Neroli Brennan: This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have
Neroli Brennan: a good yarn about ag life with producers who are
Neroli Brennan: having a go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers
Neroli Brennan: in New South Wales who are out there battling the elements,
Neroli Brennan: making tough calls and getting the job done. You'll get a
Neroli Brennan: laugh out of some of their stories and also pick up
Neroli Brennan: some knowhow along the way. I'm your host, Neroli Brennan. Today,
Neroli Brennan: we're having a chat with David Watt. David owns and
Neroli Brennan: manages his 5, 600 hectare mixed farming business, running around
Neroli Brennan: a thousand Merino ewes and winter cropping, as well as
Neroli Brennan: an intensive land feedlot near Trundle in Central West New
Neroli Brennan: South Wales. In this episode, David talks to us about
Neroli Brennan: the intricacies of developing a sheep feedlot, including what to
Neroli Brennan: consider before starting up a feedlotting business, and the changes
Neroli Brennan: he has made in his feedlot design over time. He
Neroli Brennan: also tells us what he looks for when buying in lambs,
Neroli Brennan: and why he is so particular about the characteristics and
Neroli Brennan: traits of the sheep. Which means he's often sourcing in
Neroli Brennan: buying lambs from right across Australia. You'll also hear David
Neroli Brennan: explain to us the importance of getting your animal health
Neroli Brennan: and on- farm biosecurity just right, and how linking in
Neroli Brennan: with professionals outside of the farm, including your Local Land
Neroli Brennan: Services vet, is so valuable to growing a productive, prepared
Neroli Brennan: and profitable business. Local Land Services senior natural resource officer,
Neroli Brennan: Jasmine Wells managed to squeeze in this chat with David
Neroli Brennan: on one of his recent trips into town for supplies.
Jasmine Wells: David, can you tell us a little bit about your operation?
David Watt: Yes, Jasmine, nice to be here with you today. We run about a 5,
David Watt: 600 hectare farm in between Trundle and Condobolin. Closer to Trundle.
David Watt: We've got a winter cropping. We run a couple of
David Watt: thousand Merino ewes and join them to Borders, and keep
David Watt: our first cross ewe portion, join them to Dorsets. And
David Watt: of course, we run the feedlot.
Jasmine Wells: And so those lambs of your own are the only
Jasmine Wells: lambs going into that feedlot?
David Watt: We use a feedlot to finish our own lambs. We
David Watt: also will put our young ewes into the feedlot to
David Watt: grow them out, but we also buy trade lambs through
David Watt: local sale yards, or through AuctionsPlus. Also maybe down around
David Watt: the Yass area, and around Cowra and the tablelands areas. And
David Watt: look, we have gone as far afield as South Australia
David Watt: to get lambs when the trades work.
Jasmine Wells: And so what are those key factors when you are choosing lambs?
David Watt: We have a fairly tight specification I suppose, of what we
David Watt: want to purchase. Normally we are looking for a lamb
David Watt: that would average around 40 to 42 kilos live on entry. We
David Watt: like to buy a mob of lambs that are no
David Watt: less than 36 kilos, no more than 44 or 45 kilos
David Watt: in, I think. So we're trying to get a tight
David Watt: grouping of lambs that are all the same if you know what I mean. That's our
David Watt: main thing. As far as bait, we like to buy new season
David Watt: lambs when we can. Age is always an issue so
David Watt: you always checking on age. We do try and go
David Watt: to the same growers. We have growers we really like
David Watt: buying off, and then there are some others that we
David Watt: have put on the list where we maybe won't go there again.
David Watt: We're fairly particular with what we buy. We like to
David Watt: buy a second cross lamb, and they go quite well
David Watt: in the feedlot. We do buy quite a lot of the
David Watt: first cross, so a Merino with a Dorset over Merino,
David Watt: or a White Suffolk over Merino. We keep away from
David Watt: the shedding breeds. We haven't actually done any pure Merino
David Watt: lambs, though I do believe with the right Merino lambs, they'd go quite well within the
David Watt: feedlot. We just haven't actually gone there yet. We're fairly
David Watt: particular on the animal health side of things of what
David Watt: we're buying, and especially AuctionsPlus. We really check out to
David Watt: make sure that the lambs have had all their vaccinations and
David Watt: been drenched, and just what husbandry has happened with those
David Watt: lambs. There's a few catches in AuctionsPlus that you have to
David Watt: look for. If they say that the lambs will be
David Watt: tagged on day of loading onto the truck, well you
David Watt: know they're still on mum and they haven't actually even been
David Watt: weaned yet, which is something maybe you need to be aware of when
David Watt: you're buying lambs. You can get into a few little troubles.
