BredWell FedWell (BWFW) is a one-day workshop that has been successfully delivered to the sheep industry for 10 years, southern beef industry for three years and recently piloted for northern beef.
BWFW is a well-known brand and is attractive as an introduction to genetics and nutritional management of the breeding herd or flock. The workshop highlights the key production benefits of genetics and feed management for improved reproduction and focuses on the importance of combining these strategies to enable improvement in performance and therefore farm profit. Workshop participants are able to use the outcomes of the workshop to help analyse their current genetics and nutritional programs and develop plans suited to their environment and markets, to boost profitability. The workshops are increasingly becoming a platform for producers to progress to longer-term learning programs to generate on-farm practice change.
The workshops have been designed to focus on:
• improved understanding of how to use ASBVs/EBVs to improve enterprise profitability;
• how to develop a breeding objective for your sheep or cattle enterprise;
• the impact of better management of breeder nutrition on reproductive performance and profitability;
• skills in developing simple energy budgets for the breeder flock or herd; and
• using condition scoring, feed budgeting and ram and/or bull selection.
Schuster Consulting Group has been engaged to undertake a strategic review of BWFW and:
• update the BWFW content to ensure consistent, appropriate and relevant messaging;
• include new research;
• tailor content to species and regions;
• integrate with other learning pathways offered by Meat & Livestock Australia;
• encourage producer engagement with the program; and
• facilitate the training of new deliverers to expand program reach.
