Heifer Grazing Focus Fielday- Dairy NZ

Dairy NZ. (2016, April). Heifer grazing focus farm: King Country [Handout]. Hamilton, New Zealand: Dairy NZ

Attending the Dairy NZ Heifer Grazing Focus Farm Fielday I found to be of great interest. Held in the King Country it looked at a pastoral based heifer grazing system questioning

• What does good look like?
• what is a realistic growth rate target?
• What farm systems achieve industry targets?
• What is a fair price?

The summary was given as follows

 

Growth Rates

The Focus Farm looked at growth rates they achieved throughout the year on the pastoral system. It clearly shows that the farm had a variable growth rate through the year. This is a seasonal variation and can be forecast with great predictability as it shows a clear pattern. 

 

The following graph shows the industry targets plotted against the predicted growth rates for the farm and the average live weights as they happened.

 

This information shows me that there is a variation in heifer growth rates in the pastoral system. The focus farm clearly hit their daily live weight gain target on average with some variation throughout the year.