Jasmine Wells: And you've obviously learned this along the way. When did
Jasmine Wells: you get started in feedlotting? Why the change to a feed loading operation
Jasmine Wells: as well?
David Watt: We started feeding lambs in the mid eighties, so 1984
David Watt: was a drought year in Trundle. To finish our lambs,
David Watt: we fed them in the corner near the yards, and
David Watt: I remember that was our first little go at giving lambs
David Watt: a bit of grain. Back then, lambs weren't worth very
David Watt: much. It was very hard to make a dollar out
David Watt: of finishing them. And over the years, that progressively got
David Watt: to the stage where to finish lambs we needed to
David Watt: put some grain through them. I suppose we were having
David Watt: a fairly high stocking rate and didn't have the pasture
David Watt: to finish our lambs properly. So we found over the
David Watt: years that we're doing more and more grain feeding lambs.
David Watt: In the nineties and early two thousands, as lamb prices
David Watt: started to increase, it became more profitable to put some
David Watt: grain into the lambs. I think the current feedlot is
David Watt: probably the fifth or sixth actually iteration of feedlot that
David Watt: we've had now. We just started out very, very basic, and
David Watt: each time we've just tried to improve one aspect of it or
David Watt: what we thought we needed.
Jasmine Wells: You've come a long way from just feeding in the
Jasmine Wells: corner of the yards. I've been out to your feedlot. It's very impressive.
David Watt: Yeah, we've tried to address most of the shortcomings that
David Watt: we had in our previous feedlots. So when we set
David Watt: out to build this feedlot, I knew what I wanted.
David Watt: I knew what I didn't like doing. I know I
David Watt: don't like cleaning out water troughs. And I figure if
David Watt: I don't like cleaning out a water trough, most of
David Watt: the blokes that work with me don't like cleaning out a
David Watt: water trough either. So we came up with a design where we didn't
David Watt: have to do that, or it minimizes the need to
David Watt: clean the water system out.
Jasmine Wells: For the listener, do you want to explain your water system a bit? Because it's like nothing I'd ever seen before.
David Watt: The mechanics of it I suppose are a bit complex, but at the
David Watt: end of the day it's just running water. It runs
David Watt: through a very shallow trough at about four or 500 mills off
David Watt: the ground. It's a bit of an angle on the
David Watt: trough. So the water just drops in one end, runs
David Watt: through, drops out the other end. The flow rate is
David Watt: controlled so that if they drop a little bit of
David Watt: grain into the trough, that will wash out at the
David Watt: end, and there's a little strainer on the end that'll catch
David Watt: that. So we've found over the years the lambs will come up, and the first thing they're
David Watt: going to do is blow their nose into the water,
David Watt: and that'll wash out and get caught in the little
David Watt: mesh filter. The water then runs underground and is collected
David Watt: in a tank, then pumped through to a filtration system,
David Watt: up into an overhead tank, and back down and gravity
David Watt: fed through the water troughs. The beauty of it is
David Watt: that it's perfectly clean water all the time because it's
David Watt: filtered. We sterilize the water, there is a sterilization unit
David Watt: attached to the whole system. We have started lately to
David Watt: chlorinate the water. We found over the years that that's
David Watt: the best way to keep the water clean, to keep
David Watt: the bacteria down.
Jasmine Wells: And that didn't affect consumption at all, adding the chlorine in?
David Watt: The chlorine is something you need to be very careful
David Watt: with. Anything over, I think it's five parts per million
David Watt: can effect consumption. So it's something that we test very
David Watt: regularly when we're chlorinating. And just to make sure that there's enough
David Watt: chlorine, but it's not too much. I think the rule
David Watt: of thumb is if you can smell the chlorine in the
David Watt: water, it's too much.
Jasmine Wells: Yeah. And you've got a automated feed system as well.
