Daniel and Rochelle Cammock were described as ‘exceptional farmers who are well ahead of the pack when it comes to utilisation of feed grown’ at their Dairy Business of the Year (DBOY) field day.
The high praise came from their bank manager who originally suggested the couple enter the awards. The couple were Wairarapa-Hawke’s Bay regional winners for farm performance in the 2015 awards.
“The bank suggested we had a go as we thought why not? It was a great experience, we met a lot of people within the industry and most importantly got to benchmark ourselves against some of the best in the industry. It demonstrated where we are at and where we can get to.”
The field day took an in-depth look into their systems focusing on the profitability, human resources and environmental management of the operation. These are the key areas where the couple are making a big impact and where their philosophy of doing everything efficiently really shines through, including their skills in livestock and pasture management.
Daniel and Rochelle came back to the family farm – owned and run by Daniel’s parents – in 2000 after a stint in the building industry for Daniel and retail and admin for Rochelle.
Wagyu calves provide an extra income source.
Starting on wages for two years, the couple then progressed to lower-order sharemilkers. In 2006 they formed a company with Daniel’s parents, and expanded the farm with a 30ha runoff block. Over the years, until 2011-12, they gradually bought out Daniel’s parents. Now owning the property outright they have changed the farm’s direction with a split herd.
Daniel and Rochelle run a split herd made up of 360 cows in the twice-a-day (TAD) and 110 in the once-a-day (OAD) milking herd. The decision to go for a split herd was at the time regarded as a pretty brave choice but the couple say they haven’t looked back.
“At that point we were sub-leasing some of the land and we said to the guy we wanted all of it. People thought I was pretty brave. I mean it’s a 3km walk, so they’re doing 6km a day, but I haven’t looked back.”
Since moving to a split-herd system they have seen improvements in their mating and general animal health with the ability to put cows that are struggling into the OAD herd. Although overall management of the farm has become easier with the system, it does present some logistical challenges.
“We like to have about 75-80 cows in that OAD herd because it’s not worth walking only a handful of cows that far to the dairy, which puts pressure on the platform here, which was tough over the hard winter we had this year, and that’s reflected in the milk production to date.”
In an effort to diversify and enticed by some impressive returns, the couple turned their hand to breeding and raising Wagyu calves. In their third year in contract with FirstLight, they say if it didn’t integrate easily with their farming system they wouldn’t have continued with it.
“It had to fit in with what we were doing – we didn’t want to be spending extra money or time on this, and so far it’s been really good.”
Wagyu bulls were provided for mating over their heifers free of charge for the first few years. Now bulls are leased out and the price per calf was bumped up to compensate for the added expense.
“When we first got into it we were getting $20-$30 tops for bobby calves out of heifers, and after we started leasing the bulls we were getting $85, so we were doubling our return per calf effectively.”
Target weaner weights are set at 90kg and a premium of $2 is paid for every kilogram over the target.
“We had a load of calves go off this morning with an average weight of 102kg, so we made about an extra $600 because of that.”
Having previously used calf-rearers, they found the less-robust Wagyus struggled a little with the change in systems. Rochelle now rears the calves right through.
“They aren’t a robust type of calf and need a bit more care and attention, which was another reason we decided to keep them on instead of sending them to a rearer once they hit four days old. I like to give all my calves that level of care and attention so it’s not really an increase in workload or anything.” Rochelle says.
Daniel says the net effect on his original budget (2014-15 season) was about $15,000 and although not a life-saver, helped pay a few wages and other things around the farm.
Animal health costs, which sit at $20 a cow, are brought down by good stockmanship and management.
“Lame cows are a good example. If she’s lame, we pull her out of the herd, reduce her walking by putting her outside the dairy and milk her once a day, and that’s some of the best intervention we have ever done. We used to muck around with glue-on hooves and all that.”
When it comes to mating, no CIDRs or intervention is used in an effort to cut costs, with only metritis checks being carried out each year. Teat sealing is off the list of animal health costs and dry cow treatment is done on a selective basis instead of blanket covering.
