Steve and wife Holly are sharing the reins on the Ballance property with Steve’s parents, Murray and Lynda. This is their fifth season on the 190ha property – a 150ha milking platform with about 40ha of hillier support land.
Nestled against the Mangahao River and the Tararua Ranges near the Tararua town of Woodville, the block proved irresistible to Steve when he was looking for a change after an early career spent as a milking machine technician. Having grown up on a dairy farm but with minimal farming experience in his own right, it was a big call taking the plunge back on to the family farm. An initial one-year trial run was agreed on and the family haven’t looked back.
“I just fell in love with the place really,” Steve says.
Milking 440 Jersey and Jersey-cross cows through the 50-bail rotary dairy, they achieved almost 370kg milksolids (MS)/cow – the equivalent of about 80% of liveweight.
Steve says in a normal season they would fit into the System 3 category of the DairyNZ farming system classification where about 10-20% of feed is imported.
Carrying on the family tradition, Steve prioritises profitability over production.
“We try to grow as much grass as we can and utilise all that grass – it is a big decision to put any supplement in.”
The 14 tonnes drymatter (DM)/ha of grass grown annually using 100-150kg nitrogen/ha is supplemented with 100t DM of maize silage – sometimes bought in, sometimes grown onfarm – and 150t of palm kernel contracted in. They harvest 50-80t DM of grass silage, any surplus off the platform as baleage and some in a stack off Murray and Lynda’s 25ha support block located near Palmerston North.
About 6-7% of the milking platform is sown in turnips for the summer. Yields are variable depending on the season, but are normally about 10t DM/ha. The summer crop is then sown back into permanent pasture in the autumn.
Youngstock stay within the business, either at the Ballance block or over the ranges at Steve’s parents’ property. About a third of the mixed-age cows are grazed off with a neighbour for five weeks in winter.
Steve feels all the elements are in place to get the system humming – now it’s about tweaking them and making it work.
“We are at the stage now where we are looking for the small gains.”
An area they are focusing on in the search for those small gains is herd reproduction. The “how can we do it better” philosophy is being applied. One of the tools Steve is using to answer that question is participating in LIC’s six-week challenge, a year-round programme focused on lifting the herd’s six week in-calf rate.
In the 2013-14 season there was a decline in the herd’s six week in-calf rate to 64% and an increase in the empty rate from their usual 8% to about 13%. That was through a 12-week mating programme, with five weeks of artificial insemination (AI) to dairy sires, another week of AI to short gestation sires, and with Jersey-Hereford cross bulls tailing up for six weeks. They do not use interventions like non-cycler treatments or inductions.
While Steve has some ideas about what could have driven this decline in performance, he is hoping the monitoring programme that is part of the six- week challenge, along with the external advice, will provide some more definitive answers.
“It might be that what we are doing will give us some more information for next year – it is part of a long-term fix. We are looking at trying to determine areas we have to work on instead of thinking, well, maybe that’s an area we need to work on.”
Industry generally rates three main management areas as having the greatest impact on herd reproductive performance – cow body condition, how youngstock enter the herd, and heat detection. These big three are not the only contributors, but getting them right can have a significant impact.
Steve is comfortable with where cow condition sits in the herd. He says only a handful would calve at less than a body condition score (BCS) of 5.0. Regular monitoring of individual animal BCS from late summer through autumn ensures proactive management. Individual cow drying off decisions are based on BCS and projected calving date, with Steve applying the general rule of thumb that half a condition score can be added in a month.
Youngstock management is likely to be one of the focuses for improving herd performance. Steve says although first calving heifers are calving early when entering the herd, and getting back in-calf, he is not convinced they are operating at their potential.
“Heifers probably come into the herd underweight, and we are just not sure exactly where we are going wrong.”
In the current system heifer calves are weaned from milk on weight – 70kg liveweight for Jerseys and 75-80kg for the crossbreds. They are then grazed on the support land, either at the home block or at Steve’s parents’ farm a short stock-truck ride away near Palmerston North. Condition score is monitored on an ad-hoc basis but liveweight is not recorded post-weaning.
This year they are focusing on giving the heifer replacement calves a good start. More monitoring is also on the agenda with a set of weigh scales recently installed at the dairy.
Steve is also considering the pros and cons of re-grassing some of the hilly support block in plant species that will maintain their feed quality over the summer.
Diego Fragelli, Mark Underwood, and Steve Holdaway sort the tailpaint.
A heat detection strategy is in place and the onfarm team had meetings over the winter to fine-tune. There will be at least one more meeting close to the planned start of mating to make sure everyone knows what signs to look for.
There is a team approach to the task. As well as Steve, the farm employs two full-time staff – new recruit and second-in-command Diego Fragelli and assistant Mark Underwood, in his second season on the farm. Murray is also around most days.
“We are quite highly staffed for the number of cows that we have but we did that consciously to free up time for me to build up my knowledge on the business side of things,” Steve says.
During mating, everyone gets a notebook and is expected to use it. Paddock checks, having someone standing on the yard as the cows enter, drafting off the platform based on tail paint.
“All three of us are grabbing numbers and then the next morning we pool all our numbers, draft those cows, get them in a pen by themselves, and make a decision from there.”
Last season was the first time they had tried to make detailed records of pre-mating heats. Steve suspects a level of fatigue may have crept in once mating proper was underway. This year they will tail paint the herd 3-4 weeks pre-mating and other than an occasional refresh, will gauge the level of pre-mating heat activity simply by observing which cows have undisturbed paint.
As well as covering the “big three” contributors to herd reproductive performance, Steve has made sure other boxes were ticked.
In conjunction with their vet, a yearly animal health plan is maintained. This makes sure events like blood testing, vaccinations, and metri-checking are carried out at the right time.
‘All three of us are grabbing numbers and then the next morning we pool all our numbers, draft those cows, get them in a pen by themselves, and make a decision from there.’
A sample of mixed-age cows are blood tested for trace minerals shortly after planned start of calving and again a few weeks before the planned start of mating. A dosatron connected to the water system means mineral supplementation can be easily delivered.
The youngstock are also blood tested coming into the spring.
To make sure the cows are metri-checked at the right time, each cow is tail painted with a specific colour as she leaves the colostrum herd, with the colour changed every three weeks. This is a simple and quick method the vet can use to tell which cows need to be checked on each scheduled visit.
This season has seen a few aspects of the mating programme tweaked to make back lost ground and hopefully get on a rising plane for herd reproductive performance. For Steve, starting to dig in to the detail is the pathway to stamping his own mark on the family farming business.
Key points
Owners: Generation Farms
Sharemilkers: Steve and Holly Holdaway – variable order
Area: 150ha milking platform, 40ha support land adjacent and another 25ha.
Herd: 440 cows, Jersey and Jersey-Friesian cross, in national top 10% for BW.
Rainfall: 1200mm (summer safe)
Production: 156,000kgMS 2013-14
Dairy: 50-bail De Laval rotary with some automation – cup removers, teat spray, walk-over weighing
