September 30, 2025 • 21 mins
No matter how long you have been out working on the land, you can always learn ways to work smarter, save money, and time on the farm. In this week’s episode brought to you by Beef + Lamb New Zealand, powered by The Country, Hamish McKay is joined by Farmer Matthew Tayler, and Head of Science at Dairy NZ Nico Lyons who explain the art of Feed Budgeting, and how literally watching grass grow can have a positive effect on your farm profits growing.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Exploring ideas and innovations shaping the future of farming with
Beef and Lamb New Zealand powered by the Country.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome again to another podcast brought to you by Beef
and Lamb New Zealand powered by the Country. My name
is Hamus McKay, absolutely honored to be doing this. Let's
recap the first couple of episodes in the series so
far that focuses on the innovations and ideas that can
help you save time and money too very precious commodities
on barm and to become a more efficient That's what
(00:35):
it's all about.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That's what we want. We want to have more time
to enjoy the spoils of our hard work.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
And so we started off with an episode on systems wastage,
followed up by episode two about a body condition scoring
and you can find all these episodes on the Country's iHeart.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
This week for episode three, topic is budgeting and I'm
joined by Matthew Taylor. Matt Taylor based in Northern Southland
from lawn Peak Station which is a Beef and Lamb
innovation farm, and Matt is a member of the Beef.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And Lamb New Zealand Farm.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Research Advisory Group and Nico Lyons out of Argentina via
a Sydney who is head of science at darien ZED
and a dairy representative Beef and Lamb New Zealand's Farm
Research Advisory Group. Start will you Matt, Welcome on to
the program house. Things down there in the deep South and.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Pretty good homes just for the one that got to
stand the coms.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I like to hear that a few growing degrees days happening.
And Nico, so that you are based across the country,
where are you normally found?
Speaker 5 (01:45):
Yeah, so I'm homed in Hamilton, so the new set
office some of the head office of darien Z. One
of my rule is nationals, so I get to travel
quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So you're obviously somebody who enjoys traveling, coming from Argentina
and Sydney where you did your PhD. Hey, it's great
to have the level of expertise that we have on
this particular podcast, this show looking at feed budgeting. Nick,
we'll get you to summon that explain in simple terms
what actually feed budgeting is.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
So feed budgeting is basically a processed that hopefully is
carried over in farms, so whether it's she be scarry
where you can really assess the supply and the demand
of the feed, so really get an understanding of how
much feed you've got at hand, how much feed is growing,
in order to make decisions moving forward, how much feed
to allocate, how much feed to conserve, make decisions in
(02:40):
order to meet requirements of the hood, but also to
balance the resources that you've got at hand.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And you know, I think the description that it's a
bit like a household budget, which we a few of
us occasionally avoid doing. But if you don't, you leaned
up with problems. If you do, you can pretty much
cover yourself most of the time. So it is pretty
you know, pretty pretty I guess.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Simple, but really important.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, I guess it's a matter of managing what you've got.
So you cannot manage what you cannot measure. So it's
an idea of measuring how much you've got in order
to make better decisions for the farm, for the feed,
for the herd.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Met tailor.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Why why do you see feed budgeting is so important?
I mean, why do pharmacy you just got Why do
they just have to take the time to do it.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Well, look, I think it's probably been useful. You've had
the two previous podcasts, so your systems wasted. That's really
why why this is important, because we all want to
make the more money and looking for those little one
and two percent improvements all the way through. And then
you've talked about the body condition score, which is you know,
you've talked about the household budget. That's really a bank balance,
and that's the what we're trying to achieve. So that's
(03:49):
the indicator, and you're having nickel on this. You know,
it's probably the advantage dairy fans have over a sheep
and beef guys, is that the outcome there's milk and
the vet, and that's really responsive to how whether they've
got that feed budget just right by the day. And
then and now we come to the feed budget side
of it, which is really how we're going to achieve
(04:10):
that outcome that we want. And so as long as
you know, I think we're all said at the outset
of all time poor and all sorts of sheeting beasts
the most profitable round us at the moment, So just
looking for those little incremental improvement all the way through
and just reducing stress and having confidence and making those
primary decisions and the way through.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think that's both animal stress and human stress.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So I take it too, Matt, you know, to have
those sort of to have these sort of benchmarks in place.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Absolutely, I I down enjoy underfeeding stock and I know
my staff, so you know, a bit of a social
license issue there, and yeah, and just on me personally,
like that's that's what really keeps me awake at night,
is if you're hitting them into a draw out of
your coming into spring and the feed's just not the
(05:00):
bank balance you can kind of deal with, but it's
still the repercussion of not getting that feedbadget quite right.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, And look, if you get it right, the hard
decision making that you have to make around your stocking rates,
you're culling, you're buying in a feed, you're grazing.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Of your crops, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, at least you're on top of it, regardless of
how challenging it has met.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
An action costs your health a lot more than actually
making decision and executing it. And you know, if you've
got a feed budget in the background and you're you know,
you can even quite be one hundred percent confident in
what your feedbadge is going to say. It is always
a climatic all that gets thrown at you, but at least, yeah,
you know, you've got a bit of surety and a
bit of certainty which helps you make a decision and
(05:42):
move forward.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Nika, is this sort of an area that dairy farmers
I guess have led the way and I guess it's
more measurable straight up, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
So we did, Darry, farmers try to measure and managed pasture.
