I'm guessing this is a bit like insurance. You've just got to train the animals to feed out of feeders and get their stomachs used to eating dry matter and go from there. If you don't have to build one each year, it's already there ready to go. So it's just a matter of if the need arises to put sheep in. They're there as another tool in the toolbox. Peter, what advice would you give to other farmers thinking of installing their own stock containment area? They start pushing on fences and start trying to get out, and they're not comfortable with where they are. If they get bored, they get into trouble. I've even heard of people putting soccer balls, basketballs in the yards so that the sheep actually do play with, I'm not saying putting scoreboards and goalposts in the yards, but they do get bored really easily. So we've also put in throughout the yards, logs and stumps just so they can play around. But having stock in yards, they do get bored really easy, especially young sheep. So there's sun all day if they want it, and there's shade all day, if they want it, which during the summer months is very comfortable. So we've got a row of peppercorn trees going right through the middle of both yards. They're basically just two yards that are 50 by 50 metres roughly, but we're really lucky where we've got them situated. Well, there's nothing flash about the containment yards. Peter, can you describe the containment yards? There's those times where things are pretty tough that we will have to import some feed, but they were going to get that feed anyway, whether it be in a paddock or in a containment yard situation. We provide feed from our own property, mainly. Obviously, there's a cost that's associated with that, because you got to bring feed in or are you providing feed from your own property? I think we're up roughly about the 300 grams a week and they are quite comfortable doing it. It's amazing how much weight they actually do put on in a week. That makes a lot of sense then, in turn of maintaining, arguably improving their conditions. And because they're not walking the paddocks looking for feed, they're not burning energy. And once they get used to eating from feeders and hay racks, they sort of relax and they're comfortable in their environment. Well, we've been using the yards mainly for younger sheep that aren't in lamb. Not just survive, but they do well.Ĭould you elaborate on that a little bit? The sheep that do go into the yards do well. This sounds like it's been a good investment for you well and truly. When they've got a bit of dry matter to hold the moisture in and paddocks aren't wind-blown, swept, and shiny looking they recover really quickly. Once you get the sheep off pastures and leave cover on the ground, when the autumn break does happen to come, pastures bounce away very quickly. So Peter, if I'm understanding this correctly, was this really about getting the sheep off the pasture during that tough time so that that would be intact when rain does come? Also here, we'd been carting water pretty much on and off since 2001, so it led us to think about something else that we can get our sheep off our pastures and then Agriculture Victoria decided to put some grants out, which made it an easy decision then. We couldn't get the cover of feed over the paddocks over the spring and late spring and it led a very long summer. Well, it was a series of dry springs, more than summers. Peter, what events led you to build a stock containment area? ![]() We have got rainfall figures back from the. So yeah, we have been here for a while, but yes, that's correct. ![]() And you've also got rainfall figures going back that far, or maybe your family's been there even longer. Now, Peter, I understand that you and your family have been in that part of the world for quite some time, back to the 1940s, I believe. We've got a property located approximately an hour northwest of Bendigo in Victoria, and we run a self-replacing Merino flock, and also a cropping enterprise. And today we're heading to Peter Gibson's property. To find out how, AgVic Talk is taking a virtual climate bus tour to see how farmers are dealing with climate variation. I'm Drew Radford and fast forward 20 years and containment yards are increasingly being used for this purpose. Welcome to AgVic Talk, keeping you up to date with information from Agriculture Victoria.Ģ0 years ago, if you'd said to a farmer, "Have you considered stock containment yards as a way of dealing with climate variability?" you may have been asked if you'd been in the sun too long.
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