience, though, in my humble opinion. But still, very informative. Thanks a lot.
It would have been very interesting to know what the pasture utilisation was in each group. Did the IRG system grow less grass and therefore have less weight gained? Or did the IRG mob grow more grass, but due to animal health problems associated with the larger mob size reduce animal performance?
No mention of the possibility of using the resistant native grasses? Or using resistant polyculture blends? Too complicated, huh? That last farm showed looks like it might be doing a little right.. more species the better.
This insight to bottle teats is extremely useful and informative thanks! Towards the end the calving map indicating >5km walk to water, and particularly the 'shade' point at the end seem to totally miss the elephant - bugger shade they have no feed?! A terrible season sure, but that land looks pretty bare of perennials with a few mimosa holding it together?? Pretty sure one of the other studies I remember Kieran McCosker presenting on noted that shade had minor but not significant impact to calf mortality (with B.indicus cattle) but nutrition is a big one. Lucky they had that bit of 'shade' to nibble.. Would be great to see comparison study on calf survival in an operation with higher land condition / grass management with the comparison in profitability. Thanks
It has been published in a scientific journal where it would have undergone review by independent scientists with expertise in the subject area. Studies with lots of flaws generally don’t get through that process and end up being published
My understanding is that genetics of the cattle will be significant in terms of performance under IRG. Also not sure why you couldn’t run significantly higher stocking rates under IRG with cattle untilising all the pasture and having longer recovery times, so although the return per animal would be lower, the return per Ha would be higher. The focus on gain per animal is where this study falls down. This is the classic problem of focussing on Yield per animal instead of Profit per Ha. Long term CG results in deserts as we’ve seen all round the world and there isn’t much profit in that.
This is quite helpful as i got a poddy calf, male, today and 1) i saw what a young bull looks like and 2) this information on how to take care of him is good, we named him boomerang hes around 7-9 months old
I might have a solution. There’s this gentleman named MosesWest who built a machine that can produce water that is of interest to cattle ranchers, agriculture, and wildlife reserves. The military uses this equipment. That’s why we never hear them complain about not having clean water when they are in the desert. These machines can produce water 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The small one can produce 580 gallons of water daily, and the larger one can produce2,300 gallons a day running off of solar or a gas generator. Look into his atmospheric Water Generator. He will be happy to help you all. Moses West - The Real Water Rescue Foundation Moses west foundation - The Real Water Rescue FoundationDonations- #MosesWest #AWG 🙂
Thank you for posting this presentation. It would be great to hear more about what went into the decisions to move the cattle as the presentation suggests the manager's pasture assessment as the only factor. Did the cattle's condition (i.e. gut fill and manure firmness) ever come into the equation? If a beast is not getting enough grass or not on a constant plane of nutrition it will suffer. That is a fairly important factor which is hard to capture as it will change from year to year. A set stocked paddock in a good season will have cattle eating green pick and selecting the best feed. If the rotated grazing is forcing cattle to not select forage (eg eat lower quality as they don't always have access to the preferred plants), nutritional adaption in the phenotype will play a huge part. If the cattle are overgrazing paddocks through the rotation is will require longer recovery periods. It would be great to see regular weighing and pasture assessment figures (eg DM tonnage per ha) of each arm in the trial to pinpoint when the rotation grazing goes wrong. Very interesting presentation but so many confounding factors that depend on management decisions it is hard to find this conclusive.
Outstanding video gentlemen! Perfect presentation, and explanation of what you were going about creating! I applaud you for working on projects that contribute to the conservation of the rain water we do get on this little blue marble! Cheers, mate! 💪👍🙌🤟🤙
Hi, the video is not visible on RU-vid. The audio can be heard but the image is scrambed throughout the video; occasionally the bottom section of the video is visible but that is all. Is it possible to repost the video so that we can see it. Just a comment- it would be very interesting to have Terry McCosker comment at end of the video on the methodology and the results.