Having said that, probably from work we've done kind of
around fifty percent of farmers still do it visually, so
we don't necessarily rely on tools, and not many are
recording kind of alter grazing, but having an idea of
what's at hand can really enable you to make better
decisions of how much talidate and as Matt said, the
(06:12):
season the market, it thills some curvebls, but at least
by knowing how much you have, you can better manage
and make at least better informed decisions.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
How much different to these tools that you refer to
and actually doing it as opposed to visually apprising your feed.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Well, we are trying to do some work in this
space to really understand the adoption of tools and technologies
to measure pasture feet available. There's tools that today enable
kind of with certain degrees of accuracy, to assess how
much is available out there. But the good thing of
some of these tools is that, regardless of the absolute
level of accuracy, you can track things in time, so
(06:50):
you can measure reliably kind of throughout the year, throughout
the season to really know how much you've got kind
of in stock. It also allows you to keep kind
of record of how much different paddocks have produced kind
of across the year, so you can really make decisions
now knowing how many grazes you've got of that paddock
kind of last season. So it really allows you to
(07:11):
do a bit kind of make bitter decisions. But again,
we probably have a way to go in adoption of
these technologies.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I do like what Matt says, Tonie.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'm sure you agree. It's just as one to two
percent incremental, isn't it just? And then the cumulative effect
of doing that over over seasons.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
It all starts to add up.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Right, How does feed budgeting, Matt connect with body conditions scoring?
Speaker 4 (07:36):
So I'm just jumping, but ask questions A bit Hamish,
but I actually think they're you know, looking over the
fence at the dear family ead is there. I know
you're putting a lot more night to gen and different
eating dates and all the roost of it, but generally
they're growing probably around about thirty a third more feed
than what yes farming cousin next doors. So you know,
(07:56):
I think we've got a lot people to learn from
adairy farming cousins. They have a fairly strong spring rotation
to get to the residuals the pre impost and having
a feed badget's what gives you confidence to start mining
the spring covers a little bit, and that you've got
to balance tay coming up. So it's not just one
or two percents for talking about Like here on farm,
(08:17):
we're looking at beef systomization and that's going to grass
twenty percent more feed, and then we're going to utilize more.
So there's some really big jumps here that we can make,
and then there's all these one and two percent is
on top. So it's yeah, it can be quite exciting.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The flow on effect man of twenty percent, I mean,
just crunch the numbers. It's it could be quite remarkable,
couldn't it.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Well, yeah, you know, it could be the difference from
doing three hundred killers a product to four ut of
killers are products, you know in a killer alignm at
the moments, you know, ninety dollars a killer. So there's
a fairly big price headed the ground.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Absolutely, Yeah, don't look, don't look a gift horse in
the mouth se to speak. Let's come back to that
feed budget in connection with that body condition scoring met.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Yeah, so a little bit like what I said before,
it's really the balance at the end of the day.
Like that's you know, and young stock and finishing stock.
You can use weight gain and weight targets to a
point to measure how the accurate your feed budget is
and that you've met the needs of the animal to
express the production that you're budgeting on. But it brings
(09:20):
off it's early body conditions score because that takes all
that variability out of frame size and genetics and all
the rest of it. If if she's got condition on
her back, she's going to it's going to be less wasted,
so you're going to have better survival, less deaths, have
better conception rates and growth through the paining overactation is
going to be better. So it's real. It's really highly
(09:40):
correlated with all those production traits that make you more money.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
In that sense yep, and no harm making more money, Niko.
Let's look at the key times to sit down and
do a feed budget in the in the dairy world,
particularly for you.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
So how much well we try to tell farmers is
that I we are measuring the amount of pasture feet
available either key times of the year where the season
is changing, so pasture growth is either accelerating or kind
of decreasing for those big changes in what's happening to
the herd. So as you will know, mostly farmers are
(10:17):
seasonal carving, so we try to match that growing demand
kind of over the head with changes in the season.