David Watt: The feeding system is the same, I suppose, as a lot of the other
David Watt: common automated systems. It's sourced from an American company, and
David Watt: straight out of what they use over there for their chooks and pigs.
David Watt: It's basically a flex flow auger that brings the feed
David Watt: from a silo and into what is called a chain disc system,
David Watt: which is just a very long chain with nylon discs
David Watt: molded onto it that pulls the feed through a PVC
David Watt: pipe. It'll drop down into the top of the feeder,
David Watt: and each feeder will get filled in turn. As they
David Watt: fill up, they block up of course, and the feed just goes
David Watt: to the next feeder. It's fairly effective. It means there's
David Watt: no hand feeding whatsoever, or once you put the feed
David Watt: into the silo, that's it. I suppose the downside of it
David Watt: is that we're limited to one silo. Once that silo's
David Watt: full of that ration, you don't really get to change
David Watt: your ration very quickly. It can take quite a while
David Watt: to change your ration in our systems, which is one
David Watt: of the drawbacks to it. But over the years, we've worked
David Watt: out the ration that we want. We have a private
David Watt: nutritionist who has worked out a pellet that we use
David Watt: in our ration, and we have that contract made at
David Watt: what used to be AMBOS. I think they're Riverina now. And we've kind of got our
David Watt: ration fairly worked out, and it's pretty rare that we
David Watt: need to change our ration. Mind you, we do feed
David Watt: tests very regularly to make sure that we're hitting the
David Watt: right protein energy targets. And that's not to do really with
David Watt: our pellet, it's more just if we change what grain
David Watt: we're using.
Jasmine Wells: And does that depend upon the market a little bit,
Jasmine Wells: or the type of stock you've got in there at the time? Why would
Jasmine Wells: that feed ration change?
David Watt: So we have a different ration for our induction than
David Watt: we do to our finishing ration. But the induction's done in a
David Watt: separate facility to the main facility. The main reason that
David Watt: you'd be looking to change the ration is if there's
David Watt: a difference with your grain. Usually, it's more just the
David Watt: ratio of grain, or the different grains that are in
David Watt: it. So you might need to increase the Lupin content,
David Watt: or if it's chickpeas that we are using, or something like that.
David Watt: Maybe to increase your protein, or maybe decrease if you've
David Watt: got too high protein. It's just a bit of that.
David Watt: It's something we regularly check with the feed test. They're fairly
David Watt: cheap, the feed tests. And then they give you the results back within
David Watt: a week. And a fairly simple thing that you just need to do.
Jasmine Wells: Yeah. And so not that many people have a system
Jasmine Wells: like yours, but what do people really need to consider
Jasmine Wells: from day one, probably through to where you are now?
Jasmine Wells: What are the key things to consider when setting up
Jasmine Wells: a feedlot?
David Watt: Interested in going into feeding lambs, the first thing that
David Watt: you need to look at is basically where you're going
David Watt: to put the feedlot. That's going to determine a lot
David Watt: of choices from then on of where you site that
David Watt: feedlot. And there's multiple considerations I suppose in that site
David Watt: being, it's got to be somewhere close. Because once you've
David Watt: got lambs in there, you're going to nearly live with
David Watt: those lambs. You've got to be ready to go and
David Watt: see them morning and night, every day of the week.
David Watt: So you don't want it where it's five kilometers away
David Watt: from your house where you got to drive, and through
David Watt: a creek or something, or if it's wet that you can't get
David Watt: to. So you need it somewhere nice and close. You need to
David Watt: then think if it's going to be nice and close
David Watt: to the house, which side of your house you going to
David Watt: put it on? Because they stink. The smell can be quite
David Watt: confronting in a wet time, and also in a very
David Watt: dry time when you get a inversion of an evening.
David Watt: That's when the smell really tends to just spread in
David Watt: every direction. So it's a quite sour kind of smell.
