Get ready for Moving Day
Moving Day is a big day in the farming calendar and requires good planning and communication to ensure success.
New research from Lincoln University’s Pastoral Livestock Production Lab claims that feeding lambs a diverse diet during the lambing process leads to reduced oxidative stress and healthier lambs.
The research explored whether offering dietary diversity to ewes in the final trimester of pregnancy would reduce oxidative stress for both the mother and offspring.
The research indicated a reduction in stress, with ewes who ate functionally diverse diets also birthed heavier lambs that had lower cortisol levels.
The project is reportedly the first to detect maternal and foetal stress by examining the cortisol concentration and antioxidant levels of lamb’s wool in utero.
These findings suggest moving away from a typical monotonous ryegrass menu for lambing ewes and instead peppering their diet with foods like chicory, plantain, red clover and lucerne, as well as other plants.
According to Livestock Production Professor Pablo Gregorini, whose former PhD student Konagh Garrett conducted the study, the hormonal and metabolic changes of pregnancy can increase nutritional demands and strain. Certain diets then exacerbate the issue, especially as animals transition from non-lactating to lactating.
“Maternal nutrition in late gestation also influences lamb birth weight and the stress experienced by lambs in utero,” Gregorini says.
“Our findings have significant implications, as farmers can enhance animal wellbeing using simple dietary measures and adding further value to New Zealand pasture-based animal products, because animals would be ‘happy’ from the get-go.
“It’s clear that feeding lambing ewes a wider variety of foods will enhance both animal welfare and production.”
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.