Thursday, March 28, 2024

Big, bigger, biggest

Avatar photo
It’s the world’s largest indoor robotic dairy farm under one roof, and it’s in South Canterbury. Anne Lee visited the Makikihi farm of Aad and Wilma van Leeuwen and found a large-scale system that meets the strict environmental standards of Canterbury farming.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

The first question that springs to mind once you’re over the wow factor at the van Leeuwen’s 1500-cow, 24-robot housed cow operation at Makikihi near Waimate is how they make it stack up financially – especially at a $5.30/kg milksolids (MS) milk price.

Depending on the price homegrown feed is valued at, this year the margin is tight to non-existent but long-term Aad and Wilma van Leeuwen are confident the system is profitable and sustainable.

Aad and Wilma aren’t strangers to robotics or large-scale investment and development.

From humble beginnings they’ve grown their family business to where they have 12 dairy farms and drystock operations and milk close to 13,000 cows. They’ve also been instrumental in bringing a second processor into the South Canterbury area through Chinese-owned Oceania Dairies.

The total capital investment in the 630ha Makikihi farm is $22 million which includes the $8.5m they paid for the land, the $4m they spent on 24 DeLaval voluntary milking system robots, and $4m they spent on the cubicle barn.

The balance was spent on three houses for some of the 11 staff who work two 12-hour shifts as well as a super-sized Permastore, above-ground effluent system, concrete feed bunkers and site works.

Two of their other farms are robotic and when the Makikihi farm is fully operational, near Christmas, they’ll have close to 3000 of their cows being milked through robots and 5000 cows housed in total.

The budget, based on their 500-cow robotic units running similar cut-and-carry systems to the Makikihi farm, relies heavily on cows achieving high average production of 700kg MS/cow initially, pushing that to 800kg MS/cow in the future.

The scrapeways are scraped continuously rather than just two to three times a day, minimising effluent underfoot and also improving milk quality outcomes.

Aad and Wilma have six children, all teenagers and young adults now. Two of them aren’t interested at all in indoor systems and robotics but the couple see the technology and sustainability factors as big drawcards for the next generation.

It takes a whole new set of skills to be successful compared with pasture-based dairying and Aad is the first to admit it’s not for everyone.

It’s not about simply putting a northern hemisphere system into play either – making it work means modifying feed inputs to improve viability, shrewd control over inputs, top stockmanship, and achieving high milksolids production rather than a focus on volume.

“This kind of system has a place here, definitely,” he says.

Key points

Area: 630ha
Cows: 1500 crossbred
Farm dairy: 24 DeLaval voluntary milking system robots
Barn type: 1500-cubicle system, 13,000m2 barn
Production target: 700-800kg milksolids (MS)/cow
Feed: 16kg drymatter (DM)/cow/day maize, lucerne, grass silage forage mix with 1.6kg/cow/day canola and 4kg/cow/day meal fed in robots
Farm working expenses: $4.56/kg MS @ 20c/kg DM feed cost and $5.39/kg MS @ 30c/kg DM feed cost
Equipment: Slurry tanker with dribble-bar/injector, three 140Hp tractors, a loader with sheer grab, 46m3 mixer wagon.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading