Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Winter milking – a perfect fit

Avatar photo
It has been non-stop milking for 900 days on Kauri Moor but Rhys Darby and his team are drying off this month after a transition from spring to autumn calving. Their last exclusively spring calving was in 2016.
Reading Time: 4 minutes

The farm has two milking platforms – 230 hectares and 150ha effective with 250ha of support blocks nearby.

Darby manages the larger farm milking 650 cows and his brother Phillip manages the 420-cow herd next door.  

The brothers are equity partners with their parents Bruce and Kay on their farm Kauri Moor, west of Huntly at Ruawaro.

When the Darbys bought the 150ha unit six years ago, it was already a winter milking herd.  When they added the added the 230ha spring calving farm, they decided to make the switch to autumn calving.

“We meandered around the idea of transitioning to autumn calving for a couple of years before biting the bullet,” Darby says.

“There were a number of factors which helped us decide to make the change.” 

The family had been looking to put in new infrastructure and wanted something that would give them the best feed utilisation. 

They built a covered feed pad capable of housing 700 cows, feed bins, feed bunkers and bought a mixer wagon. They also added a flood wash system on the feed pad and capture rain water for washdown. Greenwater is also recycled to use for flood washing.

“Having a covered feed pad for the cows has a lot of benefits for the welfare of the herd and the environment.

“We are able to take the herd off paddocks in wet conditions so pugging damage is minimised and on hot, summer days they can stay cool in the shade of the feed pad.”

Darby says an added benefit is being able to capture the nutrients off the floor and store them.

The farm runs a system 5 with a big focus on cow condition.

“Autumn calving allows us to match the seasonal growth on our farm. This will help with feed utilisation and cow condition.”

Palm kernel and protein such as corn dried distiller’s grain is fed on the feed pad where wastage is vastly reduced.  

“We feed about two tonnes of supplement per cow throughout the season.”

Peak growth is in spring and any excess is harvested from the platform and support block. 

“Switching to autumn calving won’t reduce the amount of feed we buy in but we find it is cheaper as we are buying when the market demand is low,” Darby says. 

Reduced costs allows them to be more consistent with their feed budgeting and more grass is being harvested with better utilisation. As a result, the cows are in better condition than before they transitioned.

“I believe to get the full benefit of the winter system you need to keep putting in feed but we keep an eye on budgets and operate below a $4/kg MS farm working expense.”

They hope with the new system the herd will produce more and have a longer lactation. 

“Our production line is flatter. We aren’t peaking like spring calving herds do but they seem to hold for a long time.”

Production this season will be 320,000kg MS and they’re aiming for 330,000kg MS next season. Before the transition in their final spring calving the farm produced 276,000kg MS with 800 cows.

“The goal is for cows to do their weight in production while still maintaining low farm working expenses.

“Changing our system gives us flexibility. We are operating out of peak times and can respond to changing conditions easily. If we have surplus grass we can make grass silage or buy in some beef animals to keep on top of it.”

Darby says autumn calving aligns with the pasture growth curve as well as Fonterra’s payout structure.

“We’re not producing a lot in the months when the milk cheques are lower but we have a lot of production and income coming in when the cheques are strong.”

Darby believes the autumn-born calves grow better than those born in spring and because they already have had time to grow they handle the winter and summer conditions better.

Calves are weighed regularly and weaned at 100kg when the market for four-day weaner calves is strong.

Their replacement rate has been 25% but Darby is looking at options and might reduce how many heifers they rear for the herd.

Once calves hit the 10-day mark they move outside and Bruce and Kay take over calf-rearing duties.

“Dad enjoys moving the animals so it’s great to have him helping out. This time of year he’s quite often at the beach house but with good communication we keep on top of everything. It works well.”

This season they’re trialling using Angus bulls over their heifers, avoiding Jerseys and hopefully creating another market by adding value to the calves.

“We have been buying really good bulls from Shrimptons Hill in the South Island and we use short gestation Hereford semen on our lower BW cows.”

They use Friesian semen and do AI for five weeks, run the bulls for three weeks then do a further 10 days of AI with short gestation semen.

Darby says the three most important things to do when transitioning a herd are:

Planning – Have a good long term plan and stick to it. “Whether you are transitioning over one, two or three years make sure you have a plan.”

Infrastructure –Make sure your infrastructure is solid and sound and works with the system. “If you have good infrastructure, the process is not a tedious chore.

Good people –Having a good team is really important and makes a big difference. He has two full-time staff and a third who is typically a British gap-year student. “Some of our staff have been here since the first day of transition and are still going strong even after 900 days straight. Having a good team has made the transition to autumn calving a lot easier than it could’ve been. We will have to do something for them when we finally dry off.”

With many obstacles navigated Darby is pleased with the transition and he’s looking forward to settling into the new system and achieving the production targets.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading