WA Livestock Research Council hosts Livestock Matters forum

His father Ian's line of thinking was similar in the late 1980s, when saltbush was planted to tackle rising salinity in cropping country.

Many years of trial and error followed, when some of the initial varieties - mainly quailbrush and wavy leaf - proved unproductive.

While salinity still has a detrimental impact on some parts of the Wyatt family's farm, saltbush now has multi-purpose for Mr Wyatt and wife Danica.

The perennial shrub has boosted lamb survival rates on marginal land by up to 12 per cent and provided shade, shelter and fodder.

About 50 producers were last Thurday given insight into the Wyatts' enterprise, at the WA Livestock Research Council's Livestock Matters forum.

As well as saltbush, Mr Wyatt and keynote speakers including - CSIRO agricultural scientist Hayley Norman, The University of WA's School of Agriculture and Environment and Institute of Agriculture associate professor Dominique Blache and Murdoch University sheep research scientist Serina Hancock, AgPro Management consultant Ed Riggall, Hyden lotfeeder Trevor Hinck, special guest from New South Wales, Bellevue Rural Enterprises owner David Grieg and co-host Ian Wyatt - discussed science, sheep reproductive performance, sheep management practices, silage and succession.

WA Livestock Research Council chairwoman Bronwyn Clarke said it was very generous of both Mr Wyatt and Mr Grieg to share their experience with different management options to increase production rates.

"They clearly showed there is no silver bullet, but change can be made through a combination of management and genetics," Dr Clarke said.

"Be that by pregnany scanning and preferentially feeding ewes with multiples, provision of shade and shelter during lambing, reducing mob size during lambing or using ASBVs to select for traits related to improved production."

"It was great to see on the farm tour how Dean and Ian have implemented these strategies, including the use of saltbush for lambing ewes.

"Almost half our participants are planning on either looking into or trying something new as a result of attending this day."

Shade, shelter and saltbush

Beyond tackling salinity, saltbush plays an integral role in the Wyatts' livestock business.

After the earliest saltbush strands were deemed unpalatable, Old Man saltbush and various tolerant eucalyptus alleys were trialled with greater success.

There is about 450 hectares of saltbush - in alleys and block paddocks - at the property, including Old Man, River and Anemka varieties and existing plantations.

Some of those plantations are 30-years-old, stand more than two metres tall and - in more recent times - have provided shelter to multiple bearing ewes.

Saltbush alleys were cropped continuously up until about five years' ago, when Mr Wyatt realised the system wasn't working to the extent he had hoped.

So his focus in those areas shifted to providing shade and shelter.

The main established alley paddock is 80ha and is split in half to run two mobs.

Block plantings - whereby the whole paddock is saltbush - are used for containment in autumn to help pastures "get away" when it rains.

Mr Wyatt also started seeding cereals in the alley paddocks to ensure ewes had access to good nutrition without having to move far from the lambing site.

"Saltbush has been a continual experiment for us - how to use it, how it works best for us and how it is most profitable for us," Mr Wyatt said.

"Alley plantings have been fantastic over the past two years and those paddocks with the best feed and shelter are allocated to the multis at lambing in July.

"Meanwhile, singles and hoggets are placed in the corner of the farm on Illabo wheat or saltbush."

Mr Wyatt added "in 2021 I took a photo of some ewes and lambs huddled up against an alley".

"Temperatures reached a maximum of 12 degrees that day, a front had just come through and it was raining," he said.

"Wind speed peaked at 46 kilometres per hour and - despite those conditions - the ewes performed really well.

"Lambing in those multiples was 5pc higher than the other mob marked."

Similarly, single ewes also lambed in alley plantings last year and recorded a 9pc increase.

Mr Wyatt also credited this to running smaller mob sizes of 150 for multiple bearing ewes and 350 for single during lambing.

Temporary electric fencing - including 5.5 kilometres in 2021 - has helped keep the mob sizes as small as possible.

"We've even used just one tape to separate a mob and it worked no worries," Mr Wyatt said.

