These reviews seldom start with a benchmarking process to put the performance of the farm in perspective. However, I do not think that is necessarily important because benchmarking is happening all the time through local knowledge and even social contact.
If surrounding farms are achieving 175% or more pregnancy scanning and you are never getting above 160%, going through a formal benchmarking process is not necessary to identify the opportunity. Often it is a subtle concession that the farm can do better that negates the need for benchmarking.
The current performance becomes the reference point. Reviews of farming systems should not only be restricted as a response to poor results. Good outcomes need to be captured so that they can be repeated.
Being clear about what led up to the good result can be a great prompt to put the same things in place in the future.
Too often good results are just treated as an outcome from good weather. But often what the good weather delivered can be mimicked by management. The story of record lambing in the Manawatu monitor farm flock in 2010 in the same weather that destroyed the lambing in the majority of surrounding flocks that year is one that I often quote. Good management can really buffer the impact of bad weather.
Most reviews happen with the prospect of improving an outcome. Usually this starts in a focused way on a production issue such as a low scanning.
Of course this one production key performance indicator (KPI) is not the whole story of profitability, but it is a KPI that can easily be measured, is a powerful trigger of action and is closely linked to profit in most flocks. However, treated in isolation it can be dangerous.
Seldom does one aspect of production not impact or interact with another. Take a low scanning for example. It is usually because of a combination of too many ewes in too light condition and the feeding of ewes coming into mating.
For young ewes in the hills though it is frequently also because of these ewes being too light as ewe hoggets. But in dealing with these causes, other aspects of the overall production system need to be adjusted. A very interesting review that I was involved with late in 2013 arose when the farm accountant identified that the animal health costs on this particular farm were very high.
I was asked to review those costs. As I have mentioned before, what is coded to animal health varies from farm to farm. So that needs to be clarified for a start. But in the process of looking at the various animal health costs, the role of management quickly came to the fore.
Good management can
really buffer the impact
of bad weather.
Any questioning of high-cost items such as drench capsules in the ewes or magnesium bullets in the cows had to be accompanied by alternative actions that could reduce or remove the need for such products.
For this particular farm as well there were a lot of trace element supplements being used on all stock classes. Yet there was no monitoring information at all that would have supported such inputs.
The overall discussion that arose from an animal health input start eventually covered most of the key points of influence. The outcome suggested that the changes were still to be tested but I am confident that in going through this process production will ultimately lift and costs reduce.
In beef breeding systems the most common trigger for a review is too many empty cows. This comes way ahead of the number of calves weaned or the weight of those calves. A one-off jump in empty cows usually has a specific cause such as bull failure. However, often extra empty cows are a spill-over of an extended calving interval.
Last spring I was hearing lots of comment about cows being late, or calving being very drawn out. This is often the consequence of an accumulation over several years of shifting the mean conception date back.
At first a few more empty cows drop out, but when too many end up being in the later mob combined with a late spring that does not deliver enough feed, a great deal drop out as empty. The extra late calving cows that were being reported this season, and in any year, should be taken as a warning that the herd is in a precarious state.
• Trevor Cook, veterinarian, Manawatu.
