Nat Schwerin’s passion for agriculture and animals nutrition has led her to undertake first-of-its kind research in Australia.
Nat and her trusted assistants have been inspecting rumens of cull dairy cows in Victoria and Tasmania to find out the general health of the herd’s rumens. This is a project for Lallemand Animal Nutrition Australia, which is a branch of the world’s biggest producer of yeast and bacteria that are used in industries as varied as baking, brewing, human nutrition and more.
The rumen health survey is just one example of the fascinating and diverse work Nat does as the company’s technical services manager for animal nutrition.
The survey has been going for about a year and Nat said it could continue for a few more before there were any results of statistical significance.
“We wanted to quantify rumen health. We wanted to know if there was anything in the Australian production system that we hadn’t considered that affects animals’ rumens,” the 30 year-old said.
They have been working with dairy farmers to understand and record their management and production data. The producers then phone Nat and she organises to be at the abattoir when their cows are being processed. She said the research was possible thanks to the cooperation of Midfield Meats at Warrnambool and Greenham & Sons at Tongala and Tasmania.
“Wanted to get as much production data as we could to see if there were any links with what we see in the rumen and how the production system is managed,” Nat said.
Since the downturn in the dairy industry, a lot of farmers have culled heavily and Nat has added some cows that came through saleyards to her data too.
She said overall a lot the rumens she’s surveyed in Victoria have been quite challenged and show signs of having experienced acidotic events, and they overall have had more sites of damage than the ones she saw overseas been developing the project.
“We think we know what happens in the rumens and what’s challenging to the rumen,” she said.
“But no-one has actually looked at it and said well, just how bad something is or is it that other rumens are more robust than we think they are, can they tolerate higher challenges, or is it the other way around, we just don’t know.”
Despite growing up in a family of restaurant-owners in Geelong, Nat has always had a passion for animals, particularly horses.
She did a Bachelor of Animal Science at Melbourne University.
“I was really lucky to land a job straight out of university as a production nutritionist at a feed mill in Queensland.”
Nat worked in that role for a few years when Lallemand approached her because they were starting to work with a lot of their feed ingredients in Australia, including by buying Quality Silage Systems. Silage products still make up about 70 per cent of Lallemand Animal Nutrition’s business, Nat estimates.
In the about six years, Nat has worked with Lallemand she counts her blessings to be part of a team that works really well together.
She also loves the variety.
“Every time my phone rungs it’s like a lucky dip,” she said, adding she works across pigs, cattle, sheep, horses and even racing pigeons.
Lallemand also supported Nat to do her Master of Science in Agriculture at The University of New England, which involved her running a trial with 20 rumen cannulated steers to get data to use in Australian feedlots, because she said a lot of the existing data was from the US where cattle are fed mostly corn based diets compared to sorghums and rougher pastures often fed out in Australia.
She has also been given the flexibility that has enabled her to work full time work with her young family.
“My daughter Bronte has been coming to work with me since she was about three months-old and there are not many other industries or jobs where you can actually take your child to work.
“Of course there are OHS considerations and certain places that are just not appropriate to take her to, but most of the people we work with are running family businesses so there are kids running around.”
She said it was imperative that Bronte could come with her because she worked irregular hours and husband Bill works two week on, two weeks off as a driller on gas rigs.
Home is their small property west of Toowoomba, but Nat has been staying in Geelong with her family as she does the rumen health survey.
She said her job was rewarding and different than anything she had considered when as a student, and she thought it was common for people to underestimate the diversity of jobs available in agricultural services.
“I think there are huge opportunities for young people coming into agriculture, particularly in service providers.
“I think there’s a lot more young people coming through companies have accepted that they’re probably not to get the people with the experience that we want so we need to start investing in graduates and other young people.
“I think as an industry, it’s very open to teaching you and for people to get the understanding.”