So we normally say there's at least three key times
that we want to measure past availability so in audum,
in order to ensure that we are kind of recovering
in the overgrazing that happened in summer, and we are
really preparing those pastures for carving in winter to insure
(10:42):
that we are relt set up for spring. We can
manage any wet conditions that are available out there. Now,
we really have enough quantity and quality of feed available
for carving to set up those milking cows for the season,
and then towards spring to sure that we can manage
that really growth in buss, kind of puss to growth
(11:03):
and puss to cover in order to manage kind of
quality and quantity of puss in the season. But then
kind of systematically, if you can manage to monitor every
let's say, seven ten days, what's happening kind of around
the farm, we can really know what's happening and make
bad decisions around three post crazy covers.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Also rotation length met how different for a sheep and
bath unit.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Well, look, I'd love to do the gold stainard and
leisurement grass every week, but it's just practically we can't
quite do it, so we tend to. You know, there's
two lots of data we're kind of trying to capture,
which is the much grassing around here, what cover, what grows,
so we can feed that into a model. But then
we're also wanted to capture the body condition scores. So
(11:48):
for us, there's seven key times of the year which
kind of coincide with when we've got leaders to pull
on firm so you know, winning is the obvious forms
sheep and the yards and sticking on the shape if
you got light use, and then you know that feeds
back into your body your feed budget, and you're gonna
have to allocate more to that class stock. And then
(12:09):
we do another one kind of six weeks before the
ram in and then ram in again. When the ram
goes in, there's another timey measure and when the ram
comes out. So that's all quite heavily weighted into the
autumn because a bit like Niko said about the dairy Fathers,
you kind of want to your set stock and cover
in spring, and that's really determined what happens in the
(12:29):
autumn and how much one feed you've got in front
of him. So there's those three key times in the autumn,
and then sheaf coming through its scanning times, it's another
time to just stick your hand on them, see where
they're at, come out in the products, how much grassy art,
and just how you set up for seat stocking. And
then the next one is tailing time, which you know
that's the great thing that body conditions scoring and do
(12:50):
that entertaining being you don't need to set away scales
and you're going around the farmer tailing twants quite easy
to assess. He covers as he going around. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah, not sim to Jerry Fum, Yeah, I guess too.
Whether well this would be true for Nicko and dairy
farmers too, is it? You know, walking your paddics, just
that building your accuracy and you and your confidence by
just you know, that's something you can probably tie in
with other jobs on the farm, just keeping keeping an
eye on it and just you know that visual thing
still is not wasted, even though they're probably more accurate
(13:20):
tools out there.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Yeah, it's maybe discipline to do, I suppose is he's
doing it and putting a bit of structure around it.
So I think every fander does a feed badge in
his head. It's just actually formalizing and putting it on
paper and being accountable for the number you put down.
And then that allows you to reflect at the end
of the season and where your your assumptions are right
(13:45):
or whether for the next year you've got to refine
them and be a bit more realistic. But yeah, really
there's especially if shooting bee setting, like when you're walking
at paddict, it's it's not just the quantity of grass,
the source of the quality actually gearing heart which.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's gone and all that is kind of nick So
what I mean, what are some of the things perhaps
in the in the dairy world that in terms of
practical ways.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
To do a feed budget, the tools and methods that
you might recommend for beef and lamming.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
So there's madd did mention kind of a couple. So
there's visual is still the primarily way, and as you say,
you can pick up not only covers, but you can
look at things like weeds, conditions kind of a stock
while you're working around. We've got a number of kind
of resources that are kind of a mixture of spreadsheets
or online tools that farmers can use to assess kind
(14:39):
of cover and come up with figures or graphs that
allow you a visual representation of covers kind of across
the farm, so you can run them from kind of
high covers to low covers and ensure that you're measuring
it kind of correctly. But we also know that farmers
using spreadsheets or kind of white boards, anything that can
really allow you to capture that information to then look
at it and bit of decisions. I think is a
(15:01):
good start putting that a bit further. We're looking at
the use of kind of collars and wearables or satellites
to tap into some of these kind of questions, but
it's for some of it it's still early days.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, so technology is on the way though, a big
big steps being taken forward Nika.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Yeah, I think technology will enable kind of scale kind
of and free up the operator from doing this kind
of upscale. So it's definitely something that we're looking at
it to see if it is kind of a potential
opportunity there.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Right Yet, what about you know, when we're a bit stretched,
I mean, how do we stretch.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
The feed a bit further? What are your tips on that.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Matt O do it's how long it's been a straying,
Like just a little bit of foot free planning goes
into that. So I guess if yeah, we're quite summer joy,
I wouldn't joy here. So we've built and hold leaders
into a business be their looser irrigation, really flexible and
marking strategies for stocks so if we're time we will
(16:00):
self store if we're having a good season, or take
lambs heavy on. A big advocate for building in a
portion of opportunity stock or trading stock. So if we
get to the autumn and we're quite tight for feed,
I really need to look after the burding thod so
we just won't go and buy balls. So I'm prepared
to for all go that opportunity if you have to.
