Feeding Grain on Grass

Summary

This producer demonstration site project will demonstrate that the use of forage and grain feed tests to develop a grain ration to supplement feed livestock grazing forage crops will lead to an increase in live weight gain enabling improved production efficiency and increased profitability for producers in Central West and Northern NSW.  

Objectives

By November 2024, in the Warrumbungle shire in Central West NSW: 

1. Demonstrate the use of supplementing grain while grazing forage crops to increase: 

   • Live weight gain/head/day by 20% 

   • Carrying capacity due to faster stock turnoff by 3.5% 

2. Demonstrate the use of supplementing grain while grazing forage crops to maintain carcass quality and market specification while decreasing grazing days by 13% 

3. Increased awareness of the use of feed tests to determine feed quality by 100 percent of core producers and 25% of observers 

4. Increased awareness of the use of carcass feedback to ensure adherence to target market specifications, by 100 percent of core producers  

5. Increased skill of 75% of core producers to formulate a supplementary feeding ration by using a feed test. 

6. Conduct eight cost benefit analysis to determine the economic impact of supplementing grain and evaluate at what crop growth stage feeding grain is of economic benefit. 

7. Produce 4 producer case studies documenting producers experiences supplementing grain on forage crops 

8. Conduct an annual field day (3 in total) to showcase the demonstration sites and encourage the use of feed tests and grain supplementation on forage crops with 50 observer producers attending one or more of the sites  

9. 70% of core producers and 20% of observers indicate they intend to take up grain supplementation 

Progress

The Warrumbungle mixed farm producer group (WMFPG) in the central west of NSW is an informal group with the aim of increasing the knowledge and skills of individual members using joint learning and experience sharing. These producers are grazing dual purpose cereal crops and cereal grazing crops through winter and utilizing tropical pasture over summer. 

 Due to the drought, many producers have invested in grain feeders and feed mixers, which are now being under-utilised or not used at all. Most graziers are also grain producers and therefore have grain on hand.  

There is an opportunity for these producers to utilize feeding equipment and on-farm grain stores to increase weight gain of both feeder cattle and lambs on forage/dual purpose crops and/or tropical pastures. By utilising a small amount of low value grain and/or supplement, producers will be able to turn off stock quicker and therefore increase carrying capacity without increasing the cost of forage production, thus increasing profitability.  

The producer group has met and discussed their experience with supplementing stock on forage crops and tropical pastures. They have identified gaps in knowledge and experience, as well as highlighting the main questions they hope the project will answer.  

Four sites have been selected to run the demonstrations. This project is being managed by Central West Local Land Services.