With farmers considering their winter housing options and the price and availability of straw not looking likely to stabilise, business savvy producers should be looking at the alternatives. image expired

Quality Meat Scotland has produced a revised and updated version of a booklet to help farmers optimise bedding use and consider the wide range of alternative products available to Scottish livestock producers. QMS said that although its booklet is targeted at cattle producers, a section has been added for sheep and pigs.

Bedding cattle on straw is the usual practise in Scotland, but availability is likely to be low for parts of the UK this year and the cost of getting straw delivered could be high. Furthermore, timeliness of harvesting and re-planting has seen a lot of straw being chopped and incorporated into the soil at harvest time and this has led to reduced availability to producers.

Using no bedding or keeping stock in poor conditions could be classed as a welfare issue and could cause a penalty on the Single Farm Payment. It can also reduce animal performance and increase the risk of ill health.

Other products suitable as bedding material are on the market and the new booklet explores these materials and their suitability, lists materials unsuitable for bedding and provides some cost savings from the use of alternatives.

According to Ian Pritchard, Scottish Agricultural College Select Services Beef Specialist, who researched the content for the booklet with Dr Basil Lowman and Dr John Vipond, it is well worth farmers putting some thought into how they use bedding most efficiently.

“Some of the tips in the booklet may seem like common sense but too often simple steps which can produce big benefits are overlooked. For example a lot of extra straw is used because of leaking water troughs or guttering,” said Mr Pritchard.

“Some of these alternative materials such as oilseed rape straw, sawdust and woodchips have been used for a number of years but in many situations other producers should consider them as potentially replacing straw,” said Mr Pritchard.

Recent analysis by SAC established that there is a lack of awareness of the suitability of alternative bedding materials which are available to livestock producers and the advantages of their use in many situations. QMS said it believes better understanding of alternatives and their increased uptake on farms could reduce overheads and lead to a financial benefit.