Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

RAHMANN G & GODINHO D (Ed.) (2012): Tackling the Future Challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry.
Proceedings of the 2 nd OAHC, Hamburg/Trenthorst, Germany, Sep 12-14, 2012
A rotational winter grazing system for beef cattle – production costs in relation
to animal welfare, working environment and environmental impact
EVA SALOMON 1 , KARL-IVAR KUMM 2 , LENA LIDFORS 2 ,
KRISTINA LINDGREN 1 , GUNNAR TORSTENSSON 2
1 JTI- Swedish Institute of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, Sweden,
www.jti.se eva.salomon@jti.se
2 SLU- Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences Sweden, www.slu.se
Abstract
Keeping beef cattle outdoors during winter could be inexpensive. Our objective was to design a
rotational grazing system that can fulfil the aims of low production costs, good animal welfare,
good working environment and low environmental impact. The design produced was evaluated
during two years with suckler cows (71 cows ha -1 month -1 ) given access to a weather shelter, a new
pen every month and a new feeding area every week. The system was set up in autumn and only
manually portable equipment was moved during winter. Calculations included annual investment
and labour costs for two design cases compared with indoor wintering. Annual costs in a 38suckler
cow herd were SEK 1500 and 1200 cow -1 for the two design cases, compared with SEK
3000 cow -1 for conventional indoor wintering. The rotational grazing design has the potential to
achieve good animal welfare and a good working environment, but phosphorus surface runoff losses
are too high.
Key words: design, investment, equipment, working hours
Introduction
Grazing cattle are needed in Sweden to preserve 450 000 hectares of semi-natural grasslands with
high biodiversity, but declining economic margins for Swedish beef production and high costs of
conventional indoor wintering of cattle make grazing economically unsustainable in many cases.
Cheap outdoor wintering might improve the sustainability of beef production and grassland management
(Kumm et al., 2005). Keeping cattle outdoors improves animal health and allows them to
express their natural behaviour (Keeling and Jensen, 2002). However, keeping cattle in permanent
pens can have negative environmental effects, due to excessive accumulation of excreta increasing
the risk of nutrient runoff during periods of high precipitation or snowmelt (Uusi-Kämppä, 2002).
Rotating pens can reduce the risk of excretion point loads and runoff (Dahlin et al., 2005). The
working environment in beef cattle farming involves high risks concerning health and security
(Stiernström et al., 1998) which must also be minimised. Our objective was to design and test a
flexible rotational grazing system for beef cattle during winter and evaluate the production costs.
Materials and methodology
The experimental design was tested and evaluated during two winter periods (November-April) on
a commercial organic beef farm in western Sweden (59 o 20’N; 13 o 7’E). The site was chosen to represent
extensive beef production in a forest district with less than 400 annual working hours per
farm.
The experimental design aimed to imitate a rotational beef cattle system for winter rearing on arable
land with clover/grass in the final winter before ploughing and subsequent reseeding. The experimental
design also aimed to be flexible concerning herd size (5-50 cattle), arrangement of a weather
shelter supporting a number of pens (1-4) and portability.
93