Bulls work well in variable climate

01-08-2010 | Marie Taylor

Low-cost bull farming isn't what you'd expect to see in the hills just west of Napier.

It is a little unusual but is proving sustainable, Robert Pattullo says.

He and his wife, Helen, have been running two-year bulls for the past 10 years, and now have 600ha of their farm subdivided into 1ha paddocks.

Robert says low-cost production is the key and two-year bulls suit that. "The cost of a single wire compared to a seven-wire fence just sums it up to me."

A good infrastructure with reticulated water into every paddock helps.

"We have five separate electric fence systems.

"You just have to make sure the infrastructure is working very efficiently, and if it is, it's a piece of cake."

That has enabled them to reduce farm working expenses to only 44% of gross farm income.

Recently the Pattullos hosted 164 people on a wet second day of a two-day Farmax road trip in Hawke's Bay.

Farmax manager Graeme Ogle organised visits to five top-performing Hawke's Bay farmers who use Farmax.

At Newstead, the Pattullo property 25 minutes west of Napier, Farmax consultant John Cannon from Challenge Consultancy talked about the clear goals Robert and Helen have. "When I started working with the business Robert said to me he wanted to eat every mouthful of dry matter as profitably as possible," John says.

The Pattullos try to:

• grow lots of grass and optimise quality

• eat the grass as profitably as possible

• control intakes but know when to maximise them

• work with nature

• have a policy flexible enough to meet key targets while maximising profit and managing risk.

Robert and Helen bought Newstead in 1995 from the family after managing it for several years, and added another 300ha two years ago.

At that time they realised they had to change the business from the traditional 5000 ewes and 300 breeding cows running in big paddocks. While the sheep were performing well at a 150% lambing, there were still lots of light lambs at weaning.

"We still had a lot of summer dry pasture species which sheep don't perform very well on and we still needed a cattle component."

There was no climatic or market flexibility in that system, which meant they were getting hammered.

Instead, they decided to pick the most profitable livestock class - bulls. They began buying weaner and yearling type bulls and this worked well until numbers increased and it became harder to get them all killed before the second winter.

Robert says parasites then became a bit of an issue, and because of the increasing numbers it was difficult to integrate sheep into the separate bull area.

"By default we started to winter a few yearling bulls for the second year and finishing them worked really well.

"We've had our two-year bull system now for 10 years, and our yields aren't dropping. I think it is sustainable."

Now the farm is in the top 20% of the Farmax database, with a gross margin/hectare in the past year of $640. The figures show that for every kilogram of dry matter the cattle eat, there's a return of 13.7c.

At the moment the farm is running 1072 rising two-year bulls, 250 bull calves, 93 cows and 100 sheep - the latter to clean up the laneways.

The yearling bulls and cows graze the fringes of the farm, filling in the gaps on the more extensive areas. The cows maintain pastures on dry faces over summer. Their male calves are left entire and fed into the bull finishing programme, with weaner heifers sold store at weaning.

The bull system fits in well with the extremely variable climate.

The bulls are killed from October to January, so through summer the farm runs at only 50% of its stock units. That also helps in
the increasing number of dry autumns.

For example, this year at the start of May, Robert still had 50% of his rising two-year bulls to buy. "I was a little concerned about where they would all come from."

In the end there was no problem buying bulls, and now the farm is fully stocked for winter, with the bulls coming from as far afield as Kaitaia to Lawrence in Otago.

Robert uses a network of agents, one in the South Island, and four in the North because of the numbers of bulls he needs. He says his grass supply is too variable to contract buy.

The new bulls are bought from 15 months at 300kg and are taken through to a target of 320kg carcaseweights in spring and early summer.

Robert says their growth rates are not super high, at an average 600g a day, but then half the 845ha (effective) farm is either medium or steep hill country.

"Four or five years ago it really did worry me that what we were doing wasn't seen as sustainable, so I got Simon Stokes from the regional council in to do an environmental plan."

Following the plan, Robert began retiring wetlands with a single hot-wire, and identified some steep areas which aren't grazed in the wet. He is still riparian fencing, and plants 150 poplar poles each year.

The stocking rate, at only two bulls/ha, is much lower than other intensive beef-finishing operations which run up to 3.5 bulls/ha.

For a fertile farm with a rainfall averaging 1125mm, it is a surprise to see that pasture growth in the 2009-10 year was only 5.8tDM/ha, but that was a drought year. Robert says pasture growth in an average year is around 6.5t.

"We have a short spring, and then the pastures go straight to the reproductive phase," he says.

His grazing management has relaxed a little over time. "We are far less aggressive in our grazing than we used to be, leaving higher residuals, and I am not concerned about scruffiness. We used to groom and groom and groom in anticipation of autumn growth.

"With the consecutive dry autumns we can't afford to be exposed like that now."

While leaving pasture residuals late in summer of around 1800kgDM/ha may take a little bit of growth potential away, it gives a far better platform to grow grass than the former 1500kg level.

Robert has moved away from using nitrogen with only a small amount used, if any.

"We can utilise what we grow pretty well; when it stops growing we sell."

For the past six years they've used Farmax to model the farm system, building an historical picture of pasture production and bull growth. This has given Robert much more confidence to plan ahead.

The key is throwing in data and modelling forward, he says. Everyone knows where they are with Farmax, which empowers people and gives them responsibility. He believes it is a good investment because in just one decision, its yearly cost can be recovered.

Having consultant John Cannon as part of the Farmax package adds a lot of value, Robert says. The staff are involved in all the meetings: A farm visit and a meeting at John's office occur on alternate months.

With virtually only one stock class to consider, the big question Robert uses Farmax for is when to buy yearling bulls. "Do we buy now or do we wait? Farmax gives me the confidence to make timely decisions."

Robert's stock manager, Shaun Andrews, takes the covers monthly throughout the whole farm, using a pasture stick and his eye. They also weigh monitor mobs to see how they are progressing.

When the bulls arrive they are run together in their mobs until a big sort-out in autumn with animal health treatments. Then the bulls are drafted into 50kg weight ranges.

The heaviest cattle are put on the best country. The mobs of 40 are kept on 20ha farmlets.

The winter rotation begins early in May with an initial 60-day round, so the cattle in each 20ha block are shifted every three days.

Their second round is 50 days, giving a mix of two and three-day shifts to the end of August. "Then it just takes care of itself after that."

Grass growth really kicks in on the farm in August after a low of 9.2kgDM/ha/day in June. July has 9.9kg, August 14.5, September 16.7, October 22.2, November 29.5; growth then starts dropping in December, back to 24.3kg.

As soon as the older cattle are up to weights during this period, they go: This year 1200 bulls will be turned off.

All are sold to Riverlands at Eltham. "I have a great long-term relationship with them," Robert says.

A common complaint about bull farming is the tedious nature of moving bulls every day. Robert has a staff roster for moving the bulls, with both he and Shaun, who is in his fifth year at Newstead, sharing the workload.

"Farming bulls is a mindset you have to buy into and it's a constant workload," Robert says.

"However compared to crutching 500 lambs or drenching 1000 lambs, it is a piece of cake."

Robert says running bulls is probably more flexible than running sheep, too; it allows him time off the farm.

At the moment he is particularly busy off-farm, because he is on the Australian-based Rabobank executive development programme for primary producers. That's making him question where the farm, which has been in the family for 100 years, will head.

"I do have some concerns for our industry if carbon forestry gains traction. Then our livestock industry and the hills will really be under threat."

Newstead has 40ha of post-1990 radiata pine forestry, and Robert has signed up and registered to the Emissions Trading Scheme but hasn't yet sold any credits.

He has also just milled some trees planted 30 years ago, and plans to replant.

Meanwhile there's a conundrum. "Consumers are starting to question how we farm, how we use water, the sustainability of what we do - but they still want cheap food.

"Plenty of people have been delivering this message, but we really need to leverage a New Zealand story off our protein production."

He's enthusiastic about what they are doing at Newstead. "I am forever trying to push this place along."

The farm, now fully stocked, has exhausted its productive model because it's hard to see they could do any more than have 600 1ha paddocks.

"We need more at our farm gate to keep us in the game."

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