Keen young couple Blake and Selene Harvie wanted a lifestyle where they could work together on-farm and raise children.
As they both came from sheep and beef backgrounds they knew there were limited opportunities in the red meat sector so looked to the dairy sector for progress.
The past six years have been a whirlwind as they have progressed through the sector, starting as farm assistants and moving up to their first season 50:50 sharemilking 800 cows on 218 hectares at Dunsandel, Canterbury.
They have two boys, Noah, 3, and Oscar, who was born during the early season chaos last year.
Their background in sheep and beef kick-started their dairying careers as they had animal husbandry skills, stockmanship and the ability to drive tractors and machinery and general farm sense.
They met at Otago University in 2007 and spent their early careers working office jobs in Perth while saving. After a few years their desire to work on-farm together and raise a family in New Zealand led them home to look at their options.
Talking to people from the dairy sector made them decide it was worth a shot. Their families were in Otago and Manawatu so they focused their job-hunting efforts in those regions.
Blake spotted an 800-cow farm at Duntroon, North Otago, looking for two farm assistants. They applied and were hired.
Though they had those basic animal and farm skills they were fresh to the dairy sector and had to learn how to milk and other dairying skills. They credit sharemilkers Matt and Julie Ross and the farm manager Jared Clarke for teaching them about dairying. They also read up and learned from their mistakes.
“It was a really good learning environment,” Blake says.
“We were given the freedom to explore and develop. We learned a lot ourselves just by doing the various jobs.”
They spent six months on that first dairy farm then shifted to a farm owned by the Ross family at Strachans Road for 12 months. Then an opportunity came up to manage the Ross’s second farm, Domett View, milking 850-cows next door.
“I wouldn’t recommend shifting around so much but every time we did we were advancing in the sector and bettering ourselves by learning and trying new things or taking on more responsibility so it was worth it,” Selene says.
After two years managing Domett View they were offered a contract milking 1000 cows for the Ross’s Strachan Road farm, which they did for two years.
All those farms employed teams of four or five staff. When they started managing they found themselves recruiting, doing the rosters and training – almost everything except paying wages.
“We were still learning ourselves. With the benefit of hindsight we did things the hard way back then,” Blake says.
He compares those early years with how they operate now and the efficiencies they have developed with experience and time.
“We know now to do things in the right order,” Blake says.
“We know what is and isn’t important for the time of year and what we can defer for another day. We have learned not to sweat the small stuff.”
“We got the job done through hard work, grit and determination rather than working smarter,” Selene says.
“It was just how we had to do it to get under way.”
Looking back they would not change anything. They agree you need to make mistakes to learn. Their learning never stops and they recognise how far they have come with people management.
“We initially thought we needed to train everyone to do everything but now we know to look at their individual strengths and focus on those,” Selene says.
“You can waste a lot of time trying to teach them everything in their first six months although it is good to have an all-round team that can cover for someone else if they are away.”
They have found letting people get their bearings and learn how to do the basics right helps a lot. They focus on teaching only what they need to know in the first part of the season then spend the second part teaching more detail and getting them ready for the following season.
“We let people work, learn and develop at their own pace, not the pace we set. When they are up to speed and come knocking on our door eager to learn more, that’s the time to continue with training,” Selene says.
“We don’t want to push until they’re ready to take that step but we make sure they know the door is always open.”
Selene enjoys the interaction with the team, especially when they initiate conversations about the feed situation or cow condition.
Early in their own careers they enrolled in training with Primary ITO. Selene did levels three and four and Blake did production management level five.
“It was tricky and a bit of a juggling act as I was in my first year managing and had a lot going on. I would be busy during the day and then come in at night and have to study,” Blake says.
But it was for only a short period and he is thankful he completed the course because it gave him valuable information and skills.
“The study helped us engage with our farm managers and owners at that next level,” Selene says.
And now with their own teams they enjoy supporting them through Primary ITO training.
“We see them coming back from doing some course work and they start asking questions and engaging in a different way,” she says.
“When they do that it makes it so much easier as it shows they’re thinking about the job or the way things are done.”
Selene sees the value in the classroom activities, explaining it is like a discussion group.
“They talk among themselves about what they are doing on their own farms alongside their course work, which gives them practical knowledge that they can apply to their work and bounce ideas off each other.”
The farm team consists of Drishti Rao and Nicolas Martinez who moved with them from their contract milking role in Otago, Cody Griggs who moved from the West Coast this season, and Tomas Muller who comes from Chile on the Prolesur Exchange programme through Fonterra.
When they started dairy farming the Harvies bought calves each season to rear, get in-calf and lease out. At the time they didn’t think about rearing as part of progression but it worked well in the long term because it helped them build equity. And they got the satisfaction of watching them grow into big, strong and healthy milking cows that eventually formed the basis of their herd.
Having animals across a number of locations when Mycoplasma bovis hit caused them a few headaches. The risk of any of their animals being exposed to the disease was higher than if they had their herd in one place.
“We were almost getting frowned upon when we were looking at sharemilking jobs because we had animals in different places. It was seen as a risk,” Selene says.
“It seemed farm owners wanted sharemilkers who could buy the existing herd or a whole new herd, not bring in a vulnerable one like ours.”
It was frustrating and led them to second guess their methods though they do not regret their path.
Selene recommends people spend time to assess the ways they want to build equity, weighing up the risk and reward. She considers property is an alternative to livestock but because it is not as liquid it has its own challenges.
“It really comes down to individual goals and aspirations,” she says.
“I think it’s important to focus on your rate of savings then once you have a base you’re comfortable with start looking at a rate of return. The dairy industry can be really good because it takes two big expenses out of the equation compared to town, rent and the cost of getting to and from work each day.
