EARLY weaning is being pushed to new extremes and in turn delivering new levels of efficiency at Wellington Lodge near Tailem Bend, South Australia.
For the McFarlane family, a move to weaning at just two and a half months of age has been part of a broader strategy for managing their cow herd through the prolonged dry.
Their 6000-hectare operation sits at the tail-end of the Murray, where the spectre of nearby Lake Alexandrina - the primary source of stock and home water – drying up at the hands of the drought is all too real.
In the past two years the McFarlanes have reduced breeder numbers of their commercial Angus herd from more than 900 cows to 600, run in mobs of 200.
Prior to reducing numbers, they were effectively running five separate self-replacing herds - and at any one time had two mobs mated, two mobs waiting to calve and one with calves at foot.
Mobs ran on a 15 month mating program whereby calves were weaned at four and a half months – compared to a more traditional nine to 10 months - and the cows rested for a month before being artificially inseminated.
“And it worked well for us,” said Richard McFarlane, who runs the operation with wife Emma and his parents Keith and Janet.
“It meant the cow was only producing a calf every 15 months but when we did the financials on it, it still worked out to be more profitable than when we were running a 12-month mating program and weaning at 10 months because our pregnancy rates were so much higher.”
But there was still scope for further improvement – and a more pressing need to reduce pressure on available feed supplies and get their cows bouncing back from calving faster.
Mr McFarlane said last year they decided to bite the bullet and go back to a 12-month mating program – albeit one where weaning was done at just two and a half months.
In line with the reduction in numbers they’ve also moved from four joinings a year to three and now calve in March, June and September, cutting January out of the program due to the heat.
Calves were weaned two and a half months after calving, with the oldest calves about 14 weeks old and the youngest, just six weeks old.
*Extract from on-farm to appear in Stock & Land, February 26.