David Watt: But then drainage is a big issue, because might be
David Watt: dry when you're considering, oh I'm going to feed these
David Watt: lambs, but it will become wet at some stage. And then
David Watt: access during the wet period is big issue. How do
David Watt: you deal with the manure is another issue. So if you're
David Watt: going to a fairly concentrated intensive feedlot and they're confined
David Watt: to a small space, you're going to produce a lot
David Watt: of manure. And you need to be able to deal
David Watt: with that manure and get rid of it out of their
David Watt: pen and stockpile it, and then spread it or do
David Watt: something with it. And then, you need to have all the right
David Watt: authorities and things from the local council. Depending on your
David Watt: numbers, you might need to get an EPA authorization as
David Watt: well, a license, whatever it is. So there's lots and
David Watt: lots to think about. When we first started the design
David Watt: of this feedlot, why I think I spent 12 months
David Watt: just going through all that before we put a shovel
David Watt: in the ground. So there was a lot of planning.
David Watt: We ended up engaging some company from Orange to actually
David Watt: come out and do the whole design to make sure that
David Watt: everything was going to work as far as our drainage,
David Watt: how we managed renewer, how the sheep accessed in and
David Watt: out, what are we going to do with sick animals, what are
David Watt: we going to do with dead animals? If you're going to
David Watt: go into it... We're not even full time, we're only really
David Watt: still opportunity. But if you want to have a good
David Watt: thing that's easy to manage, then you really do need
David Watt: to put a lot of thought into it.
Jasmine Wells: Yeah. There's a lot more to it than just getting feed rations, right?
David Watt: Yeah, feed rations are a main part. Everyone talks about
David Watt: growth rates and how great the growth rates are. And
David Watt: really at the end of the day you might have
David Watt: a fantastic growth rate, but if you've got to feed in a heap
David Watt: of feed to get that growth rate, maybe the lower
David Watt: growth rate, that's... A better feed conversion efficiency is where the money is. In
David Watt: my mind, that's what we kind of aim for, is
David Watt: we want to try and convert what we're feeding them
David Watt: into the most meat. They might be... We don't get the highest growth
David Watt: rates, but it's maybe where we kind of make our money.
Jasmine Wells: But your efficiency's a little bit higher.
David Watt: Yeah. That's what we're aiming at with our ration and our diet.
David Watt: It's not to have them growing at 500 or 600 grams per head per
David Watt: day, which some people say they can get, which some animals
David Watt: probably do. But you want a fairly consistent lot of
David Watt: animals doing 300 to 350 grams per head per day,
David Watt: but they're only eating a kilo and a bit a day. They're
David Watt: not eating three kilos of feed a day.
Jasmine Wells: And so the margins are quite tight. Something to consider when feedlotting.
David Watt: Yeah. Once you start trading, you work on a very slim
David Watt: margin. You need to be very careful that you actually
David Watt: have a market at the end of it for what you're looking to produce. You
David Watt: need to have a plan as far as what are
David Watt: you going to produce, are you going to produce a
David Watt: heavy export animal? Is it a trade into one of the
David Watt: supermarkets, or domestic? Or just what are you going to do with
David Watt: that animal? And from there, you need to make sure
David Watt: that you've got the contract in place at the end
David Watt: when you're selling. Otherwise the lamb market, everyone knows how fickle it can be and
David Watt: the little bit of a margin that you make on
David Watt: each animal can disappear very quickly if you're not having
David Watt: everything locked in.
Jasmine Wells: And then animal welfare, that's a huge concern in a feedlotting system.
David Watt: Yeah, animal welfare is going to probably even become more
David Watt: of an issue I think as we go along with
David Watt: feedlotting. You need to look after the animals in there,
David Watt: so you need to make sure they've got clean, cool water.
David Watt: You need to make sure they've got easy access to the feed. But
David Watt: you also need to make sure they've got shade. That's
David Watt: one of the big things. You see some people are
David Watt: out there and they don't have much shade in their feedlot,
David Watt: or no shade at all. And even in the winter months in
David Watt: our feedlot, the animals will shelter underneath the shade cloth
David Watt: that runs across the pens. Even on a cooler day.
Jasmine Wells: You see it in the paddocks, they're all under the one tree.
