North Canterbury farmer Cameron Henderson has slashed $1.20/kg milksolids (MS) from farm working expenses this season, creating a leaner, more efficient business in the short term.
But he warns that, if left as they are, some of the cuts he’s made just aren’t sustainable and wouldn’t be in the best interests of the long-term health of the 730-cow operation.
“Some of the big changes we’ve made are short-term, critical savings to get through – I wouldn’t want to be running my farm like this every year,” he says.
This season farm working expenses will be $3.30/kg MS if he meets budgeted production targets – that’s down from $5.40/kg MS last season when costs on a per kg MS basis were pushed up because of the drought and a shortfall in production.
“If we’d met the production target we would have been at $4.50/kg MS last season so we’ve really shaved just over $1/kg MS off this year’s budgeted costs,” he says.
One of the deepest cuts to the budget this season has been in the wages bill, with Cameron returning to take over the helm and run the farm with just two other full-time staff and one part-time milker.
It has meant long hours for him and few days off but as a stop-gap measure it was a must.
Last season’s hot, dry summer put the farm’s groundwater irrigation source under a lot of pressure with two of its wells starting to go dry in February.
The drought sucked 50,000kg MS out of the farm’s budgeted production – a loss that hurt even more because some other key targets weren’t met. Cameron decided the best move was to return to the farm and take tighter control.
The 33-year-old is originally from Waikato and he and his family run the home farm and the Canterbury unit within the same business.
MOVE TO SHORT GESTATION GENETICS
This season Cameron’s shifted to all artificial insemination (AI) and no bulls, making use of LIC’s short-gestation length (SGL) semen in the programme.
In the past he’s had issues with bull lameness, how rough they can be on farm infrastructure as well as the disease risk they can pose and the general management of the boisterous animals in the herd.
He estimates it will cut mating costs by $13,568 and will also help tighten the calving pattern – although he’ll be watching that gestation lengths live up to the claims.
“The extra days in milk are a huge chunk of the benefit in running this kind of programme so we have to be certain we’re actually getting them.”
Last season they used bulls for three weeks post AI and then followed up with three weeks SGL. The SGL-mated cows calved an average eight days earlier than normal which was two days short of the 10 days claimed.
This year’s programme includes more extensive use of SGL:
- Weeks 1-4 AI using high breeding worth (BW) LIC semen.
- Weeks 5-6 AI using high BW SGL.
- Weeks 7-8 AI using Hereford SGL as a marker.
- Weeks 9-10 AI using SGL crossbred.
The camera has made it possible to do all 10 weeks’ AI mating at lower staffing levels. While it’s taken a little bit of adjusting to get the camera working exactly as it should, Cameron says it’s been well worth the $20,000 initial cost particularly because they’ve been able to use LIC’s finance option to break up payments.
He spent the first 10 days of mating on the stand making sure it was picking up cows accurately but then left it to the automated system.
Some people do that over the pre-mating period but Cameron didn’t want to spend money on the EZ Heat patches before planned start of mating and used tail paint instead.
