Cattle beast is king

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32902, 28 April 1972, Page 13

Cattle beast is king

The writer of the accompanying item on beef cattle farming on the West Coast is M. D. Gould, farm advisory officer of the Department of Agriculture at Greymouth.

The West Coast is wellknown among cattle men as producing some of the finest cattle ever seen in the Addington sale yards, and for year after year, quality prime cattle from the bush runs in South Westland

have supplied the butchers’ spring market. While this type of trade still continues, the empha-

sis on cattle production is shifting to North Westland, where more intensive methods of management, based on ryegrass-white clover pastures, are giving greater returns. The current high beef schedule combined with new grazing techniques, borrowed from the dairy fanner, is giving rise to an upsurge in beef raising and farm incomes. Not that beef raising is anything new in the area. The western region has always had a very high cattle-to-sheep ratio compared with the New Zealand average.

In 1959, the ratio of total beef cattie to total sheep for Grey and Westland counties was 1:4.2 (New Zealand 1:15.8) and in 1969, the ratios were 1:4.1 (New Zealand 1:12.4).

During the 1950 s and early 19605, when sheep products enjoyed- a high return compared with beef, the high cattle-to-sheep ratio was undoubtedly one of the reasons for the slow farming development of the region. Now, however, the boot is on the

other foot, and the region is enjoying an unprecedented boom period. Sheep are being replaced by cattle, as fast as economic considerations will allow the change. This is a sensible shift in the livestock policy of West Coast farmers considering the low per-animal performance of sheep under a 100 inch-plus rainfall, and the change is likely to become a permanent one, even if beef prices do tumble.

The advantages the West Coast has in the swing to cattle are many. Not only is there a relatively large number of cattle in the area, relative to other types of stock, but there is also a thriving dairy industry as a source of calves at realistic prices. Few farmers, even the most conservative, do not now own some animals with a dairy origin. Intensive stocking and 4 or scwt of potassic super per acre have overcome the non-growth winter, and the grass only stops growing during prolonged frosty periods. As grass is by far the cheapest high quality feed available, this advantage is a considerable one, and forms the basis of a low-cost system of wintering, so necessary today, when continually rising costs are eating away at profit margins. Very intensive stocking (up to 400 weaners per acre per day) also appears to suit West Coast pastures, as paddocks which have had this treatment appear to flourish under it Not only are weeds severely repressed, but tiie quality grasses such as ryes and timothy, begin to dominate the lesser producing grasses such as fog, browntop and sweet vernal.

The change to intensive beef production, using the “block grazing” system of management means that any jump in production in the near future, on the West Coast is likely to come from the more developed farm, which already has an area of ryegrass, white clover pasture. These areas can more than compete with the undeveloped areas (so‘noticeable on the West Coast), where the cost of initial pasture establishment combined with the high capital cost of cattle at today’s prices, is usually beyond the financial capabilities of the fanner involved. The new system requires little additional capital input, and remains flexible, both important considerations