Ray and Sandra Hocking have already had three dispersal sales of their pedigree Friesian herds over the years. They retired once, but headed back to dairying in their 60s and now own one of the top-ranking bulls in the country, San Ray FM Beamer.
The son of Fairmont Mint Edition Friesian was a lucky pick of three bull calves from embryos Ray bought while they were in retirement mode in the Marlborough Sounds. Despite selling the dairy farm and pedigree herd, he couldn’t give up a life-long interest in dairy genetics.
Hence the purchase of three Mint Edition-sired embryos implanted in cows owned by breeders Stewart and Kathryn Anderson in Otorohanga. Ray was hoping for at least one heifer and got three bull calves, so decided to choose just one when he went to see them at a week old.
“I had three calves looking at me and my favourite number was two, so I said I’d keep the one in the middle.”
This year that calf is San Ray FM Beamer, an alpha sire with LIC that has a breeding worth (BW) of 328 and is ranked number one across all breeds in the country as well as receiving the prestigious Holstein-Friesian New Zealand Mahoe Trophy.
He’s also likely to add a welcome boost of $80,000 or more to Ray and Sandra’s income this year through royalties from semen, which will help offset a wilted payout.
These two pensioners – Ray is 67 and Sandra 65 – lease 160ha in Golden Bay and milk 150 mainly pedigree Friesians on the 80 effective hectares after coming out of retirement.
Three years ago they were taking life easy at their retirement home overlooking the Marlborough Sounds near Havelock – a picturesque spot surrounded by fellow retirees enjoying the lifestyle. Ray still dabbled with genetics and had about 40 cows around the county as well as a few embryos, including a couple purchased from the Tahora Friesian Stud in Canterbury that had been sexed as heifers. They were top genetics that prompted the decision to get a herd together again and milk the cows themselves.
“We didn’t want to sell all our assets to buy a farm and we wanted to be able to get out of a farm easily, so we looked for a farm we could lease,” he says.
They’re into their third season on the leased farm north of Takaka and plan to continue for another couple of years before retiring once and for all. It’s tough with the low payout, but they’ve been through the highs and lows of five decades in the dairy industry.
Solo parent group Birthright helped direct Ray into dairying when he was a teenager. Ray and five siblings were raised by his mother in Hamilton after his father died. A Birthright member gave him the opportunity to spend time on a local dairy farm, which belonged to one of Sandra’s relatives. Ray spent weekends and holidays at the farm and became part of the family.
When he left school in 1964 he was focused on dairying, joining the farm cadet scheme which required him to save a third of his income so he could go sharemilking. Seven years later he married Sandra and they took on a lower-order sharemilking contract with 200 cows near Hamilton, increasing it to a 50:50 contract two years later.
Then the opportunity came to buy Sandra’s parents’ farm near Rotorua, prompting them to borrow “100%-plus” for the farm, which was still raw land sprouting nodding thistles and ragwort with a budgeted production of 7500kg milkfat from 70 Friesian crossbreds. It needed development and the bank insisted they took out a $5000 development loan on top of the purchase loan.
Ray Hocking isn’t ready to retire yet.
Once again, they felt the cows could be milked longer than the end of May, so they dropped to 80 cows and milked through the year with a winter milk contract, taking the milk to Blenheim.
Six years later Sandra’s health declined so they sold the farm, and the pedigree herd at an average price of $3000 per cow, and retired to the Marlborough Sounds.
Retirement sounded blissful, with a waterfront paradise and a few overseas trips to fill their time, and grandkids visiting and playing in the bay.
“But I wasn’t ready to retire,” Ray insists. “I went out and bought a few pedigree cows and leased them out and bought some of my own stock back. Calves I sold at $900 I bought back at $1000 in-calf because prices had come down. So that got me started again. Then I bought embryos from good cattle and that’s how I bought Beamer.
“I ended up with 40 animals around the country, virtually all pedigrees, and I’d bought some embryos from the Tahora Friesian Stud in Canterbury that were sexed as heifers which were due in 2013. And I decided I needed to get a herd together and milk these myself. So we looked for a lease farm.”
They milked 130 cows for 55,000kg milksolids (MS) in their first year on the lease farm in Golden Bay, for which they pay $50,000 a year plus rates. They increased to 140 cows for 63,000kg MS the following year and are targeting more than 70,000kg MS from 150 cows this year with the help of a feedpad they’ve built, and improved grass production. They’ve sunk about $100,000 into improvements including the concrete bases for the feedpad and silage pit, and a new yard leading into the other end of the herringbone dairy to improve cow flow. By the end of this season the feedpad will have paid for itself through increased production and wintering the cows onfarm. The concrete blocks forming the walls of the silage pit, and the feed troughs and the cover over the former glasshouse to create the calf shed, can all be sold later – when they finally retire.
“We wouldn’t have done anything different here if we’d owned the place,” Ray comments.
“This farm isn’t up to its potential yet, so we can increase up to what it should be doing, whereas a lot of farms can’t go up to cover their low payout. The farm is growing more grass now than when we came here and most of the cows have calved by the end of August whereas the first year we came here they were still calving in November.”
They begin calving from July 14 to benefit from the first tanker pick-up from July 25, which also makes the most of the farm’s early grass production. It tends to struggle later in the season as it dries out.
Through winter and spring the cows eat 100 tonnes drymatter of bought-in maize silage, fed out on the feedpad because the paddocks get so wet, and up to 3kg per cow per day of palm kernel depending on the season. With the help of a summer turnip crop, the cows will stay on twice-a-day milking until the last week of May. Young stock are run on a leased runoff nearby.
The payout might be dismal, but the cows will still be fed well with supplements. Beamer is supplying their working capital, and Ray is trying to breed a few more bulls good enough to pay royalties once they retire.
They currently have Beamer daughters in the herd, including two in-milk and six yearlings, and half a dozen calves. This year they have 19 embryos, including four they bought and the rest from two of their best cows, which will be placed in recipients on a friend’s farm on a share basis. One of their yearling bulls, sired by locally-bred Blaris Boggoun Roscoe S2f, is in the CRV Ambreed progeny testing programme this year.
Ray spends hours evaluating his cows, studying records of his own cows and available genetics.
“A lot of people cull on BW or PW. I don’t. Never have and never will. It’s a crossbred’s guide. They say a big cow is inefficient and penalise her for weight and production. But I can prove in my own herd that a cow with a negative BW can out-produce some with a 200 BW. The BW is a guide, but not the be-all and end-all.”
Three dispersal sales achieved good results for their cows, which means their breeding policies appeal to farmers, and Ray says the cows carry on performing well.
“When you breed a cow it’s nice to know they’re doing just as well somewhere else.”
In a couple of years they’ll probably be retiring, again.
“The next dispersal sale will be the last,” Ray concedes. “The wife has spoken. I might dabble with cows, but someone else will milk them.”
