Managing livestock on small properties
Planning for drought or drought recovery will require you to make some tough and difficult decisions around feeding and caring for your livestock and how to best manage your pastures.
A guide to managing livestock on small properties
The number of properties owned by small landholders in Queensland has increased over the last two decades as people decentralise from larger towns and cities to acreage properties for a variety of reasons.
Queensland’s small landholders are responsible for approximately 57,600 properties with these properties making up around 55% of all registered land holdings in the state.
A guide to managing livestock on small properties has been designed to assist small landholders to effectively manage their land and water resources, biodiversity and livestock in a sustainable production system, while ensuring animal welfare, biosecurity and land management objectives are achieved.
The guide has been developed with support from Landcare Australia and Healthy Land and Water.
Webinar series
The webinar series, held in May 2020, provided best practice advice about feeding your livestock in a drought and making decisions about their future.
Each session was recorded and you can watch by clicking on the links below.
Session 1: Managing climate variability, pastures & the feed requirements for horses and sheep
This session focused on:
- Managing climate variability
- Maintenance feed requirements for horses, sheep and goats
- Land management and pasture recovery
Session 2: Drought plans and feed requirements for cattle
This session focused on the development of drought plans and the concept of having a strategy in place when faced with the challenges of dry conditions. The topics covered were:
- Rain and pasture websites
- Review drought plans
- Feed budgeting
- Drought options and tools
- Feeding cattle
- Holding breeder condition
- Protein and energy supplements
- Costing nutrients
Session 3: Duty of care to animals and when euthanasia is the best option
The final webinar focussed on your obligations for duty of care to your animals when faced with the challenges of dry conditions. The topics discussed include:
- What is ‘duty of care’ for animals
- What is appropriate care
- Who is classed as a ‘person in charge’ of animals
- Appropriate transportation of livestock / How to assess if animals are fit to load
- What does transporting mean?
- When euthanasia is the best option