Growing and fattening yearling steers on mature standing wheat and barley crops

Abstract

In three experiments, yearling steers grazed standing mature wheat and barley crops during February to April of three consecutive years in a Mediterranean environment in southern Australia. In one experiment, steers were grazed for 51 days on barley crop, which was either strip grazed or set stocked. The steers had mean daily liveweight gains of 0.92 and 0.74 kg respectively. In a second experiment, steers grazing a barley crop for 69 days with estimated rations of 3.2,5.0 and 6.8 kg of grain a day respectively consumed 72, 66 and 64 per cent of the total grain reserved, and had mean daily liveweight gains of 0.88, 0.83 and 0.96 kg. In the third experiment, steers grazing wheat and barley crops over 86 days ate an estimated 80 per cent of the available grain and had mean daily liveweight gains of 0.71 and 0.74 kg respectively. In all three experiments, mean fat cover of the steers at slaughter was less than optimal. In none of the experiments were differences in liveweight, carcase weight and fat cover between treatments significantly different. We conclude that the reserving of standing wheat and barley crops is a practicable management technique for growing and fattening steers. Further investigation is needed for the refining of the technique