But then it's even simpler, Like at scanning time, you're
(16:22):
you're obviously going to prioritize your your twins. You like
twins over your heavy singles. Coming out of weaning time,
you're going to prioritize. Yet you score two years and
feed them a bit like a van, you know, through
sent a body weiight type fern. So you can prioritize mobs.
There's there's been a proof planning. You want to build
those levers into your business so you know when you're
(16:43):
dropping supplement paddics out, when you're making bailage and what
food's coming on. But the home ground feeders always the
cheapest feed you can have. So yeah, there's a whole
little leavers is nitrogen. There's Jesus. You can tighten up
your rotation, you know, that's big thing in bull means
you go out to one hundred clean round or something
like that. It really is the more vulnerable you are
(17:09):
to the cut fluctuations. I think the more leaders you're
boarding to your business that you can.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Nigo when we talk about the things that stop farmers
from feed budgeting, you know, and overcoming this, I mean,
I guess it's fair to say that that feed planes
don't exactly have to be perfect, because it's better to
have a bit of an even an estimate or an
estimate than no plan at all.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Yeah, absolutely so. So it's a matter of kind of understanding,
studying with a big picture, planning ahead for the year ahead,
kind of what are the main feed sources that you
will kind of rely on And as map kind of
exactly said, homegrownd feed is the cheapest source feed available,
it isn't depending the competitiveness of kind of life stick
industries in New Zealand, and it kind of determines profit
(17:51):
and environment. So getting a big picture of how do
we plan to feed the stock for the year ahead
and how do we manage that kind of enables kind
of yeah, a good start.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, and nothing wrong that I was starting small and
building your confidence and getting the good advice that's available
out there.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Yeah, And and again it's about learning kind of what
good residuals look like. What do high residuals look like?
Because you can then make decisions based on things like that.
And again, every farm is different, every region is different,
every set kind of stock class is different. So making
decisions based on what you're managing a feed and again
feed source changes from feed to feed matter.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I guess if we're you know, when you look at it,
it's a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
This feed budgeting if you want to get the most
out of your feed.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Feed budgeting and and the body conditioning scot it's a
pretty powerful combination.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
A lot. It's through the fundament interluws of it. You
can spend a lot of money and good genetics and
the pasturing you and all the rest of it. But
if you haven't got grows and grows in management just
quite ruw it, you're going to be living a lot
of the table. So you know, we're probably the majority
of what we spin on farm. A bit labor to
(19:03):
get the rotation going and break fencing, or whether it's
the permanent infrastructure we got on farm and the fatility
and the water articulation, it's all kind of get towards
utilizing that feed and putting a feed budget into into
playing and a practical sensor at a little based level.
It's on a shoudn bee farm. We're all wanting to
(19:25):
make profit, so and we haven't got much control over
how much we can get per unit of product, but
we can control how much feed we grow, how much
it cost to grow that feed, and how much of
it we utilize. That's the real good. Yeah, it really
comes into it.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Fantastic gentlemen, all this sort of stuff here. You know
you're going to get stronger reproduction, healthier stock, more profit.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
That's what it's about, less waste, and of course get
out there. Start today. No time like the present.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
If you'd like to know more about feed budgeting, head
to the Beef and Lamb website and ask bell of
a new AI assistant making a finding information easier than
ever before.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
To our team today, Matt Taylor and Nico Lyons. Gentlemen,
thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It's been an absolute pleasure and great insight into today's topic,
feed budgeting, making feed go further.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Thank you very much. Hammers.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Just you know, it's a little bit I want if
they put me up to talk about this, because I'm
probably not the greatest feet budget. So if I can
do it, then you can do it.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And that is and you know what, that's probably the
highlight of the whole podcast is that, you know, is
that kind of like just admitting how it is and
getting on and doing it.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Great. Sup Matt, Thanks and nego catch you again. Cheers.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Exploring ideas and innovation shaping the future of farming with
Beef and Lamb New Zealand, powered by the Country
Exploring ideas and innovations shaping the future of farming with
Beef and Lamb New Zealand powered by the Country.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome again to another podcast brought to you by Beef
and Lamb New Zealand powered by the Country. My name
is Hamus McKay, absolutely honored to be doing this. Let's
recap the first couple of episodes in the series so
far that focuses on the innovations and ideas that can
help you save time and money too very precious commodities
on barm and to become a more efficient That's what
(00:35):
it's all about.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
That's what we want. We want to have more time
to enjoy the spoils of our hard work.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
And so we started off with an episode on systems wastage,
followed up by episode two about a body condition scoring
and you can find all these episodes on the Country's iHeart.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Podcast or wherever you get your podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
This week for episode three, topic is budgeting and I'm
joined by Matthew Taylor. Matt Taylor based in Northern Southland
from lawn Peak Station which is a Beef and Lamb
innovation farm, and Matt is a member of the Beef.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
And Lamb New Zealand Farm.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Research Advisory Group and Nico Lyons out of Argentina via
a Sydney who is head of science at darien ZED
and a dairy representative Beef and Lamb New Zealand's Farm
Research Advisory Group. Start will you Matt, Welcome on to
the program house. Things down there in the deep South and.
