South west Queensland cattle producers have been experimenting with the use of bentonite as a way of combating pimelea poisoning and say it is working for them.
Begonia property owners Mitch Koster and Rod Turner, the latter also a livestock agent, told the district information day at Begonia that experiments using it had been successful.
Mr Turner said he'd been motivated to find a solution after taking calls from distressed clients six years ago, who were seeing their cattle die from ingesting the native plant.
"I was horrified to come down and see the effects," he said. "It's been a long haul since then to get control, and bentonite is the only thing we've found."
Mr Turner described the explosion in pimelea plants as another 'perfect storm' for cattle producers that he hoped to help meet head-on.
Rather than feed out the absorbent swelling clay that comes from weathered volcanic ash when the plant was beginning to grow or when his cattle start to show symptoms, Mr Turner said his family preferred to have it in the paddocks year-round.
"You keep lick out in front of cattle in the Gulf - this is the same principal here," he said. "Our thinking is, we should get cattle used to eating it."
Once there was green feed around after rain, cattle went off the supplement but that was combated by adding protein to attract them back.
Mr Turner said their biggest problem was obtaining a constant supply of bentonite, adding that he hoped mines at Miles and Yarraman were ready for demand.
While a laboratory feeding trial used 80 grams of bentonite/head/day or 0.3g/kg bodyweight, Mr Turner said they'd been feeding weaners 100 grams and cows 200 grams a day.
He said a mix of one bag of bentonite to one bag of supplementary dry lick resulted in fresh cattle coats and no losses due to pimelea in 2021/22.
"I'm not here to tell you what to do, just what I'm doing," he said.
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Fellow producer Mitch Koster said they'd put effort into spraying round waters to keep pimelea down, in the knowledge that bulls don't travel as far from water as other cattle.
"We also see a very real correlation between ground cover and pimelea," he said, which Mr Turner backed up, adding that after 2016's crash, they'd instituted a policy not to overstock.
Questions fired in at the field day included whether the producers had tried mixing biochar with bentonite, to which Mr Turner replied that they'd tried biochar blocks with their cattle but they didn't like them.
Others wondered if cattle could eat too much bentonite but the producers hadn't experienced overfeeding in their stock.
People also queried the dual ambitions of preventing toxicity and killing the weed, asking if either of those pathways were gaining more traction, to be told that both tactics were recommended in different circumstances.
According to QAAFI's Professor Mary Fletcher, they recommended people consider both methods.
"Bentonite can absorb the toxin, but if pimelea is still in the paddock, there's still going to be poisoning," she said.
The restricting factor for pre-herbicides would be the size of the area to be treated, and the cost.
It was established that bentonite couldn't be distributed through water because it settled to the bottom, and that once an animal had become unwell, introducing bentonite wouldn't turn that around.
"Not only that, by that stage they don't want to eat," one in the crowd commented.
It was confirmed that researchers had been unable to develop a successful rumen drench.
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Sally Gall
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
Based at Blackall, CW Qld, where I've raised a family, run Merino sheep and beef cattle, and helped develop a region - its history, tourism, education and communications. Get in touch at 0427 575 955 if you've got a story idea for me.