David Watt: That's a big thing. Then you need to be able
David Watt: to actually identify animals that aren't going too well in
David Watt: the pen. So you need to be very aware of
David Watt: what other animal health issues are there. So acidosis is always going to be
David Watt: a big issue in any kind of a feedlot, and you need
David Watt: to be able to identify that early so that the animal
David Watt: doesn't suffer very much, or you can correct what's going
David Watt: on with that animal before it does start to suffer. So our
David Watt: feedlot each morning, we will walk the pens and try
David Watt: and identify any animals that look a bit off and try
David Watt: and work out what's going on. Also, you need to
David Watt: be looking out for any animals that need removing immediately
David Watt: because there's something wrong, and you are always going to get
David Watt: a few deaths. And that can be quite confronting at
David Watt: some times in the feedlot, especially if you are confronted
David Watt: with a disease that you're not sure about. And I
David Watt: learned my lesson one time when we had animals in the
David Watt: feedlot. We thought we were having an outbreak of pulpy
David Watt: kidney. We decided that we would go back and re-
David Watt: vaccinate. Maybe we'd had a bad needling practice at the
David Watt: time and hadn't got every animal properly. They all had
David Watt: been needled. So we re- needled all our lambs, and 4, 000
David Watt: odd lambs in there to do that through. And then waited the
David Watt: course another week cause it takes maybe a week before
David Watt: you're going to see a response. And in that time
David Watt: we still had lambs dying. And it wasn't until after
David Watt: that week I then called the vet and got a
David Watt: vet involved. And the lesson is get the vet involved
David Watt: right from the word go. As it was, this was
David Watt: quite a curable disease, and we'd lost quite a number
David Watt: of lambs that could easily have been saved. So not
David Watt: only was it very costly, it was very emotionally upsetting.
Jasmine Wells: Of course.
David Watt: Some of the lambs suffering. And thinking you had it right, but
David Watt: from my own silly mistake and thinking I knew what
David Watt: I was doing, having quite an under limbs pass away.
Jasmine Wells: I think that's common in agriculture. Most producers are fairly
Jasmine Wells: well experienced and in most cases are all over it, and they
Jasmine Wells: hesitate to seek help. But it doesn't have to ask
Jasmine Wells: the question, does it, from the beginning?
David Watt: No. And that's maybe in that first planning stage. Consult
David Watt: a bit, ask. LLS vets, fantastic. We use our local
David Watt: vets all the time. They're first port of call for
David Watt: us. And we also have a private vet that we use. Nowadays, if we have
David Watt: a lamb that there is any question about why it has
David Watt: died, then I'll call a vet straight away. I don't
David Watt: muck around anymore. We will autopsy 90% of the lambs
David Watt: that die. We do our own autopsy, and usually we're
David Watt: getting not too bad at it now, I suppose. Yeah,
David Watt: we can reason what's happened. If there's any doubt, we'll
David Watt: call a vet and just get someone out to quickly
David Watt: check. And most of the time it is just pulpy
David Watt: kidney, it's acidosis, one of those ones. But every now and
David Watt: then there's something different that you're just not sure of,
David Watt: and it just pays.
Jasmine Wells: And I guess that leads into my next question, which I didn't warn
Jasmine Wells: you about. But biosecurity, which is a hot topic at
Jasmine Wells: the moment. Give us a rundown on your sort of
Jasmine Wells: daily biosecurity, trying to reduce threats.
David Watt: It's a hard one, biosecurity on the farm, isn't it?
David Watt: It's not something that's easily controllable. We think that we
David Watt: can control the vehicles that come on. Our agent comes
David Watt: in, who knows where he's been, neighbors turn up. I
David Watt: suppose when we host a field day or something like that, we'll make sure
David Watt: we've got some little tubs out so everyone can sterilize
David Watt: their boots, et cetera. But now with the risk of
David Watt: FMD, it really does bring it to front of mind how we are going to deal with it.
David Watt: I'm thinking in our own case, we'll have to make
David Watt: a car park somewhere separate. Any visitors come into the
David Watt: office where we'll have a number of pairs of gumboots that
David Watt: they can go and put on. Take their shoes off, put on
David Watt: the gumboots, then they're welcome to come in. Whether we need
David Watt: to go as far as having some overalls or something
David Watt: else there for them to wear as well, I'm not really sure.
David Watt: The FMD risk, it's always been there, I think for Australia.
Jasmine Wells: Yeah it has.
