Ben and Tracy McKerchar’s success improving their six-week in-calf rate hasn’t been achieved in a single leap nor has it been achieved in isolation.
Instead it’s been a journey of many steps and part of an overall drive to crank up the performance of the 1500- cow equity partnership just north of Christchurch where they’re now in their seventh season as operations managers.
It hasn’t been about pushing the farm to sit just above average, but taking it beyond that point. They’re aiming to post a scorecard in the top 10% for all key performance indicators.
Ben says somewhat ironically, this is looking like their best season yet in terms of physical KPIs, but thanks to the rock-bottom payout, it’ll be the first where they probably won’t make much, if any, profit.
He’s boosted per-cow production from about 410-415kg milksolids (MS) up to 455-460kg MS using close to half the supplements and at the same time lifting the six-week in-calf rate from 68% to 74%, all while reducing costs.
Most of the changes Ben has made have been about using targeted feeding to get cows to the critical body condition score (BCS) targets and improving the herd.
“When you’re trying to boost six-week in-calf rate it really is about BCS but it’s a constant ‘work-on’ because there are so many parts to it. When people talk about the pieces of a cake coming together, it’s so true.”
Every season’s different too so the tools will change even though targets remain similar, Tracy says.
“Condition score drives everything – get that right and the six-week in-calf rate goes up, empty rate goes down, your days in milk go up, production goes up, animal health costs go down – it’s all inter-connected.”
Stepping through their experience that’s included being part of LIC’s Six Week Challenge, www.6weeks.co.nz, Ben says a reset of stocking rate was one factor that helped boost BCS and production.
They brought adjacent support land into the milking platform and lifted cow numbers in 2011.
“What we didn’t really get our heads around for a couple of seasons was that we didn’t have the flexibility anymore of having extra grass available sometimes.
“It meant we’d actually pushed the stocking rate up and we ended up putting pressure on the whole system and pushing up our cost structure.
“It also had a negative effect on BCS and even though we were focusing on cost control and using best practice we just weren’t quite hitting our KPIs.”
After reviewing the numbers they dropped 100 cows, selecting the poorest performers, and bringing stocking rate back down from 3.72 cows/ha to 3.48.
Ben had also been gradually moving the planned start of calving back to more closely match feed demand to supply, settling at August 4.
Both stocking rate and calving date have to fit the pasture production curve for the farm – that’s the fundamental starting point, Ben says.
Ben monitors BCS throughout the season. He’s hands-on and always observing cows and grass.
He’s a self-described “real farmer” in that he’s always driving the onfarm systems to get the extra level of performance.
That’s why you’ll find Ben on the vet stand in the farm dairy himself assessing and checking cow condition, why he’ll get out in the paddock to see what residuals and pre-graze covers are doing, and why there can be up to four herds running at any one time.
“It might seem like a lot of extra effort but we talk a lot about being efficient here and paying attention to detail. Actively managing every aspect of what you do onfarm is how you really get things humming,” he says.
He’s equally as driven by the numbers and monitoring the myriad of data collected each week.
It’s used to report to the farm’s shareholders, and is shared with the local Rangiora Vet Centre through its monitor farms programme. But importantly it’s used to base decisions and actions on.
Too many people collect data and then do nothing with it, Ben says.
BCS is independently assessed by the vet four times a year, with the March and October assessments critical because the actions taken then can have real flow-on effects, Ben says.
The other two assessments include checking the dry-off targets are achieved and giving a heads-up to how cows are looking early in January.
Cow condition at mating
Two seasons ago Ben used the October information to create a once-a-day (OAD) milking herd at planned start of mating. It was made up of 200 lighter cows, below BCS 4.
They were fed preferentially, getting extra grain in the farm dairy and going into the paddock ahead of other cows.
Over eight weeks they gained 0.3-0.4 BCS.
“But we took action too late to have a big effect. We learnt from that and last mating we created the OAD herd at the start of October.”
He also changed the feeding regime for the OAD herd because, while it worked well for those cows, they’d selectively grazed the whole paddock and the composition of what remained wasn’t good enough for the following herd.
“So we put the OAD herd in first but kept them behind a wire. The next herd got that break as well as the rest of the paddock.”
The OAD cows were also fed more palm kernel rather than upping their grain and over 30 days they put on 0.5 BCS or 15kg liveweight based on the walk-over scales.
The installation of Protrack made a big difference to the precision with which Ben can manage the operation.
He uses it extensively and his discipline in recording BCS, calving dates, CIDR dates, pre-mating heats, age and animal health issues on it allows him to manage cows as individuals.
“I think that’s been a big factor in bringing cow condition up and we’re really starting to see the benefits of that.”
Throughout the season he can reassess cows and easily manage which herd each cow is in. But he’s also conscious of the relationships cows have within their herds. The Protrack screen highlighted some very strong kinship-type relationships.
