A strong emphasis on genetics in Craig Passey’s herd is “partly nature, partly nurture”, and is paying off in the vat, in the paddock and in stock sales.
Craig’s and wife Raewyn’s high Breeding Worth (BW) and relatively young herd boosts their milk income stream with high production of 494kg MS/cow, good prices for culled cows sold on to other herds, and high heifer prices from export as well as selling bulls to semen providers.
There is a strong history of breeding using artificial insemination (AI) on the Passeys’ Manawatu family farm – Craig’s father George used AI on his Kairanga farm from day one when he took over the 19ha rehab farm from his father.
When Craig came on the scene in 1978 he worked on the property for a couple of years before moving to a 39% sharemilking contract in 1981 and buying the herd of 100 cows in 1983. By that stage the property was 32ha with a 13ha leaseblock, and Craig and Raewyn have since bought up small surrounding parcels of land, to build a 510-cow seasonal supply herd on the 191ha milking platform, including two lease blocks of 10 and 11ha.
Craig trained as an AI technician and has always bought nominated semen because he wanted to choose temperament, udder and conformation traits in the cows as well as concentrating on high BI and latterly BW genetics.
Since the early years, when he crossbred the cows but struggled with what to do after the first cross, the herd has transitioned to Friesian which he has always liked. He has steered away from using large-framed American bull genetics because he wanted to maintain cow efficiency and avoid growing the herd frame too big on the winter-wet Te Arakura silt loams.
“I love the Friesians’ capacity but we are careful about the mature size of the herd,” he says.
“No farm is perfect and this one can be quite wet, so we are mindful of protecting the pastures by wintering most of the cows off the platform and all of it bar one small block is tile-drained.”
Wintering off on an 82ha runoff on the Bulls sand country allows him to get the cows off the milking platform and also run his young stock himself, making sure he is growing them to their potential.
Having his own young stock block also allows him to retain high numbers of the high genetic merit heifers and sell the surplus over and above the 25% he puts back into the herd each year.
Craig and his team of herd manager son Tyler, 2IC Andrea Wood and farm assistant Hadyn Williamson rear 150-170 heifer calves, the product of six-and-a-half weeks of AI, and sell 35-45 weaner heifers before Christmas. Craig has been selling them to China and last year they fetched $950 each.
“We sell them based on BW but the China market seems to have dried up so we are currently looking at other markets.”
Older cows are also sold on to milking herds rather than going to the freezing works, and stock sales contribute 15% of the income from the Passeys’ herd.
Craig prefers to keep a young herd with an average age of 4.3 years, saying selling 120 cows from the herd at a younger age means they are more marketable. The 50-60 empties are usually sold to go into milking herds the following year.
“It’s easier to find a home and get good money for them. At $1100 this year it’s a good margin over the works price.”
The top 30% of replacement heifers are brought home from the runoff for three-and-a-half weeks of AI. This year Craig used crossbred semen on most of them, to give him options with more heifer calves to select from. The elite heifers were contract-mated through LIC.
The cows are artificially inseminated while on the rotary platform at both morning and afternoon milkings, because Craig says it’s easier on the cows than drafting them off and having them standing around.
“The cows are nice and relaxed as they have just finished milking and because we are doing it twice a day there are usually only 10 or 15 to inseminate.”
“If cows are cycling in the morning we note them on the whiteboard and inseminate them in the afternoon and then take note of cycling cows and do them the following morning.”
Empties ran at 13% this year, which Craig says is the result of condensing the mating to 9.5 weeks and tailing up with a Jersey bull for just one cycle.
“The empty rate is coming down, it’s getting better.”
Craig is a trained technician and gets into the dairy at mating time but for the rest of the season oversees the platform and is in charge of the runoff. Andrea Wood joined the team four years ago and has a passion for genetics, so two of them are able to do the inseminating.
The young cows – two- and three-year-olds – are run in a separate herd to older cows, which Craig says suits the farm and takes a lot of pressure off the younger herd.
“Separating them is easier on the younger cows and means they can be milked first with less mastitis and less chance of transferring infection into the herd. The furthest paddocks are 1.5km away so we can minimise the distance they have to travel.”
Craig and farm manager Tyler Passey in the summer turnip crop.
Craig’s and Raewyn’s son Tyler joined the family operation at 18, after spending a year at Taratahi. He now runs the day-to-day operation with Craig stepping out of the dairy to concentrate on the runoff and young stock.
Andrea didn’t grow up on a dairy farm but has found her niche on the Passeys’ farm and discovered how much she is interested in genetics.