Speaker 4 (01:32):
Pretty good homes just for the one that got to
stand the coms.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
I like to hear that a few growing degrees days happening.
And Nico, so that you are based across the country,
where are you normally found?
Speaker 5 (01:45):
Yeah, so I'm homed in Hamilton, so the new set
office some of the head office of darien Z. One
of my rule is nationals, so I get to travel
quite a bit.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
So you're obviously somebody who enjoys traveling, coming from Argentina
and Sydney where you did your PhD. Hey, it's great
to have the level of expertise that we have on
this particular podcast, this show looking at feed budgeting. Nick,
we'll get you to summon that explain in simple terms
what actually feed budgeting is.
Speaker 5 (02:16):
So feed budgeting is basically a processed that hopefully is
carried over in farms, so whether it's she be scarry
where you can really assess the supply and the demand
of the feed, so really get an understanding of how
much feed you've got at hand, how much feed is growing,
in order to make decisions moving forward, how much feed
to allocate, how much feed to conserve, make decisions in
(02:40):
order to meet requirements of the hood, but also to
balance the resources that you've got at hand.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
And you know, I think the description that it's a
bit like a household budget, which we a few of
us occasionally avoid doing. But if you don't, you leaned
up with problems. If you do, you can pretty much
cover yourself most of the time. So it is pretty
you know, pretty pretty I guess.
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Simple, but really important.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, I guess it's a matter of managing what you've got.
So you cannot manage what you cannot measure. So it's
an idea of measuring how much you've got in order
to make better decisions for the farm, for the feed,
for the herd.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Met tailor.
Speaker 2 (03:17):
Why why do you see feed budgeting is so important?
I mean, why do pharmacy you just got Why do
they just have to take the time to do it.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
Well, look, I think it's probably been useful. You've had
the two previous podcasts, so your systems wasted. That's really
why why this is important, because we all want to
make the more money and looking for those little one
and two percent improvements all the way through. And then
you've talked about the body condition score, which is you know,
you've talked about the household budget. That's really a bank balance,
and that's the what we're trying to achieve. So that's
(03:49):
the indicator, and you're having nickel on this. You know,
it's probably the advantage dairy fans have over a sheep
and beef guys, is that the outcome there's milk and
the vet, and that's really responsive to how whether they've
got that feed budget just right by the day. And
then and now we come to the feed budget side
of it, which is really how we're going to achieve
(04:10):
that outcome that we want. And so as long as
you know, I think we're all said at the outset
of all time poor and all sorts of sheeting beasts
the most profitable round us at the moment, So just
looking for those little incremental improvement all the way through
and just reducing stress and having confidence and making those
primary decisions and the way through.
Speaker 3 (04:29):
I think that's both animal stress and human stress.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
So I take it too, Matt, you know, to have
those sort of to have these sort of benchmarks in place.
Speaker 4 (04:38):
Absolutely, I I down enjoy underfeeding stock and I know
my staff, so you know, a bit of a social
license issue there, and yeah, and just on me personally,
like that's that's what really keeps me awake at night,
is if you're hitting them into a draw out of
your coming into spring and the feed's just not the
(05:00):
bank balance you can kind of deal with, but it's
still the repercussion of not getting that feedbadget quite right.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Yeah, And look, if you get it right, the hard
decision making that you have to make around your stocking rates,
you're culling, you're buying in a feed, you're grazing.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
Of your crops, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Well, at least you're on top of it, regardless of
how challenging it has met.
