Diet Quality and Performance of Grazing Cattle in the Pilbara

Summary

This project documented changes in body condition of breeder cattle grazing representative pasture communities in the Pilbara (7) and the Kimberley (3) over a 3 year period. Faecal samples were collected from groups of breeders at 4-6 week intervals from 25 sites across the ten pasture communities.  Pasture and cattle management practices were recorded at each sampling. Near Infra-red Reflectance Spectroscopy (NIRS) was used to predict diet quality attributes from the faecal samples. 
Relationship between the NIRS results and wet and dry breeder body condition (up to 9 weeks prior to sampling) and observed pasture conditions were established.   Pasture digestibility nine weeks before sampling had the highest correlation with dry and wet cow body condition score (0.60, 0.57; and 0.43, 0.40) for the Pilbara and Kimberley respectively. The results also highlighted the speed of changing pasture quality conditions within the two regions. The project has provided a valuable information resource for decision making and more productive grazing management systems for the north Western Australian cattle industry.