David Watt: It's going to make it very hard this year going in
David Watt: and buying a lot of lambs. And I think the
David Watt: market already is reflecting that a lot of people are
David Watt: a little bit uncertain about, " Gosh, am I going to
David Watt: risk all this money? What's going to happen?" We don't
David Watt: know what's going to happen. And so it's going to change a little bit. Well the
David Watt: politicians have got hold of it, haven't they? So they've kind of played some political games with
David Watt: it, and maybe that's overstated the risk and maybe that's what's
David Watt: happening in the market just at the moment with some
David Watt: of the lambs. I think there's still a lot of
David Watt: issues with Covid in (inaudible) , and there's a lot
David Watt: of other risks out there that are kind of maybe having a bigger
David Watt: effect than the FMD risk at the moment as far as the lamb
David Watt: market goes. I'm no expert there whatsoever, so I really don't know.
Jasmine Wells: I think Covid has at least prepared us to be more aware
Jasmine Wells: of those things, so in a way it's helped.
David Watt: Yeah. I suppose aware of how hard it would be to control a disease outbreak. We can't
David Watt: do it with humans, so... Maybe the lambs are a little bit more easy to
David Watt: control. I don't know. So for anyone out there borrowing money to buy
David Watt: lambs, it's a big risk all of a sudden to
David Watt: have the industry just shut down. I'm not sure exactly
David Watt: how we're going to deal with that. Have a good conversation
David Watt: with our bank, I suppose.
Jasmine Wells: That's true. I imagine there's some people who've already had those conversations. There will be some nervous
Jasmine Wells: bank managers out there. And so you use consultants?
David Watt: We do. I suppose that's one of the biggest things
David Watt: that's changed in my farming career is when we started mid
David Watt: eighties, there really was no consultants around. You might use
David Watt: a DPI agronomist, but now gosh, what do you have? We have a
David Watt: business consultant, agronomist, nutritionist, you name it, they're kind of
David Watt: there. So yeah, we do use quite a number of
David Watt: consultants, because you need that expertise these days. Nowadays a farmer
David Watt: I suppose is more a generalist. It's very hard to
David Watt: be able to have all that expertise in every field.
David Watt: So the consultants are a way of buying that expertise when you need it, and
David Watt: it certainly makes life a lot easier to have that
David Watt: expertise on hand.
Jasmine Wells: And so for people going into that, who would be
Jasmine Wells: their first port of call do you think? There's a
Jasmine Wells: lot of info on the internet.
David Watt: There are some guidelines for feedlotting of lambs, and I believe
David Watt: the DPI have got a very good set of guidelines
David Watt: out. I'm not sure when it was reviewed last. Believe
David Watt: the LLS have got guidelines out as well for feedlotting. And I'd start with
David Watt: those guidelines. I mean I'd contact the local LLS and
David Watt: the livestock officer and talk to them, make sure you've got
David Watt: a good agent involved. An agent can make or break a lamb
David Watt: trading enterprise very easily. So you need to have a
David Watt: good agent who knows his stuff so that you can,
David Watt: A, source the lambs, but B, sell the lambs at
David Watt: the other end. And some of the contracts that come out are filled very,
David Watt: very quickly. So you need someone who's on the ball.
David Watt: But yeah, I'd start with LLS, DPI. And then looking
David Watt: at the nutrition side of things, there's commercially available pellets
David Watt: that different companies produce, and they will provide nutritional advice.
David Watt: Or you can go down the private path line and
David Watt: maybe make up your own custom pellet. Depends how much
David Watt: you're going to use I suppose, and just what you
David Watt: want to do. Our ration is maybe a little bit
David Watt: more concentrated, doesn't have very much fiber in it, so
David Watt: we don't use any hay in our ration at all. So we needed
David Watt: some extra kind of bits and pieces in that pellet
David Watt: to try and balance out some of the problems that we're
David Watt: going to have health- wise with the lambs. So that's
David Watt: why we've gone for the private nutritionist to try and do that.
Jasmine Wells: And you went without the hay option just for ease
Jasmine Wells: of feeding? Is that why?
David Watt: Yeah, so the modern automatic feeding systems aren't really designed
David Watt: for hay at all. You can't put a very large
David Watt: particle through the system we've got, anyway. In that design
David Watt: process, we looked at putting hay in the pens or
David Watt: using it somehow, whether it's processed or whatnot. And it
David Watt: just created a lot more work, a lot more expense.
