Thursday, March 28, 2024

The once a day debate

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Once a day and twice a day milking systems are not mutually exclusive. As Anne Lee discovered, a large farming operation in mid-Canterbury has successfully integrated both systems into its wider operations. Owner Dave Turner explained that the focus is on taking both systems to the highest possible level.
Reading Time: 7 minutes

Owners: Turner Family

Area: 1700ha

Milking platform: 1500ha

Cows: 1000 milked once a day (OAD), 4800 milked twice a day (TAD)

Budgeted production: 2.2m kg milksolids (MS)

Cost of production: $3.80/kg MS budgeted

Farm dairies: Two 54-bail, one 62-bail, one 70-bail, all internal rotary platforms

Irrigation: 17 pivots, 700ha solid set sprinklers

Staff: 32 plus 10 calf rearers

Herd genetics: Rakaia Island, Breeding Worth (BW) 101, Production Worth (PW) 121, 90% recorded ancestry, Woodstock, BW 111 (higher percentage of heifers).

Almost a decade after they moved to once a day (OAD) milking on a grand scale Rakaia Island is taking the majority of the farm back to twice a day (TAD).

But that’s not to say they’ve gone off OAD, instead they’re taking that system to the next level too. The 1700ha farm, which sits in the stream of the mighty Rakaia River, has been milking cows OAD since 2004. The Turners – Dave and Margaret, and Doug and Helen – began converting the long, narrow property in 1994, adding onfarm dairies and growing cow numbers as they completed each stage of development.

The decision to go OAD was made when the farm had three farm dairies, fairly evenly spaced along the 14km length of the property.

It meant a jump from 3280 cows to 5000 and allowed for a more sustainable milking operation for cows that had to walk long distances.

Since then Rakaia Island has become the poster farm for OAD at scale, selecting cows more suited to the longer milking interval, establishing appropriate feeding levels and managing somatic cell counts.

Continuing irrigation development on the farm is lifting pasture production every year. The 17th pivot is about to go in, and 700ha is now irrigated via solid set-spray irrigation where the spray nozzle is fitted to the top of posts set out in a grid pattern across paddocks.

The grid system has allowed the family to protect an abundance of kowhai trees dotted over the Island while improving irrigation efficiency.

“We’re actually using less water. We’re using it more efficiently now and we’re watering more of the farm,” Dave says.

While that’s meant the farm’s been able to grow more grass and lift production, it hasn’t been able to break the elusive two million kg milksolids (MS) target, falling just shy of it last year at 1.95m kg MS.

Inland operation

The island works in with the family’s other large-scale operation, the 2500ha effective Woodstock farm which sits right back at the top end of the Canterbury Plains, in the foothills on the north bank of the Waimakariri Gorge.

Woodstock has two 450ha milking platforms which each milk 1500 cows. The new 70-bail rotary, commissioned in autumn, milks the latest calving cows for the whole business and the 60-bail rotary calves and milks 1500 heifers. It also grazes close to 2000 calves and 2000 in-calf heifers as well as 300 breeding bulls and 200 head of beef cattle.

Woodstock’s been operating since 2005 and any cows that couldn’t fit into a OAD system down at Rakaia Island have been sent up to the inland property and the TAD system. Over the past two years Rakaia Island has also taken a more flexible approach and tried several variations on milking interval for selected cows at each of the farm dairies.

Back in 2011-12 about 400 of the 1600 cows milked at each unit were milked TAD from October to April although it wasn’t a true TAD interval. Cows were milked before the main herd coming in about 6am and then again at the end of the OAD milking, at about 1.30-2pm.

That herd could also be milked 18-hourly or twice in three days depending on the season. If growth rates and covers were steaming ahead their milking interval was shortened to ramp up feed demand rather than making silage but if feed was tight the milking interval was lengthened.

Eighteen months ago Rakaia Island took on a new operations manager, Shaun Miers.

“He gave us a fresh set of eyes and made us look again at what we were doing and how we take the farm up another level,” Dave says.

“I’m a big fan of OAD. It’s a clever way to get more MS off marginal land but I could see that here, as the cows were improving and irrigation was improving, it was the average per cow production that was becoming the limiting factor,” Shaun says.

“If we were going to keep the same system but lift cow numbers to increase production, because of the extra grass we’re growing now, too much of the (feed) energy in the system was going to be attributed to maintenance.”

Instead they implemented a change in milking interval in January last year and put about 4000 cows onto 21-hour milking and 1500 onto TAD.

New dairy

But as the irrigation development and pasture production increases continued it became apparent another step was required and the big decision was made towards the end of the season last year to invest in a fourth farm dairy and build it close to the centre of the farm.

