Why Lush Spring Pasture Doesn’t Always Mean Better Livestock Performance
Spring pasture growth is a welcome sight for Australian livestock producers. With paddocks full of lush, green feed, you’d expect cattle and sheep to be performing at their best.
But more grass doesn’t always mean better weight gains.
Even when pasture quality is high, producers can experience scouring, poor feed conversion and disappointing livestock performance.
So, what’s going wrong?
Why Can Lush Pasture Reduce Livestock Performance?
Rapidly growing spring pasture is often high in protein, sometimes containing 25–30% crude protein. That’s considerably more than most cattle and sheep require.
When livestock consume more protein than their rumen microbes can utilise, the excess nitrogen must be processed and excreted. This uses valuable energy that could otherwise go towards growth and production.
Lush pasture can also move quickly through the digestive system, contributing to scouring and reduced nutrient absorption.
The result? Livestock can be eating plenty of quality pasture without converting it efficiently into liveweight gain.
How Can Grain Supplementation Help?
The key is balancing high-protein pasture with fermentable energy.
Supplementing with small, controlled amounts of starch-based grain, such as barley or wheat, helps rumen microbes make better use of excess pasture protein.
This can help:
- Improve feed conversion and liveweight gain
- Reduce scouring associated with lush pasture
- Support efficient rumen function
- Make better use of available pasture
- Improve livestock productivity and profitability
With Advantage Feeders, producers can safely deliver controlled amounts of grain to cattle and sheep, helping them get more value from the pasture already available.
Make Every Mouthful Count
It’s not just how much grass livestock eat. It’s how efficiently they turn it into production.
Understanding the balance between pasture protein and energy can make a real difference to livestock performance, particularly during periods of rapid spring growth.
Watch our video to discover why high-quality pasture doesn’t always deliver better production and how simple grain supplementation can help.
For more information, check out our Information Sheet on Managing Excess Protein.
