Sprout drought buster at Tamworth - Tamworth NSW

A guaranteed supply of fresh nutritious green feed daily has transformed a small goat enterprise near Tamworth from drought survival to expansion planning mode.

Lynda Coffey has faced a challenging string of dry seasons since moving from the Singleton region to the small 20ha property in the Daruka, district four years ago.

“It was really hard to keep going buying in expensive feed, particularly through the long dry winters,” she said.

“Now I am growing my own grain sprouts the change has been just amazing,” said Mrs Coffey who operates Nannytime Dairy Goats.

Mrs Coffey saw the feeding system manufactured by Toowoomba company Fodder Solutions at the AgQuip field day and invested in a unit in October last year.

It produces more than 144 kilos of sprouts each day, grown from 22 kg of barley for twice daily feeding to her goats, nine crossbred beef calves and six horses kept by her daughter Caitlin, an eventing enthusiast.

The climate-controlled growing chamber has given feed security regardless of seasonal conditions, bringing her dream of establishing a small cheese-making enterprise closer to reality.

She has been experimenting with the production of specialty cheeses for her own use and believes from her experience in the food industry there would be a ready local market.

“Without the economical fodder supply it would have been just impossible to build up my herd numbers enough to consider cheese making,” Mrs Coffey said.

She currently has 25 pedigree goats, mostly Saanen with some British Alpine and Anglo Nubians and would like to build up to 40 milkers.

Her goats have been successfully exhibited at shows including Sydney Royal this year and she has exported young stock to Indonesia.

“The goats took to the sprouts straight away and I just feed them with some cheap oat hay for roughage. They get about 2.5 kilos of sprouts each a day and are really thriving on their new diet.”

“It is costing me a lot less money and milk production has also gone up with some of my goats giving as much as half a litre a day more when they went onto the sprouts,” Mrs Coffey said.

“The calves have done really well on the sprouts and the horses now just get a few pellets and a bit of roughage with their sprouts.”

“Our feed bill has gone way down and the fodder unit has been a really great investment,” Mrs Coffey said.