Goat nutrition workshop at Bymount identifies need for info

She was speaking at a field day for a small producer group at Hendon Park in the Bymount area north of Roma organised by ConnectAg, to meet identified gaps in knowledge in the goat industry.

"They are at the frontier of the rangelands system - they haven't been catching ferals for decades," Rhonda Toms-Morgan said. "There are a lot of smaller operations trying to ensure that if they're going into goats, they're making good decisions."

Nutritional needs was one of the areas listed for more attention at a field day at Surat in June, whether it was for weight gain, fertility or at weaning, and Ms Jackson was invited to speak on ruminant nutrition basics for goats.

She said it was a fledgling area for herself and others.

"There's been 70 years of research on cattle and sheep and we're still trying to get concepts through - we're at the Adam and Eve stage with goats," she said.

As well as talking about finding which nutrient was the most limited in the diet and choosing the most appropriate supplement, she spoke about rumen function in general and getting it pasture-ready in the weaning process.

"They're similar to sheep but they're not, they're much more sensitive," she said.

"There is so much behavioural stuff that comes into managing goats as well, that has to be taken into account.

"Especially around fences - if you put up barriers they tend to sulk."

She said that feeding programs in general came back to basics.

"Everything has consequences, positive or negative, when you're using licks," she said.

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Ms Jackson challenged people who said there was no need to feed goats to back that up with productivity figures.

"What level of productivity are you getting when you're not feeding," she asked. "Nobody that I've spoken to really knows."

That highlighted a growing need for a better understanding of the particular needs of the goat industry, now that it was growing in stature and sophistication, Ms Jackson said, adding that she herself had been unable to find out everything she wanted to know in preparing for the day.

"I don't know the differences in feed needs between Boer and rangeland goats, for instance," she said. "I assume there's differences - it might be like the differences between Brahmans and Herefords, but no-one really knows."

She said the University of Queensland was doing some work but it was in confinement, whereas she felt the best results would be obtained with goats in their natural environment.

"There's a lot of work to do in the space - people are shooting from the hip in the absence of any information," she said. "For example, winter stasis - they just don't 'do' in winter and no-one really knows why."

Among the feedback Ms Toms-Morgan received was that there was a greater understanding of the importance of feeding at critical times, rather than just in dry times.

"People walked away much more confident and that's what we wanted to achieve," she said.

Ms Jackson said she was impressed with the group's 'switched on' attitude.

"They're running this as a business - they really care about their livestock and they know it takes a bit to do properly."

Ms Toms-Morgan said the day had gone ahead in the Roma area because it was an area that wasn't impacted by harvesting at present, but she hoped to run similar days in the Surat and St George areas.

"People value having peers they can talk things over with, and ConnectAg will keep trying to meet that extension gap," she said.

Fittingly, the Bymount Community Recreation Association 1080 Crew served goat meat burgers for lunch.

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