Waikato NZPIM - Heifer Grazing Project

DairyNZ. (2016, April). Heifer grazing project: Waikato NZIPIM [Handout]. Hamilton, New Zealand: DairyNZ

This was a meeting reviewing the Dairy NZ Heifer Grazing Project. It explained why the project was started in 2014 and looked at the results of the industry performance.

In 2012 heifers registered in MINDA Weights were 11% behind their growth rate target at 22 months and 73% were more than 5% behind target. In 2015 some progress has been made and on average the stock are still 11% behind target but the tail end has been reduced and 59% are more than 5% behind target.

It appeared that the hardest target to hit is the daily live weight gain for the 9-15 month period and this corrects by the time the heifers are18 months old. This could be down to a multitude of factors - is this period the same in Autumn born heifers? or is it the seasonality of climate, pasture quality and intakes?

The issues identified as stopping heifers from meeting their live weight gains were

  •Relationship Management
  •Knowledge for management
  •Pricing
  •Industry leadership

The group discussed the heifer requirements through their growing period and calculating a pricing model based upon other farming enterprises.

There was some thought from some of the attendees that there should be no restriction of the heifers growth and the heifer should achieve optimum or accelerated growth from birth through to entering the herd at calving. That it was simply due to a lack of quality feed and the heifer should be supplemented with feed to ensure her needs are met.

 

 

There was some discussion over where the responsibilities lay for management issues. There is a Dairy NZ checklist available that was in the hand out from the day that could be included in a contract. If this is decided before the agreement starts it resolves any future disputes that could have occurred.

The biggest concern is that heifers will not achieve the target average daily gain and fail to reach their target live weight at the end of the contract. I am looking at whether the pastoral system is able to feed the heifers appropriately and to achieve the targets required.