“It sounds a bit mad but you don’t want to split them up.”
During critical periods such as mating he’s aware of that and doesn’t like to change herd groupings unnecessarily.
Based on his latest three-week scan data the OAD treatment has worked well with 57% of the 150 cows in that herd in-calf to the first three weeks of mating.
Autumn management
During the 2013-14 season Ben used 16-hour milking across the whole herd as a tool to achieve BCS dry-off targets but found while it lifted the average BCS for the herd, it didn’t bring the “tail-enders” up to where they needed to be.
And that’s where Ben really wants to put his attention so last autumn he switched to OAD milking as a tool for those cows too.
Again calving dates and BCS data were used to determine which cows would be in that herd.
The aim had been to have the OAD herd for any cows below BCS 4 from March 10.
But based on the BCS data and continuous monitoring of the whole 1500-cow herd Ben put all cows on to OAD on April 20. It paid-off and by early May cows were averaging BCS 4.1 compared with 3.9 the previous May.
The first mob of 250 cows was dried-off in early May based on BCS, calving date and age.
OAD has been a great tool and combined with the other tweaks Ben and Tracy have made to the farm system hasn’t meant any loss in production. On the contrary, with improved reproductive performance, better herd quality and better home-grown feeding they’ve boosted production and cut costs.
Last autumn-winter was the first season cows were wintered on fodder beet.
It’s grown on 60ha of support land within the total farm area boundary so cows could be transitioned on to it very slowly from mid-April.
Ben says the high-energy crop, which became part of the autumn supplement, helped put weight on cows leading up to dry-off.
He has five wintering mobs based on calving date and BCS to precisely manage cow condition over winter and will shift any cows off that don’t handle the crop.
Three weeks from when they’re due to calve cows begin coming off fodder beet with every drop of 1kg in fodder beet replaced with 1kg of pasture in an autumn-saved paddock next to the fodder beet area.
Ben says cows have a low incidence of retained membranes and are set-up well for the next mating.
Cows calve at BCS of 5 and heifers 5.5.
Over the past three seasons Ben’s also cut back the mating period from 12 to nine weeks and this last mating, with the installation of the EZHeat detection camera, they’ve used short-gestation length semen from week 4.5.
Tightening-up the mating period and having a condensed calving spread gives cows more time to cycle before planned start of calving.
CIDRs are used as necessary and inductions have been phased out with Ben’s cow-focused management approach ensuring empty rates didn’t suddenly spike.
Pre-mating heats are recorded using tail paint and this past season Ben used that period to get to grips with the EZHeat camera so he felt confident in trusting it once mating started.
Ben walks through the cows drafted out by the camera to check them as well.
Any cows that haven’t cycled by planned start of mating are CIDR’d on day two of mating.
In the 2014 mating 12% of cows were CIDR’d, this last mating just 5% needed intervention.
Ben’s been working on improving the herd by reducing the number of older, less productive cows as well as lifting breeding worth and production worth (PW).
Ben uses PW data generated from the four herd tests they do each year to cull a targeted 5% of cows.
PW measures the ability of a cow to convert feed into profit over her lifetime.
The better the six-week in-calf rate and lower the empty rate is the more scope there is to use PW in conjunction with lactation worth (LW) as a culling tool.
LW measures the ability to convert feed into profit in the current lactation.
“Getting six-week in-calf rate right, by focusing on BCS and paying attention to detail really can give you massive gains in overall farm performance,” Ben says.
It drives both top-line income and helps reduce costs so ultimately, while it makes farming a whole lot more enjoyable, profit wins are definitely there.
The changes:
Over the past five years Ben’s been making changes to the farm system that have helped boost six-week in-calf rate as well as his other KPIs.
Most have helped improve body conditions score (BCS) and have included:
Calving date brought back four days to August 4.
Stocking rate adjustment.
Selective culling by including production worth (PW) and breeding worth (BW) information.
Better use of LIC Minda data and InCalf fertility focus reports.
An improvement in herd quality and age structure.
Very close monitoring of BCS – at least four times each year.
Use of reduced milking frequency to achieve crucial seasonal BCS targets.
Installation of Protrack to manage multiple herds.
Introduction of fodder beet to the wintering system and shoulders of the milking season.
Monitoring, monitoring, monitoring.
Farm facts:
Larundel Dairy Partnership
Operations manager: Ben and Tracy McKerchar
Area: 500ha total
Milking platform: 430ha
Cows: 1500 crossbred
Production: 455kg MS/cow
Supplement: 580kg DM/cow total – 250kg DM barley and palm kernel, 150kg DM home-grown silage, 180kg DM fodder beet
FWE 2015-16: $4.10/kg MS (includes 70 extra rising two-year-olds)
FWE 2016-17: $3.70/kg MS