"I think you can recoup the cost of that investment pretty quickly."

Lambing percentages average about 108pc and - in the past two years - have recorded at 110pc, with 73pc average foetus survival.

This is something the Wyatts want to improve.

Mr Wyatt said feedlotting lambs helped when it came to farming in a variable climate, with long-term downward trend for growing season rainfall from 300 millimetres in the mid-1920s to about 230mm now.

Wether lambs at 35 kilograms are finished through the feedlot for about 50 days, before they are sent to the abattoir.

Use of confinement feeding has increased over the past five years, with a trail feeder and baled barley chaff dumps in the saltbush added to the 2023 regime.

"We have a pan system set up at our other farm, where ideally we would feed a total mixed ration to them," Mr Wyatt said.

"However, labour shortages have forced us back to lickfeeders.

"It is hard to know how much every ewe is getting with the lickfeeder, but it has worked for us.

He added, "we have been bulking up our pastures with cereals".

"This has been a major turning point in our business - having those cereals up and available at grazing height for a ewe has been great," Mr Wyatt said.

"It has allowed us to match feed availability to demand."

To mules, or not to mules?

With a looming ban, the Wyatts ceased mulesing in 2020.

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They wanted to take control of their genetics and management - and not be forced into making the change - so they stopped entirely.

Rings were used in the first year, before the Tepari Patesco docking iron was introduced.

Numnuts have been used for pain relief over the past three years and buccalgesic for the past two.

When interviewed by AgPro Management consultant Ed Riggall at Livestock Matters, Mr Wyatt said the biggest challenge with non-mulesing was flystrike in 12-18-month-old, full-fleeced hoggets, which carried a longer length of wool than a mated ewe.

Sheep were usually shorn in March, however this year all non-mulesed sheep will be crutched again in February.

"I think be proactive, not reactive," Mr Wyatt said.

He said he may change his treatment at the cradle for blowflies and lice and then use CLiK at weaning.

In response, Bellevue Rural Enterprises' David Grieg provided an update on insecticide resistance in the Eastern States.

He ceased mulesing in 2017 and has been Responsible Wool Standard (RWS) accredited since last year.

Mr Grieg said 75pc of the blow flies tested were resistant to up to 16 times the lethal dose of dicyclanil.

"The only time we use it is in the cradle on the lambs and we treat the breech of ewes at lamb marking with the hope that gets us through to weaning."

Mr Grieg added, "we don't see any flystrike on the ewes once they get to age and generally the lambs are pretty good.

"We only discovered (they were resistant) by accident - we weaned early during the drought and hadn't imprinted lambs well enough."

He said they were seeing scouring and flystrike in smaller lambs, well within the timing of when insecticide treatments should be working.

For Mr Grieg, genetics was the only way out, as "resistance has been there forever".

He used an example farm in the east, which was using an insecticide treatment five times a year - that is not five times on one sheep, but five times in one fly population.

When it came to wool cut, Mr Wyatt said it was too early to notice any change, however he expected it would drop and for reproduction to increase.

Speaking from personal experience, Mr Riggall said there was generally a correlation between reproductive rate and plainer bodied sheep.

"I have a couple of clients with mulesed and non-mulesed nucleus flocks," Mr Riggall said.

"Interestingly, both of them have a 10pc decrease in wool cut, but 10pc increase in reproductive rate and efficiency.

"That's from a general business perspective - so financially the wool you lose is compensated by the lambs you pick up."

In line with the wool and switching to non-mulesed, Mr Wyatt hopes to receive his RWS accreditation this year.

SCHOLARSHIP WINNER

MURDOCH University's Amelia Gooding and The University of WA's Dan Kierath, were announced as the winners of WALRC's scholarship opportunity for all agricultural science students.

The $2500 scholarship covers operating costs, associated with the students' research projects.

Ms Gooding is set to undertake an economic analysis of alternative legume fodder crops to finish weaners in a South West mixed-farm enterprise.

Mr Kierath will look at the impact of land use on the soil carbon profile in the Wheatbelt.