“But the trade-off is 4.30am starts and working weekends so everything needs to be viewed on the whole.”
They missed out on several jobs before landing the 50:50 sharemilking position with Max and Adrienne Duncan at Dunsandel.
“We aren’t sure what we could have done differently. It came down to experience but we’d gone as fast as we could to get to this stage,” Selene says.
“We do our utmost to do the best job we can. And whenever you apply for a job prospective employers will want to see the farm you’re working on and what you are achieving. To get the next job you need to have good results behind you.”
The animals they reared and leased out came home to make up 80% of their herd and they bought the rest from the North Island.
“We could afford to be fussy and pick out cows we wanted since we didn’t have to buy many cows,” Blake says.
“If we had to buy 800 cows we would not have been able to do it.”
The 218ha farm is supported by a 75ha runoff nearby where young stock are grazed and the herd is wintered until the cows are due to calve.
About 19ha of the runoff is planted in fodder beet and the heifers are transitioned on the beet in May.
This is their first season on the farm so they are still learning how it performs but expect it will operate as a System 3. This season has been dry so they have had to buy in more feed than they would like. They feed barley in the shed year-round but change the amount to match grass availability.
If they are particularly short of grass in the shoulders of the season the cows can get up to 4kg of barley a day. Silage made from the support block also helps to fill any feed shortages.
“We like to be strategic with feed rather than blanket. We feed when we need to and use grass when we’ve got it,” Blake says.
Pasture management is important.
“Grass is valuable and doesn’t cost as much as the grain. As a sharemilker you want to use your grass first for the best returns,” Selene says.
Paddocks are plate-metered three times over 14 days when the grass growth is good but they monitor cow condition to feed accordingly.
Along with pregnancy testing and body condition scoring they use predicted calving dates to determine their dry-off plan.
They will transition the early calving cows onto 6.5ha of fodder beet on the platform while they are still milking. The timing will depend on yield but they expect it will be roughly six weeks before drying off.
The cows will then walk to the support block and continue with beet in their diet. The early transition reduces the risk of acidosis and the later calving cows will be wintered on pasture at the support block.
The dry-off period will be relative to the weather and pasture cover but if all is going well they will milk until the last week of May.
“If we dry off early we will have a greater feed demand to meet in the winter,” Blake says.
“Assuming conditions allow we will try to milk the in-calf cows till the end of May and if we need to reduce numbers the empties and culls will go sooner.”
The calving spread was varied this year from the mixed herd. The North Island cows were due earlier and had been dried off in late March to early May. Their herd and heifers were in a typical South Island range and due to calve from late July until early October.
Some of the North Island cows began calving on July 4, the rest on July 11 and with the South Island cows being later they did not finish until October 15, just before the start of mating on October 20.
They collect calves twice a day as the calf rearer finds it easier to train calves and it is easier to identify which cow has calved when checking them regularly.
They are targeting a 25% replacement rate and aim for a few extras in case they fall short. Any excess heifers are reared to 100kg and sold mid November.
Even though the cows have been DNA tested they still take time to match the calves in the paddock to make sure they have picked the correct cows.
They are striving to compact their calving and plan to cull late calvers so calving finishes by the end of September. That will take careful planning and management and maybe even a bit of luck.
“In the first week of October you’re thinking about irrigating if you haven’t started already as well as pre-mating heats and heifer mating,” Blake says.
“We don’t want to have to worry about cows that haven’t calved yet on top of everything else.”
They are targeting a calving start date of July 27 for next season based on other local farms but will tweak if they need to.
The herd is a crossbred Friesian mix and they aim for an F10-F12 type animal. Most of the herd was already DNA tested so they decided to test the rest and determine the cows’ A2 status. They are breeding for A2 milk.
Mating ran for 12 weeks and they have used only artificial breeding this season. Their best cows were mated to nominated semen for seven weeks. And from the start of mating all A1 cows and lower BW cows were mated to Wagyu semen on a First Light contract then Speckle Park and Hereford semen.
The mix of beef semen was to spread their marketing risk and they are keen to see what the market for the calves is like and sell as many as they can at four days.
From December 6 they used short-gestation semen to tighten up calving.
Blake says there is a sense of pride with getting cows in calf.
“It’s easy enough to buy production with extra feed but it’s not so easy to buy a good mating result.”
In their previous contract milking role they wanted to improve their six-week in-calf rate and moved it from 67% to 75% over two seasons.
“We worked on the different parts of the reproductive cake. Some were harder than others,” Selene says.
“There were things that we wanted to get better and worked with our vet to identify some areas they wanted to focus on. Blake spends a lot of time reading articles, googling and discussing things with other farmers.”
They strategically used non-cycler treatments and routinely body condition score.
This open-minded couple have enjoyed their journey but they want to walk a bit more before they start running. They do not have any immediate goals or time frames in front of them.
“It’s taken us a lot of hard work to get here. We want a breather and then we’ll reassess where we want to head next,” Selene says.
They credit their biggest strength as being a team.
“If you want to speed up progression you’ve got to be a team with your partner then you’ve got two sets of eyes and ears around the farm,” she says.
For now they are focused on improving the herd, enjoying the cows and having some more family time.
“The dairy industry isn’t just all beer and skittles but if you put in the hard yards and knock on enough doors eventually there will be someone on the other side keen to see some young people have a go.”
Farm facts:
Farm owners: Max and Adrienne Duncan
Sharemilkers: Blake and Selene Harvie
Location: Dunsandel, Canterbury
Farm size: 218ha, 75ha runoff
Cows: 800 crossbred Friesian
Target production: 2019-20, 350,000kg MS
