One of the attractions for country living is to raise animals of your choice.
Many farm animals can be kept for grazing the native and introduced pasture species growing on your farm. Here we discuss grazing management and its effects on the environment, and include a few tips on animal husbandry.
A horse goes into a new paddock. He checks it out: "Is there enough feed, shade, water, space, company (even if it's one of those funny, two-legged creatures)? There is? I am content."
Horses, like all other animals, have simple needs, but the essentials must be there or you will have hungry, bored, destructive, temperamental and unhealthy stock.
Domestic grazing animals such as horses, cattle, goats and sheep will also have a greater impact on the soil, pasture, native vegetation and litter than native animals. This has led to a decline in native vegetation, especially understorey vegetation. To conserve what is left, we need to know about grazing management.
Be aware of the capacity of your land to run the number and type of stock you want. Some land types and pastures will be damaged by some animal species or high numbers of stock. Be prepared to sell stock if conditions turn dry and there is danger of losing full groundcover from high stock numbers.
Provide for the comfort and welfare of your animals. They will need shade and shelter in all paddocks and plenty of clean water. Keep stock out of gullies and waterways by fencing and providing troughs. These can be sited so they encourage animals to graze your paddocks efficiently.
All animals have different grazing habits, and these vary in their impact. But uncontrolled grazing of any animal species will lead to the following problems:
- palatable species will be grazed out, and won't regenerate
- soil is compacted and trampled
- excessive nutrients will build up in particular areas (stock camps)
- plants will be physically damaged and trees may be ringbarked
- ground cover will be reduced, bare soil and weeds increase, and erosion will occur.
For the main animals kept for grazing, particular features apply:
- cattle make use of taller, coarser pasture than sheep
- sheep tend to graze lower and more selectively than cattle
- sheep will remove legumes from pasture faster than cattle
- goats prefer grasses to legumes
- horses tend to overgraze selected areas, and allow other areas to grow rank
- horses can create bare patches in soils - especially where they rest under shade.
These differences can be used to manage pastures more effectively, especially if you have more than one animal species. If you only graze one type of animal, be aware of its grazing habits and take action to protect the soil and vegetation. For all animals however, some type of rotational grazing, to allow pastures to recover, is recommended.
Some useful rules of thumb for grazing are:
- avoid set-stocking over long periods
- avoid stocking during flowering/seed set of desirable species
- avoid stocking during the regeneration of native trees and shrubs
- plan for drought
- monitor the effects of grazing for weed invasions and species changes.
At all times you should keep a close watch on not only what is happening with your pasture species, soil and vegetation under grazing, but on the health and welfare of your animals.
You should learn to recognise the signs of ill-health or distress in animals, and keep them free from external and internal parasites. For this you will need to hold, inspect and treat animals in comfort and safety.
Your handling facilities should be designed to move and manage animals with minimum stress (to you and the animals!). It may be convenient to share yards and loading facilities with a neighbour to help lower the cost of these expensive structures, but if you are building your own handling facilities, there are important animal behaviour principles to follow. Agfacts on yard design are available from NSW DPI.
It is vital to learn how animals act and react to yards, fences, transport - and especially towards humans, because many of the animals we handle are bigger than we are, and they can be dangerous, or at the least, extremely difficult.
Yard and handle your stock frequently. Even if you just run them through the yards 'for practice', this will instil a habit of movement, and animals (like us) are creatures of habit.
Buying and selling stock
This is often an area of mystery for landholders new to a district. Apart from the local and regional newspapers, here is a list of options:
Purchases
- saleyards
- private purchases from a local producer
- contact with an agent at the closest town
- contact with a dealer of trader
- through a breed society for local producers
- advertisments in the local shop or post office notice board.
Sales
- saleyards
- agents (who forward to abattoir or on-sell)
- direct to abattoir
- selling groups in the district.
Domestic animals
Domestic and feral animals can harm or kill native animals
Cats and dogs are often valued members of the household. Pets can guard your property and keep your living area free from pest animals.
They can, however, impact badly on country living because they have a natural killing instinct. If allowed to roam free, cats will kill or scare off native wildlife, especially birds. Dogs barking or howling at night can shatter the calm of your rural retreat. Dogs will eliminate lizards and scare off larger wildlife. Roaming dogs can also maim and kill neighbouring small animals such as sheep, goats and even calves. Dogs may also kill larger wildlife such as koalas, wallabies and possums.
The risk of uncontrolled farm dogs and cats 'going feral' is a very real danger, especially if these domestic animals are allowed to breed. You should control your pets at all times, and seek a vet's advice on their breeding potential.
Pest animals
The main pest animals of concern in rural areas, apart from uncontrolled domestic dogs and cats are foxes, rabbits, pigs and wild dogs. It is in your interests, and those of your neighbours, to control these animals (in fact you are legally bound to do so). They destroy native animals and their habitat, reduce groundcover and vegetation and may harm domestic animals. There are guidelines and recommendations on how pest animals of concern to you can be controlled humanely and safely. Contact your RLPB for details.
Wildlife
Visitors from overseas, and even people from the city marvel at encountering 'roos or koalas in the wild, and the colour and movement provided by our native parrots and other birds can gladden the heart. And isn't that part of the reason you bought your rural block?
Having native creatures on your farm can sometimes be a mixed blessing. When you have kangaroos and wallabies grazing your newly-emerging pasture and wombats burrowing under your house, it makes you wonder if nature conservation is worth it!
But there are great benefits in having wildlife on your farm. A large range of bird and bat species helps to control insect pests of pastures. Sugar gliders and even native wasps can control beetle pests.
The presence of native animals (yes, even snakes!) indicates that your farm has increasing biodiversity, with suitable habitat. Habitat comes in the form of native trees with hollows, native grasses and flowering shrubs. If you can retain these areas, or regenerate areas of native bush, your farm will be able to handle the extremes of the Australian climate much better - you will have plants that are adapted to the conditions.
These habitat areas also act as windbreaks, shelterbelts, shade areas, drought reserves and help protect streams and waterways.
Your farm, along with your neighbours' can act as a wildlife corridor, linking different landscape types, say from a timbered ridge, down to a stream. If you can identify these important links, you can retain and improve these corridors and encourage the safe movement of wildlife across the land.
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