People

FARMERS WEEKLY – farmersweekly.co.nz – September 19, 2022

People No regrets switching to ovine milking

After 20 years of working with cows and chickens, a South Auckland farmer was able to explore his abiding interest in sheep milking and launch his own ovine dairy operation. Gerald Piddock spoke to James Wallace, who says he hasn’t looked back.

JAMES Wallace is proud that his farm is number four in the Spring Sheep Milking Co. It’s his supply number on the roadside entrance to his 67ha farm near Pukekohe in South Auckland.

“Numbers one, two and three are the Spring Sheep [operated] farms and we’re the first of the private ones,” he says.

Now into his fourth season milking, it’s a choice he has not regretted. It provides the ideal work-life balance for him, wife Stacey and their four children.

“We’re in the middle of lambing right now, and we’re working 40-hour weeks at the peak of lambing. That tells you a lot.”

It also excited him to get his foot in the door of what is an environmentally sustainable alternative to cows.

“It’s a sunrise industry and when I started chatting with them, I had a lot of confidence in what they were trying to achieve,” Wallace says.

“It’s really friendly on the environment, we enjoy doing it and it’s something the kids can do as well.”

Wallace spent 20 years as a bovine dairy farmer, working his way up through the industry from dairy assistant to equity farm ownership on a dairy farm near Methven.

He sold the farm and used the funds to purchase an indoor broiler chicken farm at Patumahoe, and operated it for five years.

With his parents nearing retirement age and wanting to step back from running their 67ha farm, James and Stacey started the process of purchasing the farm from them and looking at different farming options.

“We really enjoyed the chicken farm but I missed milking and missed pasture. We explored different avenues and options – this farm is too small for cows – but we didn’t really want to go back to cows to be honest.”

He had also been following the progress of the then fledgling sheep-milking industry and had been in periodic discussions with the Spring Sheep Milking Co at the Fieldays and when it held open days.

The company was able to generate its own data on its progress based on its three company-owned starter farms, showing the genetic gain it was able to achieve in a short period of time in terms of creating a milking sheep suitable for New Zealand farm conditions.

It convinced him that milking sheep on the farm was a viable option.

“It ticked a lot of boxes,” he says.

But he wanted to be sure.

Wallace also had part ownership in a nearby dairy goat farm, and in 2019 he used a retrofitted old 16-a-side herringbone shed on that farm and milked sheep for a season as a test run, running a small flock alongside the goats.

“It was our way of trialling it with as minimal investment as we possibly could.”

It also allowed him to adjust from cows to sheep and work out the nuances that come with milking a different animal.

It’s really friendly on the environment, we enjoy doing it and it’s something the kids can do as well.

James Wallace South Auckland

But building a milking parlour on his parents’ farm needed to be done from scratch, and planning began in January 2020.

The only existing infrastructure on the farm was an old milking shed built by a previous owner, Pat McQuarrie, who infamously dropped flour bombs on a softball game between South Africa and New Zealand in 1978.

He attempted to do the same in 1981 during a Waikato-South Africa game, causing the game to be called off. He inspired Marx Jones to pilot the plane that dropped flour bombs on Eden Park during the 1981 All BlackSpringbok tour.

Once committed, Wallace purchased a Zealandia ewe flock from Spring Sheep.

SUNRISE INDUSTRY: James Wallace is in his fourth season milking sheep on his 67ha farm in South Auckland.

The ewes were mated so the animals could be milked once the new shed was built according to schedule. They were due to lamb at the end of July.

Then covid-19 hit New Zealand and the country went into its first lockdown in March.

It turned out to be fortuitous. Wallace convinced the Ministry for Primary Industries to allow people onto the farm to build the shed, saying it would cause an animal welfare issue if construction were delayed.

The contractor who built the shed had all of his other jobs put on hold because of the lockdown and was able to fully commit to building the shed so long as he followed covid protocols and worked alone.

“What could have been a terrible series of events actually worked out pretty good. We saw it as a sign we were heading in the right direction,” Wallace says.

Construction on the new 30-a-side herringbone shed started on April 3 and was finished in early August.

While he waited for its completion Wallace used a mobile milker for the first 10 days, and left the lambs on their mum.

The shed has since been extended to 40-a-side, milking 800 ewes and ewe hoggets this season on 45ha.

“The first year was hard with so many learning curves and working out systems to put in place, while the second year you’re thinking, ‘This is so damn easy’ – and you start to realise how uncomplicated it really is.”

Production-wise, he aims for about 50kg milk solids per ewe per year, totalling 40,000kg MS across the flock.

It does not sound like much, but at a payout of $14.70/kg MS and with five sheep equalling one cow from a stocking rate perspective, it adds up, he says.

His advice for others thinking of converting to sheep milking is to seek advice and work out how to adapt the system to a farm’s specific circumstances.

Spring Sheep are also on hand to provide advice if there are any issues.

“It’s just a nice industry to be in.”