Feeding cows through the dairy has helped reduce Bryan and Tesha Gibson herd’s empty rate, without any hormone intervention.
The Reporoa farmers haven’t used any intervention in their system for years and have battled to get their empty rate under 10%.
“It was frustrating – we sat between 9% and 10% for 10 years,” Tesha says.
Bryan’s philosophy is to look at why a cow is not cycling, rather than intervene with a temporary solution.
“If a cow’s not cycling there is something causing her not to produce hormones, which is most probably an energy deficit. A CIDR won’t fix her energy deficit.
“I’d rather fix the problem than stick a band-aid on it.”
He stopped using CIDRs in 2008 after he did a trial with a veterinarian on 35 young cows that were not cycling.
Half the cows were given CIDRS and the other half were put on once-a-day (OAD) milking for a month.
The results were one empty cow in the OAD group and four in the CIDR group. The OAD group also averaged an earlier calving date and out-produced the CIDR group.
He stopped doing inductions because he didn’t like euthanasing premature calves.
“It was a personal decision, I want to enjoy farming and I didn’t like that.”
Last year they installed an in-dairy feeding system in their 40-aside herringbone just before mating and their empty rate fell to 6%.
Having the feeding system averaged out the cows because they all had access to the same amount of feed.
“You’re giving every cow the right amount, the fat cows don’t eat it all. Cow condition is a lot more consistent – the bell-shape curve tightens.”
Bryan, a former agricultural engineer, and accountant Tesha left the city for farming 14 years ago.
They now own 25% of Bryan’s parents’ farm at Reporoa. It’s a former sheep and beef property that lies across three plateaus. Bryan and Tesha lease the farm from the equity partnership company, milking 436 crossbreds.
The pair has always tried to run a low-cost system, which includes their mating decisions.
“Our system is really simple, stripped back and basic,” Bryan says.
They were feeding palm kernel in trailers but now feed less quantity of higher-quality palm kernel blends through the dairy, which has pulled the farm back from System 4 to System 3.
It’s a more sustainable method for feeding the cows rather than the mess the trailers caused on races, and less labour intensive.
Having a low environmental footprint is extremely important to Bryan and Tesha. A third of the hilly farm is bounded by the Waikato River, where they regularly swim and water ski with their two children during summer.
Several years ago they joined the Tomorrow Farms Today project, which set out to find the most profitable farming system with the lowest environmental footprint.
It was great to learn they were running the most profitable and most sustainable operation, with their nitrogen leaching ranging from 18 to 28kg nitrogen/ha.
“It was nice to have confirmation of what we were doing – that we weren’t sacrificing the environment for profit, or sacrificing profit for being sustainable,” Tesha says.
They have a low stocking rate of 2.6 cows/ha and apply a maximum of 70kg N/ha. They’ve fenced off all the waterways, and are creating wetland areas.
They bought a 105ha runoff at Atiamuri last year and their next mission is to fence it to the same standard as the dairy farm.
They consider the runoff and the home farm as one unit when it comes to their nutrient budgets, Bryan says.
The key driver to purchase the runoff was to take more ownership of their young stock, Tesha says.
“Young stock is our big focus now, the weights coming into the herd haven’t been good. This year our heifers came in shockingly light at 345kg.”
While they have small cows, that’s still 100-140kg below where they should be.
The heifers are only producing 85% of their liveweight in their first year and while they’re matching the herd when they’re three-year-olds, the aim is to get them to more than 95% in their first year, she says.
“The heifers have been producing and cycling really well, but they want them to come into the herd as a bigger animal.”
Tesha is in charge of recording the calves and yearlings weights – fortnightly for calves, six-weekly for yearlings – to monitor their progress and is happy this year’s yearlings are almost at the weight of this year’s heifers with eight months before calving.
She also trialled a new system to wean the calves this year at an average of 65kg. The criteria was they had to be at least 42 days old, 13% of their liveweight target and eating 1kg of meal.
So far it seems to be paying off with the calves putting on 0.72kg/day, she says.
Growing animals to their full potential by the time they are heifers will increase production and ultimately they will be able to milk fewer cows, which is always the aim, Bryan says.
They employ two full-time staff working on an 8-2-8-3 roster with Bryan covering in the dairy on their days off. They need two people in the dairy because there are no automatic cup removers. With the extra work at the runoff they might consider getting a relief milker.
A big advantage for their equity growth has been using Bryan’s engineering skills. They buy a lot of old contracting gear that he fixes up.
Bryan works with their neighbour to do all their spraying, cultivation and harvesting. They had a helicopter contractor to spread fertiliser on the runoff earlier this year – the first contractor they had hired for several years.
“He’s my secret weapon. That’s why our farm expenses are so low,” Tesha says.
“Our philosophy is if we can do it ourselves it’s always best.”
Key points
- Owners: Bryan and Tesha Gibson
- Location: Reporoa
- Area: 170ha effective
- Farm dairy: 40-aside herringbone, in-dairy feeding
- Runoff: 105ha
- Nitrogen leaching: 18-28kg N/ha
- Herd: 436 crossbred
- 2014-15 Production: 179,000kg milksolids, 2015-16 target 188,000kg
- Pasture harvested: 9-11t kg DM/ha
- Supplement onfarm: 17ha rape/turnips, 7ha swede/kale
- Bought-in supplement: 2014-15 – 320t palm kernel. This season volume will be reduced with palm kernel blends and tapioca.
- Mating 2014-15: 90% 3-week submission rate, 78% 6-week conception rate
- BW: 128/57
- PW: 140/65