David Watt: And so that's where we went to the decision of
David Watt: feeding just a grain- only ration. We still use hay
David Watt: I must say, in our induction. So that's a whole
David Watt: different thing. That's still open troughs with a mixer that
David Watt: we chop the hay and add pellets and grain to. And that's somewhere
David Watt: where we do change our ration every couple of days
David Watt: as we induct the lambs.
Jasmine Wells: So are you weaning them into that induction process?
David Watt: Every lot of lamb is different. Normally if we've got
David Watt: feed, we'll wean them into the paddock. Then we'll try
David Watt: and grow them out until they're 40 odd kilos before they come
David Watt: in. But saying that, one of the drought years we
David Watt: had lambs, we had no feed. I think they were
David Watt: about 18, 19 kilos and we put them in. Every time you do it, it's a little
David Watt: bit different. The beauty of feedlot is that you can
David Watt: sit down before you buy those lambs or before you put those lambs in, you
David Watt: can do your figures. You know whether you're going to make a profit
David Watt: or not.
Jasmine Wells: And you know how much feed you've got in front
Jasmine Wells: of you, it makes sense.
David Watt: Yeah. You know how much feed you've got. It's different to putting a
David Watt: crop in where you just don't know what your yield's going to be. You pretty
David Watt: much know all your figures the day that you buy those lambs if
David Watt: you've done your homework. When it doesn't work, you just
David Watt: don't buy lambs or you just don't put them in there. And that, I
David Watt: suppose, gets a little bit different, get your head around
David Watt: that if from a traditional farming kind of program. But
David Watt: at the moment, it's not very profitable at the moment.
David Watt: There aren't any contracts out at the moment that were
David Watt: going to be profitable for us. And so we're not
David Watt: trading right at the moment. Feedlot's empty just at the
David Watt: moment. Mind you, we always have a bit of a maintenance period through
David Watt: the winter months.
Jasmine Wells: And do you ever take on other stock to fatten for other people?
David Watt: No. So from what we've worked out, our insurance doesn't cover
David Watt: us for doing contract fattening. And we would need a
David Watt: certain type of insurance, apparently. I haven't really looked into
David Watt: it, but I was informed of that and we haven't had
David Watt: any people asking us to do that. And at the
David Watt: end of the day, you're going to have them in
David Watt: there, they might as well be your own lambs.
Jasmine Wells: That makes sense.
David Watt: One interesting thing we found with the feedlot is the
David Watt: manure is actually really great. We've just recently purchased the
David Watt: manure spreaders to spread the manure. We've done a couple
David Watt: of, I suppose the paddock size kind of trials, but
David Watt: last year with a wheat crop that had been manured the year before, there was a 50%
David Watt: increase in yield on where the manure had been. It's kind of
David Watt: a system, if you kind of think of it within the farm
David Watt: where we like to feed our own lambs, we've got
David Watt: grain that was historically cheap. At the moment, it's a
David Watt: little bit dear and has a big influence on profitability.
David Watt: Of course with the farm that we were growing a
David Watt: lot of barley that was 150 dollars a ton, or
David Watt: whatever. This was a good way of evaluating the barley.
David Watt: We had lambs that we always needed to finish, so
David Watt: it was a good way of finishing lambs. Manure out the other
David Watt: end's a really good fertilizer. So it was kind that
David Watt: whole thing which was helping us grow more barley.
Jasmine Wells: How do you work that out financially? I know you've
Jasmine Wells: mentioned that the feedlot's a separate entity. So a lot
Jasmine Wells: of people, they'll start feedlotting because they've already got the feed
Jasmine Wells: there on hand, and they say it doesn't cost them
Jasmine Wells: anything. But are you factoring that cost in?
David Watt: Yeah, so we've got a little Excel spreadsheet that I set up. We
David Watt: punch in all our numbers and the grain's all valued at what I
David Watt: could sell it for or, or what I have buy it in for, kind of
David Watt: style thing at the time. We include labor, everything within
David Watt: that. Depreciation, the whole works and jerks. And at the end, the
David Watt: thing that you come out with a very slim little margin. There are some non-
David Watt: cash costs in there, so you have to look at it. But you can make a decision then as to
David Watt: whether is it worthwhile doing that trade, or maybe do we need
David Watt: to look for a better contract price or a different type
David Watt: of lamb? Or when margins get slimmer, I suppose you
David Watt: make sure you're buying a lamb that is going to
David Watt: be a fast grower. You don't want a very slow
David Watt: growing first cross lamb or something like that in there
David Watt: if your margins are tight, so it's got to take all of that
David Watt: into account.
