Feeding livestock in drought, flood or fire

Feed budgeting

Whether you are managing livestock during drought, flood recovery or after fire damage, doing a feed budget is crucial. This helps you understand your feed options and prepare before conditions worsen.

The amount and type of feeding required will depend on:

• the quality of the feed (energy and protein levels)
• the size, type, condition, stage of pregnancy or lactation of livestock
• what facilities or equipment are available
• past feeding history of livestock
• how the livestock have been impacted by recent conditions.

In dry times, pastures can deteriorate in both quality and quantity (kilograms of dry matter per hectare, or kg DM/ha). Once digestibility of dry feed falls below 55% stock will start to lose weight, regardless of how much feed they have. When dry feed becomes limiting, you can meet energy requirements by feeding out cereal grains and/or hay.

In floods or after fire, feed availability can also be limited. Dry standing feed, even after fire, may have value and should be assessed. Compare your options and cost-effectiveness using the Feed Cost Calculator. For help choosing the right mix, see our guide to balancing nutrition and cost.

Animal nutrition during drought

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Video transcript

Dry times series: Animal nutrition

In general, in dry times, animals can remain really healthy—as long as they're fed well and looked after. Often, we can go for long periods of time in dry conditions with healthy animals and low mortality rates.

Having said that, there are some issues that we are concerned about and issues that we, as veterinarians, see when we're feeding animals under conditions like this.

The first one to take care of is calcium. We know that grain and cereal hay are low in calcium, and if you're planning on feeding adult stock for a long time or young stock for a short time, you need to supplement with calcium. If it's a grain ration, normally 1.5% of the ration is absolutely fine.

Salt can be beneficial as well at 0.5%.

One of the things we also get concerned about is vitamin A & E deficiency. These are both fat-soluble vitamins, and the good news is that the liver stores of those vitamins generally last for about five to six months. Any green feed will contain vitamins A and E, and we start to get concerned about deficiencies after we haven't seen any green feed for five or six months.

Common problems we see feeding animals in dry times include grain poisoning or acidosis, which occurs because we need to take our time and be careful introducing stock to grain. Most experienced farmers know that you've got to do that steadily, and a little bit of roughage really helps that process a lot. The normal grain introduction practices that most farmers are familiar with—introducing stock to grain over about a ten-day period with some roughage—is what's required.

There are some buffers available that can help with bringing stock onto grain. Lime, as well as providing calcium, is a bit of a buffer. Bentonite can have some buffering effect. I'm not a huge fan of buffers, but we know that the product Descon can also really help if you're bringing stock onto grain and can reduce acidosis.

Right now, lots of sheep are being joined or are in early pregnancy. The good news is that they just need a maintenance ration, but as we get to within six weeks of lambing, they will need an increased ration. A maintenance ration for ewes, if we were talking about grain, would be in the order of 3–4 kg, depending on body weight. As we approach lambing and lactation, that needs to be up around 6–7 kg for ewes bearing single lambs and could be twice that—8–10 kg—for twin-bearing ewes. That's why pregnancy testing of both sheep and cattle is really important. You really don't want to be carrying non-pregnant cows into this dry autumn, and with sheep, you also want to be able to feed single-bearing and twin-bearing ewes appropriately for their reproductive status.

Other things to bear in mind when feeding grain: enterotoxemia can be a problem, particularly in sheep, so make sure you've got your sheep fully vaccinated for enterotoxemia. The quality of the fodder is something you need to investigate—you need to know the feed quality. Also, be aware that sometimes we can see toxins in hay, like cyanide and nitrate. If necessary, have the hay tested. Sorghum hay and millet hay are more at risk than others.

As with any feedstuff, introduce any new feed slowly. Don't introduce it to animals when they're hungry—fill them up with something else first, then feed small amounts of the new feedstuff, whether you're changing pellets from one to another, grain from one to another, or new hay sources. You really want to make sure you don't introduce that new food source suddenly to hungry animals.