Speaker 4 (05:19):
An action costs your health a lot more than actually
making decision and executing it. And you know, if you've
got a feed budget in the background and you're you know,
you can even quite be one hundred percent confident in
what your feedbadge is going to say. It is always
a climatic all that gets thrown at you, but at least, yeah,
you know, you've got a bit of surety and a
bit of certainty which helps you make a decision and
(05:42):
move forward.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
Nika, is this sort of an area that dairy farmers
I guess have led the way and I guess it's
more measurable straight up, Yeah.
Speaker 5 (05:50):
So we did, Darry, farmers try to measure and managed pasture.
Having said that, probably from work we've done kind of
around fifty percent of farmers still do it visually, so
we don't necessarily rely on tools, and not many are
recording kind of alter grazing, but having an idea of
what's at hand can really enable you to make better
decisions of how much talidate and as Matt said, the
(06:12):
season the market, it thills some curvebls, but at least
by knowing how much you have, you can better manage
and make at least better informed decisions.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
How much different to these tools that you refer to
and actually doing it as opposed to visually apprising your feed.
Speaker 5 (06:30):
Well, we are trying to do some work in this
space to really understand the adoption of tools and technologies
to measure pasture feet available. There's tools that today enable
kind of with certain degrees of accuracy, to assess how
much is available out there. But the good thing of
some of these tools is that, regardless of the absolute
level of accuracy, you can track things in time, so
(06:50):
you can measure reliably kind of throughout the year, throughout
the season to really know how much you've got kind
of in stock. It also allows you to keep kind
of record of how much different paddocks have produced kind
of across the year, so you can really make decisions
now knowing how many grazes you've got of that paddock
kind of last season. So it really allows you to
(07:11):
do a bit kind of make bitter decisions. But again,
we probably have a way to go in adoption of
these technologies.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
I do like what Matt says, Tonie.
Speaker 2 (07:20):
I'm sure you agree. It's just as one to two
percent incremental, isn't it just? And then the cumulative effect
of doing that over over seasons.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
It all starts to add up.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
Right, How does feed budgeting, Matt connect with body conditions scoring?
Speaker 4 (07:36):
So I'm just jumping, but ask questions A bit Hamish,
but I actually think they're you know, looking over the
fence at the dear family ead is there. I know
you're putting a lot more night to gen and different
eating dates and all the roost of it, but generally
they're growing probably around about thirty a third more feed
than what yes farming cousin next doors. So you know,
(07:56):
I think we've got a lot people to learn from
adairy farming cousins. They have a fairly strong spring rotation
to get to the residuals the pre impost and having
a feed badget's what gives you confidence to start mining
the spring covers a little bit, and that you've got
to balance tay coming up. So it's not just one
or two percents for talking about Like here on farm,
(08:17):
we're looking at beef systomization and that's going to grass
twenty percent more feed, and then we're going to utilize more.
So there's some really big jumps here that we can make,
and then there's all these one and two percent is
on top. So it's yeah, it can be quite exciting.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
The flow on effect man of twenty percent, I mean,
just crunch the numbers. It's it could be quite remarkable,
couldn't it.
Speaker 4 (08:36):
Well, yeah, you know, it could be the difference from
doing three hundred killers a product to four ut of
killers are products, you know in a killer alignm at
the moments, you know, ninety dollars a killer. So there's
a fairly big price headed the ground.
Speaker 2 (08:50):
Absolutely, Yeah, don't look, don't look a gift horse in
the mouth se to speak. Let's come back to that
feed budget in connection with that body condition scoring met.
Speaker 4 (08:59):
Yeah, so a little bit like what I said before,
it's really the balance at the end of the day.
Like that's you know, and young stock and finishing stock.
You can use weight gain and weight targets to a
point to measure how the accurate your feed budget is
and that you've met the needs of the animal to
express the production that you're budgeting on. But it brings
(09:20):
off it's early body conditions score because that takes all
that variability out of frame size and genetics and all
the rest of it. If if she's got condition on
her back, she's going to it's going to be less wasted,
so you're going to have better survival, less deaths, have
better conception rates and growth through the paining overactation is
going to be better. So it's real. It's really highly
(09:40):
correlated with all those production traits that make you more money.
Speaker 2 (09:45):
In that sense yep, and no harm making more money, Niko.
Let's look at the key times to sit down and
do a feed budget in the in the dairy world,
particularly for you.
Speaker 5 (09:56):
So how much well we try to tell farmers is
that I we are measuring the amount of pasture feet
available either key times of the year where the season
is changing, so pasture growth is either accelerating or kind
of decreasing for those big changes in what's happening to
the herd. So as you will know, mostly farmers are
(10:17):
seasonal carving, so we try to match that growing demand
kind of over the head with changes in the season.