Jasmine Wells: Which a lot of that comes down to experience too, and knowing what you're looking for in those lambs.
David Watt: I suppose it does. There's a bit of experience in it. Again, your agent is a big influence
David Watt: on that because once you do take your contracts, and
David Watt: if you take three or four months worth of contracts
David Watt: out, you've contracted to sell a lamb two months before
David Watt: you've bought it. So you have to be fairly confident
David Watt: in what you're doing and your ability to do it,
David Watt: otherwise you can get yourself into a lot of trouble.
David Watt: I suppose one of the things you need to look
David Watt: at in the feedlot is just those poor- dos, not
David Watt: so much your deaths, but the ones that just don't
David Watt: do all that well. So if you're running at, you
David Watt: might have one and a half percent deaths, but if
David Watt: you've got five to ten percent of lambs that don't
David Watt: perform, they're the ones that'll cost you a lot of
David Watt: money. So you need to be identifying those lambs early
David Watt: and just get them out there.
Jasmine Wells: Yeah. Then you just put them back out on the
Jasmine Wells: pasture? Or just change the ration?
David Watt: Well biosecurity is a bit hard, so you don't like
David Watt: taking something out of the feedlot and back out on
David Watt: the pasture. We do have a couple of small paddocks
David Watt: just close that we use just for lambs that have
David Watt: come out that need to get back on green feed
David Watt: for whatever reason. But they don't tend to go out on the
David Watt: rest of the farm though, we'd sell them. One of
David Watt: the systems that we can improve on is that early
David Watt: identification non-doers, and we've toyed around with some walkover weighing
David Watt: within the feedlot and that would be a big help to
David Watt: be able to implement that. It's a bit expensive at
David Watt: the moment to do it over, well there's 20 pens,
David Watt: so if you got to have a unit in each
David Watt: pen, it's going to add up a bit of money.
David Watt: But there's some pretty cool tech coming out these days
David Watt: that will really help I think in the feedlot industry just
David Watt: to identify that bottom 10%. And removing that out, instantly
David Watt: you've increased your growth rate because you got rid of
David Watt: your bottom 10%. So there's a lot of work involved in
David Watt: the feedlotting with bringing lambs in to weigh. Usually our
David Watt: basic process is we... Lambs will arrive on the truck, they'll
David Watt: spend the night in the yards and they'll have a
David Watt: drench, a vaccination, any other treatments that they need the next day.
David Watt: Usually they'll be on feed overnight in the yards. They'll need
David Watt: to have a second vaccination at some time. They'll also be weighed in, I
David Watt: suppose. They'll have to have a second vaccination about four
David Watt: weeks later in between that four to six weeks, which
David Watt: sometimes you kind of think, " Oh gosh, they're only going to be
David Watt: here for another week." But that last week, if you
David Watt: haven't given them the second vaccination is when they'll die of pulpy kidney, I
David Watt: guarantee that one. So you have them in, they're weighed
David Watt: the first time when they go in there, and they might get weighed twice before
David Watt: then the final weigh when they go out. But if you
David Watt: work out every time you weigh them, you lose two
David Watt: days of growth. So the first one you're never going
David Watt: to get away from cause you've got to weigh them
David Watt: in. But those other two, there's four days of growth
David Watt: that you've lost over the period of six to eight
David Watt: weeks that lambs are in your feedlot. So if we can use a walkover weighing,
David Watt: and instantly there's a gain four days where we don't
David Watt: have to touch these lambs.
Jasmine Wells: Yeah, and I have no doubt you've done the numbers
Jasmine Wells: on that.
David Watt: We've played around with the company, but we need to do
David Watt: a lot more research. To make it really worthwhile, you need
David Watt: to have a drafting set up on it as well within the pen.
Jasmine Wells: And in each pen, like you said.
David Watt: Yeah, so that's a dream. It's in the dream pipeline. In the next feedlot
David Watt: I build, maybe.
Jasmine Wells: Yeah. Thank you so much for your time today, David.
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