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James Male runs a mixed grazing and farming enterprise at Yerong Creek, 30 kilometers south of Wagga Wagga NSW. At the end of 2009 James began designing a lamb feedlot to finish his own lambs and also local store lambs. James wanted an intensive operation with a four thousand head capacity. The Male family are firm believers in the adage that you do things once and you do them right.
“We did a fair bit of research when setting up the feedlot because we wanted to get it right from the start.”
There are many schools of thought on feedlots, however, James is convinced that he has a innovative and professional set up.
The Males considered many factors when designing their feedlot. The pen size is a vital consideration and James understands this importance. They need to be large enough to limit crowding but small enough to have good accessibility to feed and water while still compacting the yards and not fouling them up.
The induction pens are much smaller and this is to split the lambs up in to close weight groups. This allows room for shy feeders and avoids trough bullying by larger lambs.
James has even thought of the fine detail by providing log features in each of the pens. James’ research indicated that by providing play equipment for lambs, they were much more inclined to feed at more regular intervals.
Obviously the most integral part of a feedlot are the feeders themselves. Self-feeders are the most cost effective form of feed-lotting because of the minimal labour input needed. The self-feeders include welded slippers for ease of movement with a front end loader and a fully adjustable shelter flap to eliminate denting and damage in transport.
The ProWay self-feeder has a large cubic volume of 1.3 tonnes to reduce the frequency of refill. The lid is easy to slide and retracts fully to allow access across the whole bin to ensure an even distribution of ration and utilisation of cubic space inside the feeder.
The ProWay self feeder also features an Australian patented easy to use metering system to restrict animal intake and gorging, which can be very important in the induction phase. After running several thousand lambs through his feedlot, the benefits were obvious for James
“I am happy with how the feedlot has panned out. I like the design features of the ProWay lick feeder because it makes my job easier. I would have no hesitation in recommending the ProWay lick feeder.”
