{"id":8836,"date":"2013-10-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-10-09T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/youngsters-on-the-move-for-grass\/"},"modified":"2013-10-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-10-09T11:00:00","slug":"youngsters-on-the-move-for-grass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.farmersweekly.co.nz\/news\/youngsters-on-the-move-for-grass\/","title":{"rendered":"Youngsters on the move for grass"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading Time: <\/span> 3<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>

\u201cAlmost every bit of land that is good dairy country is being used now for milking, so that is pushing grazing further away,\u201d DairyNZ southwest Otago consulting officer James Lawn said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFarms that used to be part milking platform and part young stock grazing are now only milking platforms, which means grazing has to be found off-farm.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said it was business as usual for stock owners who already had long-term relationships with graziers but others, such as new sharemilkers, were having trouble.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people are saying they are just going to buy rising two-year-olds instead of raising their own young stock and trying to find grazing for them but are they going to be able to buy quality stock?\u201d<\/p>\n

DairyNZ regional leader Southland-south Otago Richard Kyte said finding<\/p>\n

young stock and winter dairy grazing was always a challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve heard some pretty silly prices being asked for this winter but things seem to have come down to earth.\u201d<\/p>\n

Of those talked to, May to May contracts for young stock were about $9-$11 a week and for calves from December 1 until May 1 were about $5-$6.50 a week. PGG Wrightson dairy livestock rep Murray Bain, of Mosgiel, said finding good graziers was becoming increasingly difficult.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a dry autumn and a trying winter, which hasn\u2019t made it any easier, although we seem to have got through it in the end,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs the industry gets bigger and bigger we need to find more and more grazing. We are trying to educate sheep farmers about dairy grazing and hopefully that will help. At least we have north Otago, which has irrigation, so there is always guaranteed feed up there.\u201d<\/p>\n

RD1 livestock rep Matt Brinsdon, of Gore, was busy arranging young stock grazing for clients and said some young stock were going into irrigated country in Central Otago from Southland.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always been a lot of winter grazing of dairy cows in Central but now young stock are going there too.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s driven by lamb prices. With lower lamb prices last season it freed up some dairy grazing but lamb prices are expected to go up this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contracts<\/p>\n

He said while young stock grazing was still paid mainly per head per week, winter cow grazing contracts were more often per kilogram of drymatter.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a bit more work to do, weighing crops, and in a lot of these contracts the grazier is still shifting the animals daily.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is being talked about this year is what happens when something like a snow dump like they had in Central this winter destroys crops. Is it the grazier\u2019s liability or the animal owner who has already bought the feed? It\u2019s something that has to be worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Agribusiness Consultants sheep and beef consultant Deane Carson, of Invercargill, said poor crops of kale and swedes because of the summer dry had affected the number of dairy stock wintered in the south.<\/p>\n

\u201cCrops were below what was expected so a lot of cattle went north this year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Many sheep and beef farmers used winter dairy grazing as a way of improving their farms, by growing winter crops and then regrassing, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce their farms are developed they look for other options and sometimes it\u2019s year-round heifer grazing and sometimes it\u2019s more sheep.\u201d<\/p>\n

Diversifying income and improving cash flows were other reasons sheep farmers took on dairy grazing, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor most of them, dairy grazing is a small percentage of their income stream and it\u2019s a way of buffering the highs and lows of the sheep industry.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very cyclical. There always seems to be farmers dropping off the radar and others popping up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Southland and south Otago young stock are travelling as far as Canterbury for grazing as farmers struggle to find grass for them closer to home.\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":8837,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t