Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Busy gets busier

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An artificial insemination run is just one of many things a West Coast farmer has up her sleeve to generate extra income for the farm. Cheyenne Nicholson reports. 
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RUNNING an Airbnb, milking 140 cows and raising two small children keep Hokitika 50:50 sharemilkers Thomas and Hannah Oats busy.

And if that isn’t enough, Hannah, in a bid expand her skills, to benefit their own business and generate some extra income has trained and qualified to become an artificial insemination technician.

This season she is embarking on her first solo AI run. 

It is their second season on the 83.5ha property at Kowhitirangi, owned by Stuart and Adrienne Coleman. The farm might be small but that’s the way they like it because they want to micro-manage every area on-farm and do the best they can for their stock and the environment.

The 23-year-old began training last year along with three friends and says though it was hard to leave the farm and her family for a few weeks she got a lot out of the training courses.

“When I did the course it was in Christchurch and given that we run the farm ourselves with no staff we don’t really get the chance to go off farm so it was a bit tough leaving everything,” Oats says.

“But I enjoyed the course and learning something new. I’m a very practical person so this was perfect.”

Four years ago the couple won Dairy Farm Manager of the Year for the region and this year they took out the Share Farmer of the Year in just their first season on the farm. 

“We bought the herd that was already here. Stuart and Adrienne farmed very similarly to us so it has been a really good fit. 

“We’ve never really thought that going to a big farm was something we’d do. 

“What we have here is enough for us both in terms of time and the financial side and it fits how we want to live our lives.”

Having such a busy schedule that not only includes running the farm by themselves but a thriving Airbnb and doing relief milking it’s hard to imagine where she finds the time for her AB run. But she says it is simply a matter of scheduling and team work, which, after 10 years working together, they have down to a fine art.

“I met Thomas when I was 15 and he was a farmer so I used to go out to the farm after school and help out.  

“We’ve sort of just worked our way up over the years. We contract milked for his parents for six years before we came here.

“We’ve always worked together and the kids come out with us and get involved in everything. With my run I’m generally only away between milkings and we just alternate jobs and make everything fit. But we do have to start the morning milking about 3am.”

After completing her apprenticeship training Hannah was given her own AI run and while she admits she was pretty nervous during her first solo pre-run of the season, she’s enjoying it. The pre-run is a chance for technicians to meet all the farmers on their run and go through the details of their mating plans including mating start and end date, synchrony plans, what breeds they are using and if anything needs changing from previous plans.

Hannah says being an AI technician is a great chance to meet farmers and learn more about other farm systems as well as getting a glimpse into what farmers are doing in their own breeding programmes.

“Although the job is purely just the actual physical bit of inseminating it’s been interesting talking to other farmers and seeing their systems, not just their mating. I often come away and think we could try that at home.”

High fat, fertility, easy calving and good udder conformation are top priorities when selecting bulls for their West Coast system.

“The Colemans had a large focus on Friesians and we’ve more or less stuck to that with a few mixes in there. Since we bought the herd we’ve increased numbers from 90-100 to around 140.

“Our focus is on feeding the cows to their full potential and then breeding comes in. Feeding the cows fully all year round has benefits in other parts, not just milk production. 

“Our 16% empty rate wasn’t acceptable for our standards and this year we hope to improve that. There were things we did last year (changing meal type, poor bull power etc) that we think improving will have a good result for this year’s mating.”

As part of the inseminating process technicians use a programme called DataMATE, an app designed to prevent inbreeding and disorders caused by recessive genes. It calculates the risks of each mating and issues a warning if the risks are too high.

“If you can’t use that particular sire then you’ll pick another. For Premier Sires you’ve got day one, day two and day three so if the day one bull is a no go then you just use day two. If for some reason you get a lot of inbreeding you’ve got the bank of frozen semen as a back-up. This all used to be done on paper.”

A large drawcard to doing the training was having the ability to inseminate their own herd as a cost-saving measure as well as for the convenience factor.

“We have a semen bank stored at home as we do all nominated sires so if there’s a cow on heat during the morning milking I can just pull her out and do her then. It sounds a bit silly but because I’m the calf rearer as well. I always say I’m the mum and the dad. I’m also able to Metricure cows myself rather than having a vet come out.”

Along with all their farming responsibilities Hannah and Thomas are active in their local community they are volunteers with the local fire brigade and involved in their children’s school.

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