Friday, March 29, 2024

Feedpad a favourite

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Installing a feedpad has had a significant effect on the bottom line for Mark and Kelsey Williams. They told Anne Lee that as well as reducing feed waste, it has also reduced the fertiliser bill.
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Mark and Kelsey Williams spent $150,000 on a feedpad for their 600-cow Canterbury conversion and after just two seasons they think it’s almost paid for itself.

That’s not to say the dollars from savings in cutting feed wastage are automatic– little, if any, might get trampled but there are still a few tricks to ensuring cows can make the most of the infrastructure, and the calculator has to get a good work-out to ensure the extra inputs are earning a good return.

Mark notes that the price of concrete, especially in Canterbury thanks to earthquake rebuild demand, has probably hiked by about 30% since he converted the farm too.

The couple are originally from the West Coast and have had a varied career running a supermarket, flying helicopters, and bottling water at Tai Tapu, as well as farming.

They’d owned 80ha at Aylesbury, near Darfield where they grew lucerne but when a 100ha dryland sheep farm along the road came up for sale they decided putting milk in the vat was more their cup of tea than putting water in bottles.

While they got in before Canterbury’s Land and Water Plan changes that limit intensification through nitrate leaching restrictions, the consenting process was drawn out.

It may have meant some “jumping through hoops” but Mark and Kelsey also genuinely want to ensure the farm is sustainable in every way – land, water, people, cows, and the bank balance.

“We wanted to be as sustainable and green as we could be – it’s not just about having to, we want to do our bit,” Mark says.

The couple are in their third season now and are hoping it’s third time lucky given they’ve had big stretches through the previous two when watering the farm was a major problem.

‘With the rainfall here we didn’t believe we needed a roof and the bank wasn’t likely to fund one either.’

In the first season delays created problems and then last year a powerful wind storm crumpled their pivot irrigator and left 80ha of the 100ha milking platform without water until early December.

Mark says fingers crossed normal conditions will prevail this season so he can see exactly what the farm can grow in a typical year.

Last season they made use of the lease block across the road to add more grazing area but had to quickly scramble and get a turborainer irrigator up and running there.

Mark diligently does his homework and before the conversion getting underway, researched various ways to feed cows up to a third of their diet as supplement. He settled on the uncovered feedpad rather than feeding grain in the farm dairy mainly because of the cost of grain. He expected that supply would tighten and affordability continue to be a factor.

“With the rainfall here (about 750mm/year) we didn’t believe we needed a roof and the bank wasn’t likely to fund one either,” he quips.

The 1000m2 feedpad sits next to the dairy and mirrors the rectangular yard. The yard and 40-aside herringbone dairy also sit on an area of about 1000m2. Mark went for a herringbone rather than a rotary dairy mainly on cost.

A 20m wide lime-based lane runs between the yard and feedpad area and was put in to give the regulation distance from the cups in the farm dairy to the nearest feed trough.

While he queries the sense in the rule, given in-dairy feeding is allowed, the lane has proved to be a great asset for holding cows and managing cow flow on to the feedpad.

The gate setup lets cows move from the lane and on to the feedpad at either end, also allowing cows to spread out more evenly along the concrete feed troughs.

The fall on the yard is 75:1 while it’s 50:1 on the lane and feedpad area, allowing the yard to be cleaned easily by floodwash while the other two areas are scraped which reduces water use and the volume of effluent coming off the hard surface areas. The lesser gradient also helps cows with their footing.

Mark uses greenwash for the yard washdown with the water pumped off the top of the effluent storage pond, saving about 45,000 litres a day in fresh water.

Effluent solids are mechanically separated using a screen so the pond is simply green water.

Mark says it’s important to rinse the screen off every day to ensure no blockages and keep it running smoothly, but rinsing only takes a couple of minutes in the morning routine. The yard washdown runs into a wedge and stone trap before it’s gravity-fed through a pipe to a large concrete saucer. From there the effluent is pumped through the separator with the liquid piped via gravity to the 2 million litre pond that gives a month’s storage.

The feedpad allows Mark to push stocking rate and production, helps keep feed costs down, and contains his environmental footprint, although it does mean a bit more gear.

That way quality is high with the crop ensiling well as pit silage for about 26c/kg DM fed out.

Solids from the feedpad are spread out on to the lucerne every two weeks, reducing fertiliser requirements and helping build organic matter and water-holding capacity in the soil.

The solids are also spread out on the maize ground before the 20ha crop goes in.

To top up his home-grown maize supplement, which includes 10ha on the lease block, Mark buys in 20ha of the crop from a neighbour. He costs home-grown maize at 26c/kg DM fed out and purchased maize at 34c/kg DM.

All up, he puts about 1200t of maize and lucerne into pit silage.

An annual ryegrass crop goes in after the maize.

This year Mark is also going to grow fodder beet on about 4ha of the milking platform that’s irrigated by solid set sprinklers on posts.

He’s hoping for a 26-28t DM/ha crop and will lift some and use it later in the autumn to transition cows slowly onto the crop where he plans to winter some of the cows.

For the past two seasons they’ve been wintered off with a grazier.

Mark and Kelsey haven’t had any youngstock to graze as, up until this year, they’ve sold all calves at four days old and bought in high-producing three-year-olds.

This year the herd is of good enough quality that they’re keeping the top 45 calves and next year plan to keep about 80.

Mark doesn’t focus on Breeding Worth but bases decisions on his own records, particularly production based on four herd tests through the season.

Key points
Cows:
600 Friesian-cross
Supplement: 800kg DM/cow target
Farm working expenses: $4/kg MS
Production: 300,000kg MS
Farm dairy: 40-aside herringbone
Automation: Protrack, ADF
Machinery: Telehandler, mixer wagon, tractor – total $210,000.

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