They’ve renumbered the dairies so that number one is at the coastal end of the property and number four at the most inland point. The new dairy is now number two and both dairy two and dairy three will operate as conventional TAD units this season, each milking 1500 and 1300 cows respectively.

Dairies one and four will each retain herds of 500 cows milked OAD but will also each run two more 500-cow herds that will milk TAD.

“The whole herd’s Breeding Worth (BW) is good and by default these cows that we’ve been selected as good OAD cows should be exceptional TAD cows,” Dave says.

Selection of the cows for the OAD herds has become even more important and there will be a OAD genetic focus on those groups.

“We’ll be looking at (four times/season) herd test results and selecting cows with the highest MS concentration – so the greatest solids to volume ratio,” Shaun says.

They’re working with Jack Hooper from LIC to identify and breed those cows. Bull selection to achieve that trait is something we’re looking at, Dave says.

One of the most significant problems for high producing OAD cows is the pressure that goes on udder attachment.

As is the case for Rakaia Island, OAD is often implemented to reduce the pressure on cows from having to walk long distances. The problem is top producing OAD cows are often heavily laden with milk when they make the daily journey to the farm dairy putting immense pressure on udder suspension. By reducing the volume of milk and increasing its MS concentration that pressure can be relaxed.

“We need both though, cows with a very high solids percentage and cows with very good udder attachment,” Dave says.

They already have the majority of the herd at 9% MS but they do have cows doing more than 10%.

“We also don’t want peaky cows. We want the ones that have pretty flat lactation curve. We want the plodders not the Ferraris,” he says.

Breeding focus

Over the years the Turners have concentrated on selecting bulls for high BW and udder attachment rather than OAD specifically as they believe the pool of OAD animals, at 5% of the national herd, is too low to give them the ability to select on that criteria alone.

What they’d forgo in BW and other attributes is just too great for what they might gain.

As there are no daughter-proven OAD bulls available, the OAD breeding value is theoretical, Dave says.

The walk to the two outlying farm dairies for the OAD cows will still be 3km at the longest point so getting it right will mean a sustainably higher MS production from those two units and an increase in production from the two dairies milking TAD.

Rakaia Island is budgeting on an extra 250,000kg MS this season with the change in system, further improvements in pasture production thanks to better irrigation, a greater focus on pasture management but just 100 additional cows.

Last season the 21-hour OAD cows produced 365kg MS/cow while the TAD cows produced 435kg MS/cow.

Although they’ve done longer term budgets and investment analysis at the more conservative level of $6.50/kg MS this year’s forecast record payout of $8.12/kg MS has come at a great time.

The new farm dairy and yards come with a new effluent system and also mean four extra staff so four new houses.

But the additional production from the new system with more cows in the TAD group is expected to help dilute costs back down to $3.80/kg MS from $4.30/kg MS rather than create a lift in cost structure.

Over the past year Rakaia Island has attracted two new farm managers with two new managers also coming to Woodstock. Dave says there’s been a general lift in enthusiasm with the changes that are being implemented.

“We were going along and getting a bit set in our ways I guess but we’ve gone up a gear again now and it’s exciting really.”

Bail design

Like all the others on the Turners’ farms, the new farm dairy has an internal platform so cows back into the bails. They initially walk onto a narrow apron so they’re almost side-on to the bail and then, as the platform rotates slowly their back end is guided into it. Milkers stand in the central area inside the ring created by the platform.

The new dairy two sports an extra large yard, an area big enough to hold 650-700 cows as well as a vet race and pens. Like the others it is fitted with Protrack and an automatic drafting system.

But unlike the others it has an in-bail feeding system which differs from the conventional in that, because the milking system is internal, the feeding system has to lift up to let cows into and out of the bails.

Staff appeal

One of the big drawcards for milking OAD at Rakaia Island back in 2007 had been the appeal the system has for staff.

But moving back to TAD system can still be just as sustainable on people providing it’s matched with improved infrastructure and additional staff, Shaun says.

Rakaia Island has built a new 70-bail farm dairy and taken on four new staff. Although cow numbers will increase by only about 100 the Turner family and Shaun recognise the additional workload in milking cows TAD.

They’ve also gone back to unitising the farm so each farm dairy and associated herds are run by managers as their own units.

“The level of skills in our farm managers is such we can do that and it provides a good platform for further skill development,” Shaun says.

People development and progression pathways for junior and senior staff are something Shaun’s particularly focused on and together with the Turner family it’s an area of the business he’s likely to develop further.

Managers have autonomy over setting rosters although the minimum is an eight-on, two-off roster. Over time Shaun expects industry standards will begin to change. As systems and technology improve they’ll head more towards five-on, two-off rosters.

That’s as the industry works to attract more bright young people into what’s becoming an increasingly technologically supported business.

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