Being in the best Breeding Worth (BW) herd in the country doesn’t equate to getting an easy ride for the cows.
Tim and Wendy Watson’s Jersey crossbred herd has to ramble up steep terrain to get their grass most days on a farm that is just 25% mowable – and those paddocks still have health and safety issues for contractors.
“It’s probably one of the steeper dairy farms you’ll see,” Tim says.
Nestled in the hills at Richmond Downs, west of Matamata, the farm is traditional sheep and beef country.
The ash soils dry out quickly and the farm has been hit hard by drought in the past few summers, adding another challenge for the DairyNZ System 2 operation.
Jersey cows are ideally suited to the farm because of its contour, but Tim has bred towards a more lightweight crossbred herd in recent years because of BW ratings.
“I want to have light cows and I believe in Jerseys, but I’ve had to slip away from Jerseys a bit because the gap in BW has been quite big.”
The Watson herd remains 40% pure Jerseys, with the remainder a mixture of crossbred cows.
The change in the conversion of liveweight information in the breeding value last year, however, has given the Jersey breed a boost in herd BW and Tim plans to breed back to a more traditional Jersey herd.
Having a strong knowledge of the BW system and being aware of the changes to its value is of benefit to any farmer who wants to breed a top herd, Tim says.
“I’ve got a reasonable knowledge of the BW system. It can be confusing if you don’t understand it, but knowledge is power. People that understand the system, it’s an advantage to them.”
Tim grew up on the Waikato family farm, and he and Wendy originally ran sheep and beef before they reconverted to dairy in 1987. However, cows have been milked for 80 of the 96 years the family have been farming in Richmond Downs.
One of their earlier sharemilkers, Simon Brough, is particularly interested in breeding and injected his enthusiasm about the BW system.
“We bought a reasonably good herd to start with, but like most people we also bought a lot of crappy cows. He inspired me into breeding better cows.”
Tim has a passion for breeding and would like to spend more time on it, but as their business has expanded this has become more challenging.
“Tim’s persistent. He has worked really hard on it, but we have a bigger business to look after as well,” Wendy says.
The couple have four adult offspring, some of whom work with them in the business, but they are all positive and enthusiastic about the farm. The couple hope the herd will be carried on by the next generation to get the reward for the high BW herd.
Currently the cows that get replaced in the herd get filtered into the other two herds, rather than selling to the market for extra income. They average about 10 contract matings at the moment.
“Our herd probably needs someone to grab them and market them properly. My knowledge of breeding is limited so I’m not one to push a good cow who I think should be contract mated.
“I’m pretty casual. I’m just a cocky who happens to have some good cows.”
Breeding the best BW herd in New Zealand comes down to a couple of key factors.
Tim and Wendy still buy a number of young stock occasionally from top herds with good BW to bring in outside genetics and continue to lift the average of their herd.
Buying cows off other farmers has certainly helped build their herd’s BW, Tim says.
“Buying young stock and getting some really top cows, that’s been a significant factor.”
Embracing new technology has also helped, but it’s also hindered them in the past.
They were one of the early adopters of GeneMark and used the first genomic bulls to the market. In one of the early years there were some problems, but the GeneMark technology has improved and it’s a great tool, especially when you have staff running the farm on a daily basis.
“We fully embrace technology. It sounds so exciting, why wouldn’t you do it. Someone has to be the first to get it off the ground.”
Tim started using embryo transfer technology 27 years ago which has also helped accelerate the herd’s genetic gain. He selects two or three top cows occasionally to flush and uses the fertilised eggs in carryover cows.
He has also used artificial breeding (AB) for his R2s for 27 years, which is accessing the best genetics earlier.
One of the other factors to their success has to be the great staff they’ve had over the years.
“We have had some amazing people work for us. No one likes to be involved in an ET (embryo transfer) programme, with the extra stress it puts on people during mating.”
The herd AB run lasts for five to six weeks, with high BW bulls used after that for further replacements.
Tim leaves it up to contract milker Leejay Miln to organise heat detection and recording matings. He goes up to the farm dairy for the first week of mating to check how the cows are going, but then has the confidence to leave him to do it.
“I try to keep it as simple as possible so people can execute the programme I put in place.”
He tries to not use too many bulls in the same season and achieves genetic diversity between years.
Tim usually nominates the whole herd to selected sires, but for cost cutting purposes this season, he used LIC Premier Sires Forward Pack bull of the day over the bottom half of the herd, nominating sires for the rest.
He was aware of more changes coming for the BW system, which can often change the ranking of the bulls, he says.
“I don’t know where those bulls will be ranking, so I didn’t want to waste the money on the lower cows.”
The changes can sometimes sway BW ratings significantly.
“What was a good cow one year can be dog tucker the next.”
Using the BW system has definitely bred an efficient cow for their farm though. His herd is doing 300kg milksolids (MS)/cow on rough country and can still do 2kg MS/day no sweat, Tim says.
“If you get things right, they can do it just like ‘that’.
“You’ve got to have faith in it (BW system). Our industry has invested a lot into it and we’ve had some pretty smart people work on it.”
He is looking forward to a feed conversion efficiency value being introduced into the equation in the near future.
“It will be a great thing when they can do that. It’s probably the most important missing link at the moment.”
There are still improvements they want to make, particularly around growing their young stock. Tim and Wendy keep 25% replacements every year, but growing heifers to their full liveweight targets is probably their weakest area, Tim says.
In terms of their cows, Tim is always trying to improve milking speed, udder support and confirmation, because they often milk cows once-a-day.
“They’re not the best-uddered cows in the world. We probably persevere with three-titters, sometimes to our detriment.”
Cows are culled based on Production Worth. There has to be a strong reason to cull on BW, Tim says.
FARM FACTS
- Owners: Tim and Wendy Watson
- Contract Milkers: Leejay Miln and Jen Broderick
- Location: Richmond Downs, Matamata
- Area: 85ha
- Cows: 265 Jersey crossbred
- Production: 80,000kg milksolids, (300kg MS/cow)
- BW: 212
- PW: 242
- Fat to protein ratio: 74%
- Empty rate: 7%
