Our 2025 workshop series on Confinement Feeding have now concluded.
Thanks to all who joined us in person and online! We were thrilled to introduce the project ‘Developing practices for profitable, sustainable sheep production in a variable climate’. This project is supported by the Australian Government through funding from the Climate-Smart Agriculture Program under the Natural Heritage Trust. Led by Charles Sturt University (CSU) and in partnership with Green Blue Health Pty Ltd, Four Season Company Pty Ltd and JM Livestock, the project aims to discuss best practices and develop novel strategies which sheep producers can use to increase production, profit and resilience to climate variability while protecting our natural resources.
These initial workshops and the national webinar discussed practices around confined feeding (particularly at joining and lambing) as well as the use of supplements to increase production, mitigate heat stress and methane production in confined and grazing sheep. In addition, we worked through why sheep producers can and can’t adopt these novel strategies.
The workshops profiled the project team:
- Dr Christine Storer – Christine is an experienced agribusiness researcher who has delivered over 80 projects across Australia and internationally. Her work focuses on consumer insights through the meat supply chain and collaborative industry solutions. She has led award-winning resilience research with WA farmers and brings a lifetime of experience from both academia and practical sheep farming.
- Dr Susan Robertson – A leading researcher at Charles Sturt University since 2006, Susan specialises in practical, on-farm strategies to boost sheep productivity – particularly reproductive performance. Her published research spans lamb survival, sheep health, and containment feeding. She is also a passionate lecturer and mentor to emerging researchers.
- Mr Jim Meckiff – Jim is a seasoned livestock and agribusiness expert with hands-on experience across the full agricultural supply chain. He has held specialist sales and management roles in leading agribusinesses, with a strong focus on breeding, selection, and practical solutions that drive results for producers.
Further confinement feeding information and resources are available on every state agricultural department drought feeding websites, plus here are some additional links for extra information:
Drought and Supplementary Feed Calculator
Sheep Drought Feeding Book | Feeding Livestock | Agriculture Victoria
A guide to confinement feeding sheep and cattle in NSW
Join us as we continue to contribute to and hear the results from this project across the years!
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