Paddock renovations, Mineral supplements and an update on our Gippy dryland pasture.
August has been a busy month, there’s a hint of spring in the air and the grass has started to get moving. Time to get the paddocks freshened up for what is hopefully a cracking spring/summer.
Pasture Renovations
Spring is nearly here and with that comes increased pasture growth, At this time of the year we like to give the paddocks a freshen up. After the cows have moved into the next paddock we drag the harrows over the whole paddock a few times, this spreads out any piled up dung and gives the paddock a clean up to allow a consistent growth over the whole area. We’ve also heavily harrowed one paddock and direct drilled some PASJA 2 leafy turnip into the existing pasture to give our steers the chance to pack on a few extra kg’s before being processed at the end of the year. PASJA 2 is a fast growing early establishing turnip that can be grazed a minimum of 3 times. The steers will have exclusive access to this to maximise the weight gain over Spring and into Summer. Now we wait for the seedlings to pop up!
Harrowed paddock ready for PASJA 2 Leafy turnip
Mineral supplements
This month we’d like to introduce you to our Cow Candy Bar otherwise known as a mineral supplement station. Keeping cattle in top condition sometimes requires the addition of extra minerals into their diet. At Willarah we offer the cows a selection of Salt, a trace elements mineral lick block, Cod liver oil, Apple cider vinegar with added garlic and our own version of the Pat Coleby loose mineral lick. The Pat Coleby mineral lick contains:
• Mineralised Salt
• King Island Seaweed Meal
• Dolomite
• Lime
• Sulphur
• Copper
This Combination of minerals and trace elements Boosts health and reduces the amount of drenching required. We source our Pat Coleby mix from Vitec, where they have the following description; “The Pat Coleby Starter Lick Pack includes 6 essential minerals that are most commonly lacking in Australian pastures. The minerals used in the Pat Coleby Lick include Seaweed Meal, Dolomite, Copper, Sulphur, Lime and Salt. The “Lick” is a balanced mix that has been tested with outstanding results across a variety livestock animals and is a great alternative and possibly easier and more effective way of offering the necessary minerals for those animals in need.” Benefits listed on the website include;
• Improved fertility
• Greater conception rates are generally experienced
• Improved progeny & better cycling
• Overall boost in the general health and condition
• Superior bloom on offspring
• Better weaning of offspring with less turn around time
• Increased weight gain by stock
• Resistance to worms and diseases
We’re currently mixing the different minerals together but in the future we plan to offer them as free choice in separate containers to work out what minerals the cows are chasing at certain times of the year.
Gippy Dryland update
The cattle have now had a short graze on this paddock twice, despite the freezing temperature and what feels like 30 frost days this season, the dryland mix is hanging in there. In hind sight, the seed was sown a little too late in the Autumn growing season and didn’t establish as well as we would have liked. However we are definitely impressed with it’s ability to hang in there despite being under frost the majority of the winter months. We can’t wait to see if it will take off this spring. We will be sowing out another paddock with this seed mix in September so it will be good to compare the results of each paddock at the end of Spring.
