Peter and Kirsty Schouten knew their planned conversion of the 190ha property, originally a sheep farm, was a risk, requiring irrigation, nutrient consents and a degree of support from surrounding lifestyle landowners.
Now, Waipapa, about 25km northwest of Christchurch, runs spring and autumn calvers supplying year-round milk to Fonterra.
Waipapa started milking cows in October 2016 and until now it has shuttled stock back and forth between another Schouten farm, an older 382ha conversion on nearby South Eyre Rd.
Peter’s family has bought and leased several farms in the area since his parents Aad and Marja Schouten emigrated from the Netherlands 19 years ago. The family’s leased land helps to make the milking platforms self-sufficient though Waipapa is becoming less reliant on the other units.
This autumn will be the first time Waipapa feeds its own full autumn calving – a landmark for a property that had to be run as part of the bigger family group to get consent for a conversion. Next season the farm will milk up to 800 cows across the two herds.
Similar to Peter and Kristy’s South Eyre Rd operation, split calving allows the farm to roll over empty cows from a spring herd into mating for an autumn herd or vice versa.
Contract milker Kieran McDonald, who started at Waipapa in June, said Peter takes pride in his Holstein Friesian genetics, insists on using top bulls and made it clear every calf is important.
To minimise stress at calving the farm mates its spring herd for only seven weeks and the autumn herd for five.
It means the seasonal round of calf pick-ups is relatively short though still intense with four-hourly round-the-clock shifts.
McDonald said staff appreciate being able to pick up autumn calves while it is still light and the weather is good.
“It’s more of a people thing.
“When we’re picking up calves day and night, checking every four hours, we just don’t lose cows over calving.”
In last year’s last spring calving the farm lost only one cow, to milk fever during a southerly storm. Other stock have gone down before and since for other reasons but the numbers are minimal.
McDonald started at Waipapa with a 2IC and dairy assistant and will employ another dairy assistant in February to cope with the increasing workload from rising cow numbers. His team includes partner Annika who does office administration, herd records, buys farm supplies and helps with on-farm work.
The new farm assistant will add to the cover for autumn calving, including calf rearing, while the farm continues to improve its irrigation and feed systems.
McDonald said the priority is grass-fed grazing but over winter they also feed a 50:50 mix of maize and pea silage, dried distillers grain and some corn gluten meal. A mixer wagon on the feed pad churns out a combination of 15kg of drymatter supplement and 5kg of grass while 1kg of grain is fed out in the milking shed.
The autumn calvers have now done two winters on the platform.
McDonald said it was really wet the first season and they had trouble with lameness because of the new, sharp concrete. The surface was smoother the next time round when they milked 350 cows instead of the initial 500.
From his perspective it was good having a winter milk payment on July 20 for the previous month’s supply. Without that, as a contract milker he would have to wait until September 20 for supply in August. He is enjoying the step up from farm management, having joined the Schoutens from a 1250-cow Canterbury Grasslands farm at Hororata, central Canterbury. Over the past decade McDonald has also farmed in Germany and a couple of other properties around Swannanoa.
His next goals for Waipapa include fixed-grid irrigation for about 4ha of dryland corners, perhaps starting with a couple of hectares of cover next summer.
The Swannanoa area has blossomed into a rural-residential belt over the past 20 years, especially since the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes displaced red-zoners.
Subdivisions crowd a handful of dairy farms and other rural enterprises. Not far away from the Schoutens’ conversion the once-barren Mandeville area now has its first shops.
Aware of the mixed farming and semi-urban environment, the Schoutens are creating a farm that sustains people and livestock alike.
Their approach includes including being a good neighbour, picking wind direction when spraying effluent through pivots and shutting down the fertigation on public holidays and Sundays.
They’ve also invested in high-end systems including recycling of effluent water for washing down. Wash is collected in a sump and stored in a flexible bladder rather than an open pond so there’s less chance of odour being carried on the wind and nitrogen being lost to the environment.
For visual pleasure the farm has also planted attractive hedges and regularly mows its roadsides.
“The last thing we want is to be a scruffy neighbour,” Peter said.