So we normally say there's at least three key times
that we want to measure past availability so in audum,
in order to ensure that we are kind of recovering
in the overgrazing that happened in summer, and we are
really preparing those pastures for carving in winter to insure
(10:42):
that we are relt set up for spring. We can
manage any wet conditions that are available out there. Now,
we really have enough quantity and quality of feed available
for carving to set up those milking cows for the season,
and then towards spring to sure that we can manage
that really growth in buss, kind of puss to growth
(11:03):
and puss to cover in order to manage kind of
quality and quantity of puss in the season. But then
kind of systematically, if you can manage to monitor every
let's say, seven ten days, what's happening kind of around
the farm, we can really know what's happening and make
bad decisions around three post crazy covers.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Also rotation length met how different for a sheep and
bath unit.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Well, look, I'd love to do the gold stainard and
leisurement grass every week, but it's just practically we can't
quite do it, so we tend to. You know, there's
two lots of data we're kind of trying to capture,
which is the much grassing around here, what cover, what grows,
so we can feed that into a model. But then
we're also wanted to capture the body condition scores. So
(11:48):
for us, there's seven key times of the year which
kind of coincide with when we've got leaders to pull
on firm so you know, winning is the obvious forms
sheep and the yards and sticking on the shape if
you got light use, and then you know that feeds
back into your body your feed budget, and you're gonna
have to allocate more to that class stock. And then
(12:09):
we do another one kind of six weeks before the
ram in and then ram in again. When the ram
goes in, there's another timey measure and when the ram
comes out. So that's all quite heavily weighted into the
autumn because a bit like Niko said about the dairy Fathers,
you kind of want to your set stock and cover
in spring, and that's really determined what happens in the
(12:29):
autumn and how much one feed you've got in front
of him. So there's those three key times in the autumn,
and then sheaf coming through its scanning times, it's another
time to just stick your hand on them, see where
they're at, come out in the products, how much grassy art,
and just how you set up for seat stocking. And
then the next one is tailing time, which you know
that's the great thing that body conditions scoring and do
(12:50):
that entertaining being you don't need to set away scales
and you're going around the farmer tailing twants quite easy
to assess. He covers as he going around. So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Yeah, not sim to Jerry Fum, Yeah, I guess too.
Whether well this would be true for Nicko and dairy
farmers too, is it? You know, walking your paddics, just
that building your accuracy and you and your confidence by
just you know, that's something you can probably tie in
with other jobs on the farm, just keeping keeping an
eye on it and just you know that visual thing
still is not wasted, even though they're probably more accurate
(13:20):
tools out there.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Yeah, it's maybe discipline to do, I suppose is he's
doing it and putting a bit of structure around it.
So I think every fander does a feed badge in
his head. It's just actually formalizing and putting it on
paper and being accountable for the number you put down.
And then that allows you to reflect at the end
of the season and where your your assumptions are right
(13:45):
or whether for the next year you've got to refine
them and be a bit more realistic. But yeah, really
there's especially if shooting bee setting, like when you're walking
at paddict, it's it's not just the quantity of grass,
the source of the quality actually gearing heart which.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
It's gone and all that is kind of nick So
what I mean, what are some of the things perhaps
in the in the dairy world that in terms of
practical ways.
Speaker 3 (14:10):
To do a feed budget, the tools and methods that
you might recommend for beef and lamming.
Speaker 5 (14:17):
So there's madd did mention kind of a couple. So
there's visual is still the primarily way, and as you say,
you can pick up not only covers, but you can
look at things like weeds, conditions kind of a stock
while you're working around. We've got a number of kind
of resources that are kind of a mixture of spreadsheets
or online tools that farmers can use to assess kind
(14:39):
of cover and come up with figures or graphs that
allow you a visual representation of covers kind of across
the farm, so you can run them from kind of
high covers to low covers and ensure that you're measuring
it kind of correctly. But we also know that farmers
using spreadsheets or kind of white boards, anything that can
really allow you to capture that information to then look
at it and bit of decisions. I think is a
(15:01):
good start putting that a bit further. We're looking at
the use of kind of collars and wearables or satellites
to tap into some of these kind of questions, but
it's for some of it it's still early days.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Yeah, so technology is on the way though, a big
big steps being taken forward Nika.
Speaker 5 (15:20):
Yeah, I think technology will enable kind of scale kind
of and free up the operator from doing this kind
of upscale. So it's definitely something that we're looking at
it to see if it is kind of a potential
opportunity there.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Right Yet, what about you know, when we're a bit stretched,
I mean, how do we stretch.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
The feed a bit further? What are your tips on that.