After completing an agriculture degree she fell into a relief milking job with John and Wendy Allen, followed by a permanent job with the Passeys. With her interest in breeding Craig encouraged her to train as a technician and for two of the past three years she has had a small LIC run as well as inseminating the Passeys’ herd.
Mating choices are a shared discussion and then Craig makes the final bull decisions. The top 50% are also entered into LIC’s Customate, where by identifying the traits the Passeys are most interested in and prioritising them, the programme ranks all AB sires on the index created.
“We can override the choices made if we decide it’s not quite right for each individual cow, taking into account udder, conformation and fertility and the bloodlines of the cows.”
“Especially for the older cows with lower BW because of their age, if their BW is lower than 140 we override the Customate choice.”
Craig and Raewyn established the Aronamee Friesian stud when their first bull calf was chosen by Livestock Improvement in the 1990s. While it’s been ticking away over the years, Craig says his enthusiasm has been rejuvenated and he is getting into it more with less time pressure and keen young staff coming on board.
He has dealt with both semen companies in the past with Passeys Kapiti popular in the 1990s and Aronamee JB Justice in the Ambreed team for many years.
“He has just dropped out of the top 50.”
Seven bull calves from a contract mating of 15 cows through LIC and an embryo transfer programme with two R2 heifers last season resulted in three being chosen as weaner bulls to go through for testing. One has also gone to Ambreed.
“That’s the ultimate – to have a top bull come through, and there is always a bit of a decision to take as to whether to take a fixed fee and sell them to the company or pin your hopes on royalties,” Craig says.
Weaner bulls can sell for $4000 to the semen company and a further $7000 paid if the animal makes it through testing into the bull team.
To have a bob each way he has decided to sell two and keep the most promising weaner bull under the royalties scheme where $2000 is paid up front and then a royalty of 50c/straw sold.
Andrea has enjoyed learning about the genetics side of the operation, so much that she sees her future in the genetics industry and is keen on pursuing a future there in the next few years.
Tile draining and regrassing 15% of the Te Arakura silt loams on the Kairanga farm each year has made a huge difference, Craig says.
“It’s getting to the stage that it’s hard to know which paddocks to pull out and renew next.”
Twenty hectares of the regrassing each year is done through a summer crop of turnips then into a permanent pasture of Bealey, two white clovers and chicory and a further 8ha is sprayed out and direct-drilled with the new grass mixture.
“Because we winter most of the cows off at the runoff we can afford to drop the paddocks out of the rotation to regrass them.”
The 130 yearlings return to the milking platform in late April for 8-10 weeks to graze the new grass paddocks, lowering the stocking
rate at the runoff. After wintering off the cows come home in stages just before calving, with the first arriving in mid-July for the July 30 calving start date and late cows not returning to the milking platform until September.
Craig runs a low-cost system concentrating on grass, with balage and 1000kg/cow palm kernel introduced for the shoulders of the season, supplements chosen because they are good for production and easy for the staff to feed.
No nitrogen is used on the farm. Craig says he prefers to run a lower stocking rate and aim at higher performance per cow with the grass and clover pastures with chicory adding great forage over the summer along with the turnip crop.
The weakness of the system is the pasture can get wet and buttercup sneaks in over the recovery period from a wet winter. While pasture can be sprayed for buttercup, the chicory will take a hit.
“We are going to have to work through that this summer after last winter’s wet conditions,” Craig says.
Fertiliser has been applied at a maintenance dressing of 250kg/ha this season of Sulphurgain 15S which Craig says is a minimum level for the production this low payout season.
Keeping the system simple has allowed Craig to drive costs down to $3.12/kg MS which is below the normal level of $3.30 but he says it’s depressing to have such a poor return and is looking forward to the payout lifting and the industry moving to a more profitable level.
“We have always worked on developing a high BW herd, because I have always looked on the cows as a high-value but easily-transferred asset.”
FARM FACTS
- Owners: Craig and Raewyn Passey
- Location: Kairanga, Manawatu
- Area: 191ha milking platform
- Herd: 510 mainly Friesian
- System: Level 2-3
- Stocking rate: 2.67 cows/ha
- Production: 494kg MS/cow, 1320kg MS/ha. Peak milk 2.4kg MS/day in 2015
- Season total 252,000kg MS
- Staff: 3 plus Craig
- BW/PW: 139/149, 98% reliability
- Average age: 4.3 years
- Supplement: 1000kg palm kernel/cow/yr