Feeding sheep

• Lactating ewes need at least 20% hay to maintain milk production
• Rapidly growing sheep and lambs, ewes in late pregnancy and lactation have higher requirements for energy and protein.
• Stock may need a protein supplement in some situations for growth and maintenance.
• It is best to feed lambs for production.
• Introduce cereal grains slowly over a period of 10-14 days to reduce the risk of acidosis.

Fat scoring to assess ewe condition enables you to fine-tune your feeding program. Ewes at fat score 3 will have minimal feed requirements as you can maintain them at this level. Ewes below fat score 2.5 have an increased risk of being dry. You can draft off these ewes and allocate them to better paddocks or supplementary fed to aid in joining.

The table below shows how much feed sheep need based on breeding condition and mixed feed combinations.

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Feeding cattle

• Lactating cows need at least 20% hay to maintain milk production.
• Young cattle need a minimum level of 9% protein for growth.
• It is best to feed young cattle for production.
• Before introducing grain introduce hay first to minimise acidosis.

The table below shows how much feed cattle need based on breeding condition and mixed feed combinations.

For more advice, you can use the Feed Cost Calculator. It calculates and prepares protein, energy and other components for different mixes of livestock feeds

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Advice for feeding and early weaning

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Tips for feeding livestock

Things to remember:

• Acidosis (grain poisoning) is the biggest killer of confined sheep fed concentrates. It is important to do a gradual introduction to grain over a few weeks. Be careful transitioning from one grain to another. For example, barley to wheat where you are increasing the starch content. Take care when transitioning from one batch of feed to another, even if they are the same product, as variations do occur. Shandying the old and new feeds can help reduce acidosis risk as can the addition of rumen buffers to the ration.
• Remember that grain is generally low in calcium and high in phosphorus. You need to provide supplementary calcium in the ration (usually in the form of stock lime). This will help to avoid hypocalcaemia, in particular for late pregnant/lactating ewes and young growing stock.
• Vitamins A and E can become deficient in stock where there has been no access to green feed for over 6 months.
• When feeding cereal grains it is important to add 1 - 1.5% agricultural limestone and 0.5 - 1% salt to prevent calcium deficiencies.
• If you have the space and the infrastructure to feed in a confined lot, seek advice on what you need for confinement feeding based on the amount of stock.

Tips for supplementary feeding hay

The quality of your hay will have a significant impact on the grains and supplements you choose to feed.

Appearance is a poor indicator of the nutritive value of hay. Even grass hays that appear very similar can vary in protein content by two to three times. You can do a feed test on the hay to ensure you are meeting your livestock’s nutritive needs.

• Break open a hay bale or dig into the bale, get a good sample and scratch ‘n’ sniff. Hay of a sweet and pleasant smell will tend to have higher quality than hay with little or no smell. Hay with a dirt type smell is generally of very poor quality.
• Good quality hay should be green rather than yellow or brown. Keep in mind that some hays, particularly some varieties of clover, can cure to quite a dark colour.
• Hay should have a high leaf content for higher quality. Leaf is more digestible than stem and stalk (“stemmy” hay is likely to be low in digestibility). Hays cut late will have large amounts of seed heads and will be of lower quality.
• A sample of the hay when taken in both hands should be easy to break apart, this is a sign of good quality hay. It should not hurt your hands when you squeeze it, if it does it has been cut too late and will be of low nutrient content.
• Check your hay sample for awns. This can sometimes be an issue when feeding to stock and makes these hays unsuitable for processing and inclusion in feed mixes.
• There should be no visible mould (white or dark, matted patches in the hay) or other foreign material like dirt or sand. When opening hay look for dust as this can be an issue when feeding and is not desirable for confined feeding situations.
• Be aware of weed seed. Find out where your hay has come from if bringing it in. Most of the time it is extremely hard to find some weed seeds in hay. Try to feed your hay in only a few locations where you have easy access and visit frequently so that you are able to control any new and unusual plants.
• When feeding, avoid overhead hay racks as dust from the hay falling into eyes and face can cause health issues. 

After flood or fire

• Check hay for water damage or contamination after floods. 

• In post-fire conditions, hay may contain ash or be affected by smoke. 

• Monitor stock more frequently during recovery phases.