Speaker 4 (15:39):
Matt O do it's how long it's been a straying,
Like just a little bit of foot free planning goes
into that. So I guess if yeah, we're quite summer joy,
I wouldn't joy here. So we've built and hold leaders
into a business be their looser irrigation, really flexible and
marking strategies for stocks so if we're time we will
(16:00):
self store if we're having a good season, or take
lambs heavy on. A big advocate for building in a
portion of opportunity stock or trading stock. So if we
get to the autumn and we're quite tight for feed,
I really need to look after the burding thod so
we just won't go and buy balls. So I'm prepared
to for all go that opportunity if you have to.
But then it's even simpler, Like at scanning time, you're
(16:22):
you're obviously going to prioritize your your twins. You like
twins over your heavy singles. Coming out of weaning time,
you're going to prioritize. Yet you score two years and
feed them a bit like a van, you know, through
sent a body weiight type fern. So you can prioritize mobs.
There's there's been a proof planning. You want to build
those levers into your business so you know when you're
(16:43):
dropping supplement paddics out, when you're making bailage and what
food's coming on. But the home ground feeders always the
cheapest feed you can have. So yeah, there's a whole
little leavers is nitrogen. There's Jesus. You can tighten up
your rotation, you know, that's big thing in bull means
you go out to one hundred clean round or something
like that. It really is the more vulnerable you are
(17:09):
to the cut fluctuations. I think the more leaders you're
boarding to your business that you can.
Speaker 2 (17:14):
Nigo when we talk about the things that stop farmers
from feed budgeting, you know, and overcoming this, I mean,
I guess it's fair to say that that feed planes
don't exactly have to be perfect, because it's better to
have a bit of an even an estimate or an
estimate than no plan at all.
Speaker 5 (17:30):
Yeah, absolutely so. So it's a matter of kind of understanding,
studying with a big picture, planning ahead for the year ahead,
kind of what are the main feed sources that you
will kind of rely on And as map kind of
exactly said, homegrownd feed is the cheapest source feed available,
it isn't depending the competitiveness of kind of life stick
industries in New Zealand, and it kind of determines profit
(17:51):
and environment. So getting a big picture of how do
we plan to feed the stock for the year ahead
and how do we manage that kind of enables kind
of yeah, a good start.
Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah, and nothing wrong that I was starting small and
building your confidence and getting the good advice that's available
out there.
Speaker 5 (18:09):
Yeah, And and again it's about learning kind of what
good residuals look like. What do high residuals look like?
Because you can then make decisions based on things like that.
And again, every farm is different, every region is different,
every set kind of stock class is different. So making
decisions based on what you're managing a feed and again
feed source changes from feed to feed matter.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I guess if we're you know, when you look at it,
it's a no brainer.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
This feed budgeting if you want to get the most
out of your feed.
Speaker 2 (18:36):
Feed budgeting and and the body conditioning scot it's a
pretty powerful combination.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
A lot. It's through the fundament interluws of it. You
can spend a lot of money and good genetics and
the pasturing you and all the rest of it. But
if you haven't got grows and grows in management just
quite ruw it, you're going to be living a lot
of the table. So you know, we're probably the majority
of what we spin on farm. A bit labor to
(19:03):
get the rotation going and break fencing, or whether it's
the permanent infrastructure we got on farm and the fatility
and the water articulation, it's all kind of get towards
utilizing that feed and putting a feed budget into into
playing and a practical sensor at a little based level.
It's on a shoudn bee farm. We're all wanting to
(19:25):
make profit, so and we haven't got much control over
how much we can get per unit of product, but
we can control how much feed we grow, how much
it cost to grow that feed, and how much of
it we utilize. That's the real good. Yeah, it really
comes into it.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
Fantastic gentlemen, all this sort of stuff here. You know
you're going to get stronger reproduction, healthier stock, more profit.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
That's what it's about, less waste, and of course get
out there. Start today. No time like the present.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
If you'd like to know more about feed budgeting, head
to the Beef and Lamb website and ask bell of
a new AI assistant making a finding information easier than
ever before.
Speaker 3 (20:03):
To our team today, Matt Taylor and Nico Lyons. Gentlemen,
thank you very much.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
It's been an absolute pleasure and great insight into today's topic,
feed budgeting, making feed go further.
Speaker 3 (20:15):
Thank you very much.
Speaker 5 (20:17):
Thank you very much. Hammers.
Speaker 4 (20:20):
Just you know, it's a little bit I want if
they put me up to talk about this, because I'm
probably not the greatest feet budget. So if I can
do it, then you can do it.
Speaker 2 (20:29):
And that is and you know what, that's probably the
highlight of the whole podcast is that, you know, is
that kind of like just admitting how it is and
getting on and doing it.
Speaker 3 (20:37):
Great. Sup Matt, Thanks and nego catch you again. Cheers.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
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