Wet winters no match for bedded sheds
At the recent Grainfed Research and Development (R&D) Symposium hosted by the Australian Lot Feeders’ Association (ALFA) and Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), Grant Garey, current ALFA President and General Manager of Feedlots at Teys Australia, shared learnings from the Teys shedded feeding program at their Charlton Feedlot.
“Our Teys operations are located down the eastern seaboard.
“We’ve got three feedlots, six processing plants, a couple of value-added facilities, a hide facility and a centralised cold store at the port of Brisbane,” Grant said.
The company’s Charlton Feedlot, based in southern Australia, was established in 1971 and bought by Teys in 2014. The area often suffers from wet winter conditions which can make feedlot conditions less than ideal – a drawcard for the shedded program.
The shed
“The shed that we built at Charlton is 200m long and 36m wide. We run the shed at 6m2/head, meaning there’s a 1,200 head capacity in that shed and the bunk space of the shed is 16.6 cm/animal,” Grant said.
“The cost of maintenance in regular pens during wet winters in the south is pretty enormous,” Grant said.
With the shed now being in its third year of establishment, no pen floor maintenance has been required.
“We’ve seen no maintenance costs on pen flooring so far. It’s obviously still early days but so far in three years, not a cent has been spent,” Grant said.
“Normally, maintenance is typically an annual event at Charlton.”
Looking into odour work for the sheds is something Teys has also investigated.
“Wet pens in winter will naturally be generating odour. What we have found is that the reduction in odour is quite significant in our bedded shed pens vs the wet outdoor pens.
“Even with twice as many cattle in the bedded shed pens, there is still a lower odour,” Grant said.
Most of the shed flooring is a gravel base with straw bedding running over the top of it.
“We did try a couple of pens with bitumen base, which worked well, but for the cost of it, for what we’ve seen, the gravel has stood up quite well without the rainfall impact.”
The bunks and feed intake
“We’ve seen no impact on feed intake at all with slightly less bunk space. We’ve also actually seen higher hot standard carcase weights (HSCW) and average daily gain (ADG) from the bedded shed cattle,” Grant said.
The bunks used in the shed were not slipform bunks and instead had structural poles placed directly against the bunk.
“Having the shed posts right up against the bunk is something that has worked well for us in this situation. If you run slipform bunks then the shed posts can be set back to the edge of the bunk Apron.”
Additional benefits
Half of the shed is dedicated to hospital and treatment pens.
“We’ve seen greatly improved hospital recovery rates, especially with any foot or lameness-related issues,” Grant said.
With animals going back into a dry pen with bedding, it has made a significant difference.
“It’s a really good surface for the cattle to recover. There has also been a lot fewer incidences of infection.”
The ability to have people work the shed on foot has emerged as additional benefit.
“The sector does have challenges around having enough livestock people. Finding enough horse-based livestock people has been one of the challenges we’ve had at Charlton,” Grant said.
“The shed has lent itself quite well to be able to monitor cattle with staff on foot.”
The bedding
Teys are trialling the types of bedding used and the best way to spread it efficiently.
“We’re working on two to three kilograms per head per day of bedding but we think we can get it down to a bit less.
“The way that the bedding spreads definitely has an impact, but this is something we’ve only come across in the last six months and we are continuing to look at the best way to do this,” Grant explained
“Once we find the right spreading method, it will lend itself to being able to use less bedding and, subsequently, there will be less cost associated.”
There have been multiple bedding types trialled at the Charlton site, some of these include wood chip, wheat straw, barley straw and sawdust, amongst others.
“Wood chips are probably the best we’ve trialled but the availability down at Charlton and the cost have ruled them out for us.
“Long cut wheat and barley straw have been the best option and are what we are using.”
Grant highlighted sheds are very specific to the site, environment and cattle.
“For us, it’s all about those southern winters. They are very hard on cattle performance.
“Another challenge for us at Charlton, specifically, is that we can’t expand our footprint if we want to expand the number of cattle on feed.
“The shedded pens do lend us the opportunity to be able to increase our numbers without expanding our footprint.”
