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The Muster- Graham Butcher: Retaining Ewe Body Score · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: This is the muster on Hokanui, Graham Butcher, Farm Consultant,
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: joins us in studio once again. How are you?
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I'm very well indeed, Andy.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: It's been a little bit of a correction in the weather.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Next couple of days looks a bit meh, but then
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: over the weekend, slowly starting to warm up again.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Well, we've had some heavy rainfalls, we've had wind, we've
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: had sunshine, and we've had All in all, damn sight
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: better than September.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Anything's better than September. Same old story, right?
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Anything's better than September. Too right it is.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Paul Kenyon was on the show last week talking about
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: you management looking ahead to next season. You went along
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: to that workshop and you said it was really, really interesting.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: It was. It was a three-hour presentation and it seemed
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: like 20 minutes. It's one of those ones, you know.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Good turnout. It probably... 40 or 50 people there, and,
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: you know, everyone was busy tailing and getting their tractors
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: out and what have you, so it was a really
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: good turnout and a damn good show. I didn't realise
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: Paul was on, so he's probably stolen some of my thunder.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: It's worthy of repeating.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, there you go.
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: If I am repeating. One of the themes he had
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: was looking at lambing percentages and is it better to
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: look at increasing your lambing percentage or increasing your... lamb weights,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: particularly your lamb weaning weights and we had some quite
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: interesting figures up there and he put a series of
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: graphs up on looking at the impact on cash operating surplus,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: which is your cash income less working costs on a
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: per hectare basis on increasing lambing percentage and what he showed,
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: going from 133 and 0.5% if we go up to 140%
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: to 6% increase, the impact on cash surplus was about 7%.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: If we go up another 10% to 150% lambing, the
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: impact is 18% overall. And going up another 10% to 160%,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: the overall impact is 26%. Sorry, is this based on
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: what average weight lambed then, when you're talking about? This
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: is on.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: This is on average weights lamb. On the graph, it
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: doesn't have what the average weight is. You can presume 18,
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: 18 and a half K. I think it was a
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: survey of a number of farms looking at the whole thing.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: So anyway, as lambing percentage increases, the impact on cash
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: operating surplus is positive. It goes up. But as the
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: lambing percentage climbs, the rate of increase actually declines because
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: you get more triplets and all that sort of thing. Right.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Compared to that, starting at 130%, but maintaining your lambing
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: percentage at around 133%, which is the base starting of
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: the one I've just talked about, but just concentrating on
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: your lamb weaning weights. Right, if we go up from
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: 30 kgs to 33 kgs, maintaining your lambing percentage, the
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: impact is 17%, nearly 18%, just that one step. If
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: we go up another three kilos, it's 35%. Another three
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: kilos on that, it's 52% cash operating surplus, which far
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: outweighs the gains we can make on increasing our lambing percentage,
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: even though there is gains there to do it. So
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I suppose what I took out of that is as
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: your lambing percentage rise, the focus has got to shift
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: onto weaning weights and finishing.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Weights as well.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: We didn't talk about finishing weights. Just a change in focus.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: As you're increasing your lambing percentage above 140%, the marginal
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: gains get less and less and less. That's the point
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: where you've got to start thinking about weaning weights and
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: lamb finishing weights because the impact on the growth on
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: your cash farm surplus is actually a lot higher. So
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: that was quite an interesting theme that came through. And
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: that sort of ties up with some work I did–
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: I've been doing it for a couple of years now,
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: or quite a few years, on what's the sweet spot
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: for scanning percentage. And funnily enough, it comes out at
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: about 140%. After that, it declines. At 140%, if you
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: take all your U deaths, triplet deaths, all those sorts
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: of losses into account, the sweet spot seems to be
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: about 185% scanning and 140% tailing, because that's the point
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: where the kilograms lamb wean actually peaks, and then it
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: starts to decline a wee bit because of the impact
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: of triplets and all that sort of thing. So that
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: was quite an interesting sort of corroboration of what Paul
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: was saying. The other main theme of the ewe management
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: one was body condition score. And he was very positive
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: about how important the body condition score is because it affects...
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: All sorts of things on productivity on sheep farms affects fertility,
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: that's the getting in lamb. Scanning percentage, prolificacy, that's the
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: lambs at tailing. It affects lactation, affects a whole lot
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: of things and it's a really important thing to do.
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: But one of the things he did say, there's no
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: point in having, or very little point, in having ewes
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: above about 3.5% body condition score. The key is bringing
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: up that bottom end. That's where the big impact is made.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: Consistency through the line. That's what you're aiming for.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Forget about the average. I've been saying that for donkey's years.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: An average of 3.5 means half of them are not
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: up to speed. So 3.5, maybe you have a few
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: at four at that. Probably that's okay. But bring that
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: bottom end up because that impacts on a huge number
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: of profitability trays on the farm. And if you're going
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: to do good feed management, You've got to actually start
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: measuring something. What's McGrath doing? What's our cover? Where's it
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: going to? It's the philosophy that dairy farmers have become
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: very successful following. So sheep farmers have got to pick
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: up that and run with it if they're going to
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: push things ahead. So anyway, it was a really interesting one.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: The other really interesting one about body condition score too,
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: he had a couple of figures on the rates of
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: attrition in on ewes for low body condition scoring. And
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: one of the things he said was that for a
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: five-year-old ewe, the chance of being culled decreased 37% for
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: every body condition score increase. That's huge. And he said
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: that sort of figure applied to other age groups as well. 37%
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: decrease chance of being culled if your body condition score
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: is pretty good. And the attrition rate in New Zealand
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: flocks is probably about 30%. By the time your two
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: ewes go in, by the time they hit after five lambings,
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: there's very few of them left. They just trickle out
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: through the whole system. And that's actually a huge cost
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: for New Zealand sheep farmers.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Just to wrap up as well, South and Rural Support Trust,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: we're back catching up with the team and different farmers.
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: Farm Advisor, when you look back at the last 10
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: weeks or so as to where we are now, what
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: words of advice would you say?
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: I'd say farmers have done a hell of a good
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: job tidying up. They're still... stuff to do. You see
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: it lying around the place. Pretty horrendous time a year ago.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: But farmers, I think they did a stupendous job cleaning
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: up and I think the impact has been pretty stressful
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: on farmers, physical, mental, the whole show. Because that's one
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: thing we didn't need this time of the year is
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: that wind that came through.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: Nonetheless, the lambs are on the ground now, the ones
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: that are there and He is hoping to wear something
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: for this season, eh, Graeme? Good on you.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: Yep. Thank you.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Graeme Butcher, Farm Consultant. Once again, Southland Rural Support Trust.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: 0800 787 254. Somebody at the end of the line
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: if you need to have a chat as well. So
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: we're talking about to different farmers and different avenues. And
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: next week we're going to talk about a few events
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: that are coming up like Surfing for Farmers, Not Too
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: Far Away, Riding for Farmers as well, starting tonight. So
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: get on board with that. Gina Close is up next
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: from Dairy NZ.