SYSTEMS ONFARM
Dave Swney - there is always things to improve on in your operation.
Shining through the drought A lot of little tweaks have helped the Waikato Swney family reduce lameness and run an improved operation for both cows and staff. Sheryl Haitana reports. Photos by Emma McCarthy.
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fter a harsh 2019/20 drought, the Swney cows were still looking “magnificent” heading into winter, nutritionist Sue Macky told me on a recent phone call. That’s a pretty good compliment coming from one of New Zealand’s most highly regarded dairy cow nutritionist specialists, after a drought that lasted through autumn this year, so I thought it was worth a farm visit. The Swney farm is five minutes south of Te Awamutu. Owned by Phil and Deb Swney, their son Dave is now contract milking for them. Dave is a former DairyNZ consulting officer, but he returned to farming seven years ago. Recently Dave has also taken on an operation manager’s role overseeing three other dairy operations in the Waikato region. “Working for DairyNZ was a great job, I learnt a lot, but it was always the plan to give farming a crack.”
Phil and Deb have owned the farm for 30 years, having sharemilked on the original milking platform almost 40 years ago. They bought neighbouring blocks over the years and the now 124-hectare effective milking platform is rolling with ash soils. They lease 28ha across the road off local maize contractor John Austin where they winter graze annual grass. “That lease is key to our system, 280 cows go there for five weeks. It gives us the ability to have that buffer up our sleeves,” Dave says. “One of the greatest lessons I’ve learnt from dad is how important it is to keep good relationships and a good reputation in the district.” Phil started farming a high-input system on just 40ha when he bought the farm 30 years ago. He had attended a large herds conference and heard about overseas farms producing the same production as the cow’s body weight. “I thought we could do half way between
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | August 2020
what they were doing overseas and what we were doing here.” They still run a DairyNZ System 5 operation, feeding predominantly maize silage, palm kernel and straw, using their 280-cow feed pad, averaging about 500kg MS/cow. As the farm intensified over the last few years they started having major lameness problems. “I was looking at 20% of the herd regularly, I’m really particular and try to be proactive. If she had a slight limp I would look at her. It was doing my head in. We were spending a lot of money. “It was getting frustrating, we knew we didn’t follow cows hard in the races or push cows too hard in the yard and the races were always well maintained.” The family called in Sue to get a fresh perspective on their system to try and pinpoint the issue. She looked at the cows and their diet over the season. She highlighted a few key 39
