Opportunities for backgrounding lambs in WA
Taking the Victorian backgrounding and finishing industry experience to WA, there are developments that may allow the prime lamb industry to grow:
- The high rainfall zone south and west of Boyup Brook could see lambs backgrounded cheaply for longer on pasture given the longer growing season and supplied with store lambs by regions such as the Great Southern. Silage feeding systems could also be utilised, which could mean very high quality regrowth pastures in spring and strong backgrounding performance in the summer and autumn using silage.
- The South Coast (southern) Sandplain could see more lucerne planted, but this now has to compete with crop, which may be problematic given the current focus on crop and freight costs.
- The central and southern Wheatbelt regions don't tend to have legume crops in the rotation, hence limiting the potential to cheaply background lambs.
If the high rainfall south west WA region takes on backgrounding, the lambs could be sourced from Great Southern store lamb producers. Freight costs to and from this region would not be large.
What does the WA lamb industry need to do?
A few essential steps need to take place to more fully develop the potential for the lamb industry:
- introduce a range of forward contracts to cover the out of season lamb supply that doesn’t currently exist
- investigate the feasibility of longer season perennial pasture for south west WA, particularly using some of the more productive and persistent cultivars such as Holdfast GT and Landmaster phalaris as well as Fraydo and Resolute winter active Mediterranean sourced tall fescues
- investigate a systems approach for a background lamb enterprise for the south west such as:
- silage for sheep
- standing crops
- feedlots
- worm and fly management packages
- investing in practical, cost effective sheep infrastructure
- efficient and profitable store lamb production in the Great Southern particularly.
- investigate the feasibility of standing crops for backgrounding lambs in the Wheatbelt or backgrounding or feedlotting lambs with home-grown grain
- investigate the feasibility of lucerne on the Sandplain for backgrounding lambs (but this is of lower priority due to the high transport costs).