Wanting to move towards a more pasture-based system, palm kernel has been removed from the system. A higher focus on home-grown feed in the form of cereal silage grown at their runoff is relied on as supplement, which Daniel says suits their system better and allows higher utilisation.
“Utilisation of palm kernel was at best 50% in our system so wastage was a big factor, it wasn’t cost effective.”
For supplements to be considered the margins have to be there. “We aren’t into spending a dollar to make $1.01.”
Weekly farm walks are done and cover measured by Daniel’s “eye-o-meter” and validated with a pasture probe. Daniel gets his staff to use the pasture probe on farm walks and plot feed wedges to help them train their eye and learn about pasture management but the final decision-making of rotations sits with him.
“The plan always remains flexible to weather events. Paddock selection can be changed at any time if we need, too. At this time of year it’s pretty much set to five to seven days. The other night though we had a pretty extreme rain event, 50mm in about eight hours, and the paddock we had allocated tends to puddle a fair bit, so we switched it out for another one.”
Stocking rate is a key component to the success of their pasture management, having just the right numbers to manage pasture well.
There is a zero topping policy and paddocks are instead dropped out of the rotation for a light cut of balage or break-fed to the R2 heifers over a two-day period if target residuals are not met.
“We will take a paddock and allocate the days. We start them at one end and meet in the middle, then flip them back and start at the other end – that way they aren’t always treading over the part of the paddock they have already grazed so it encourages compounding growth.”
Utilisation and conversion of pasture is key for Daniel and Rochelle. The property is prone to boggy wet winters, which presents issues in winter and spring. On the support block, 250-300 cows are wintered along with young stock with the remainder on the milking platform but the couple are working on wintering more stock off the farm to ease pressure on the platform and reduce soil damage and retain pasture quality.
“The runoff block has quite different soil types so it doesn’t get as wet in winter, so that helps ease the pressure a little bit.”
Having a split herd also enables rapid adjustment to match demand and supply of feed as cows can be moved between mobs.
As part of entering the Dairy Business of the Year, they were provided with a full analysis of their financials, which were benchmarked against the average and top 10% of farmers. The Cammocks were noted at the field day as stacking up well particularly when it came to their operating expenses.
Although the 2015 DBOY competition was based on the 2013-14 season, they also provided a comparison for the 2014-15 season. The large drop in milk price explains the drop in figures such as return on capital and gross operating revenue, however they have managed to further decrease their cost of production and were also noted as having a resilient system in the wake of a lower payout.
“We are lucky in the sense that during the high payout we sunk in some capital expenditure and were able to pay off things like the new tractor and pay down some debt, so that took the pressure off a little bit last season. But we always monitor all costs.”
Maximising their utilisation and use of pasture has saved them money in supplement costs but like many farmers were faced with having to make some tough choices when it came to their 2014-15 budget.
“We cut repairs and maintenance back, cut back our drawings over and above our salary, deferred track maintenance and there’s been no capital expenditure. Fertiliser use and nitrogen have been cut back as well and we slowed down on the cropping. It’s been much of the same this year.”
The couple say efficiency will stay at the core of everything they do on their farm so they can remain resilient and continue to look for opportunities to learn and grow their knowledge.
Farm facts:
- Owners: Daniel and Rochelle Cammock
- Location: Dannevirke
- Area: 170ha effective
- Herd: 470 Friesian-Jersey, split herd
- Pasture harvested: 12.4 tonnes drymatter/ha
- Staff: Two full-time
Key points driving success
- Efficiency across all the operation
- Low expenses per hectare while still striving for good milk production per cow
- Stocking rate matched to long-term average pasture harvest
- High quality pasture
- Focus on core values, discard marginal inputs.
Changes made between 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons
- Repairs and maintenance cut
- Drawings over and above salary cut
- Fertiliser use cut back
- Nitrogen use reduced
- Minimal cropping
- No capital expenditure
