Recovering from drought

• Assessing post-drought pasture availability will help you determine when to restock and/or how long you’ll need to continue drought feeding. It is important to estimate ground cover and standing feed to determine carrying capacity. The FORAGE and VegMachine programs can help you estimate ground cover across your property.
• There are two ways of measuring standing feed; (1) estimate the amount of pasture available using the appropriate photo standard for your pasture type or (2) take pasture cuts. Stocktake workshops delivered by Department of Agriculture and Fisheries (DAF) staff are available to support you in developing your own pasture budgets. There are also a series of short ‘How to conduct a forage budget‘ videos on the FutureBeef YouTube channel.
• How well pasture recovers after a drought will depend on the amount and intensity of rain received, the time of year in which the season broke and the physical conditions at the time of rain. Follow up rain is the key to recovery as several rainfall events are required to promote pasture growth and allow seeding and recovery of root reserves. You need to consider the medium to long-term seasonal outlook and the subsequent impact on pasture growth when determining a safe carrying capacity.
• To help facilitate early pasture growth, consider implementing grazing management strategies such as delayed restocking, spelling paddocks and restricting stock to confinement paddocks. It is recommended that you allow at least 6–8 weeks before grazing.
• Stressed and sparse pastures are susceptible to competition from weeds and if left uncontrolled can impact pasture regeneration. Identify weed populations and put strategies in place to manage them early.
• What is the proportion of productive, palatable and perennial (3P) grasses in the paddock? Long-lived and desirable 3P grasses are an indicator of pasture health and productivity. Assessing pasture species composition and survival will help you determine if any damage has been done to your pastures due to drought and the expected recovery potential for each paddock.
• Where you have paddocks with low pasture recovery potential; resowing a permanent pasture and/or planting a forage crop could be considered where land type allows.

Purchasing PTIC cows to rapidly restore the breeder herd at the end of the drought would increase and extend cash flow deficits in the short term and potentially provide a better outcome than just allowing the herd to return to normal numbers through foregoing sales.

Taking stock on agistment during the recovery phase may improve cash flow while the herd is being rebuilt and can be considered to be less risky than purchasing replacement breeders or trading stock. Traditionally, the net income from taking stock on agistment was less than the profit available from trading stock. However, the recent increases in the amount producers are willing to pay for agistment suggests taking stock on agistment could be a viable way to rebuild cash flow in the short term. Taking stock on agistment appears to be the lowest risk option available in the first part of the recovery phase.

Purchasing groups of steers, heifers or cows and calves as a trading option to be sold once they reach target weight or conditions can be considered as part of a drought recovery strategy. Using the Breedcow and Dynama ‘Bullocks’ program to assess the purchase of dry stock and the ‘CowTrade’ program to assess cows and calves or PTIC cows is recommended. The resulting gross margins from these programs need to be incorporated into a cash flow budget for the property over the medium-term future to identify the impact of interest and other costs associated with funding stock purchases.

Short term trading of large numbers of stock when recovering from drought may be a risky venture that needs close consideration if you are to achieve benefits greater than those achieved through other strategies.

This approach relies on returning the herd to its long-term structure as soon as possible by purchasing replacement steers, heifers, and PTIC cows. While this strategy results in a faster return to normal cash flow it may require you to increase your level of debt. The additional capital outlays required to rebuild the herd more rapidly than natural increase may increase cash flow deficits in the short term and/or require additional borrowings.

• Tick populations may be reduced during extended dry periods. The tick life cycle depends on heat and moisture. Consequently, as soon as it rains there is the potential for a sudden increase in tick numbers. The increase in tick burden can cause production loss and also increases cattle exposure to tick fever. It is recommended that you increase monitoring for ticks and tick fever and take action as necessary. Treating all cattle for ticks before reintroducing them to your property is recommended.
• Tick fever: while chemical treatments will keep your tick numbers under control, the tick fever organism is spread by larval tick so chemical treatments may not prevent tick fever. The best strategy for managing tick fever is vaccinating all weaners with trivalent tick fever vaccine and any unvaccinated animals brought onto the property. Unvaccinated cattle which haven’t had the opportunity to develop immunity (due to lack of exposure to tick fever organisms in the dry) can be affected by tick fever.
• Populations of biting insects such as buffalo fly, midges, mosquitoes, stable fly and other biting flies can also increase after rain. Cattle are adversely affected by these insects in two ways: (1) persistent biting causing distress and associated loss of production due to distress and (2) transmission of diseases by insects (three-day sickness being the most common). There is a range of management options including pour-on preparations, insecticidal ear tags, oversprays or back rubbers.

Rain can cause growth or increased abundance of many toxic plants. These plants tends to grow more rapidly than pasture grasses. They can be harmful, or in some cases fatal to livestock, so it’s important that you take care to minimise risks. If you notice a plant you are not familiar with, get it identified as soon as possible so you can take action if needed. Restrict access where possible or ensure a ready supply of alternative feed to prevent livestock eating toxic plants.

Once it has rained it is also important to check for emergence of new weed species. Weed seeds may have been transferred on-farm through contaminated fodder or machinery (e.g. harvesters, earthmoving equipment) from other regions. Early detection and management is critical. FutureBeef Extension and Biosecurity Officers can help with toxic plant and weed identification.