Health conscious for cattle and people

STOCK ANIMAL HEALTH

The Willis herd ready to be milked.

Protection of the land, stock and local people has won a Southland farmer several Ballance Farm Environment awards. Karen Trebilcock reports.

When it comes to stock health, Robert Willis prefers to be the ambulance at the top of the cliff rather than at the bottom.

And as a full-time ambulance officer for St John in Invercargill it’s not an expression he uses lightly.

“On the farm we’ve used pain relief from day one with anything that needs it, not just dehorning calves.

“We teat-seal heifers and cows, and that has reduced our mastitis, stopped us using so much antibiotic and lowered our cell counts.

“We’ve got Rumensin in the troughs to stop bloat and we’ve got grain feeding in the dairy to maintain our cow condition.”

He said the grain has improved in-calf rates, maintained cow condition and also allowed him to graze covers down to 1500kg DM/ha in peak grass and 1600 in the shoulders to maintain quality.

When the cows can’t do it he pre-graze mows to make sure they can.

“It was either paying for grain feeding in the dairy or buying a silage wagon. The cost was the same, but we have a rolling farm and we didn’t want to wreck our tracks. It was an easy decision.

“We really focus on maintaining our tracks and letting the cows walk in themselves to the dairy as much as we can, and that stops so many foot problems.”

He works with Louise Ingram from Otautau Vets for the cows’ nutrition and health.

“She started as a vet the same time as we converted, so we’ve grown together as

BOBCAT FARM

Location: Gummies Bush, Southland Area: 112ha dairy platform, 120ha runoff Herd: 340 Friesian, Friesian cross BW 129/51, PW 144/58 Production: 192,500kg MS 2019 – 2020 (330 cows)

a team. She really gave me the confidence to graze lower, especially when there’s been no sun and we’re stuck in a 20-day rotation.

“With our colostrum we separate out the gold colostrum, we test it ourselves, and make sure every calf gets it in that essential first eight hours; and we haven’t had a sick calf for, I don’t know, a decade.

“And we keep a closed herd and make sure all of our boundaries are secure.”

The southerly, salt-laden wind can hit the coastal area hard, and planting trees has always been a necessity as well as a passion for Robert and his family.

When M bovis emerged in Southland they realised the extensive plantings on the boundary fences also protected the cows.

“We’ve formed an island here, and with disinfecting and washing cars coming in we managed to keep it out.”

Covid-19 has made him rethink the strategy, but for now he’s not changing.

“If we did get something it would just go through the cows so quickly because they’d have no immunity. We don’t vaccinate for many things.

“It makes sure we do our borders really well.”

Part of the closed herd status is not using bulls for mating. An LIC sire-proving herd, they haven’t used outside bulls for more than six years.

Heifers are mated AB for 14 days, then farm-bred bulls are used; the herd is inseminated for six weeks’ sire proving, then six weeks short-gestation Hereford.

He uses FlashMates as well as tail paint, checking dates, and also milk testing to pick heats.

With sire proving, he likes getting the best genetics before anyone else and doing it economically. His BW and PW are in the top 10% in the country.

“You have to be a details person to do it. You have to herd test and make sure all of your recording is correct.”

Robert Willis is proud of the many trees and shelter belts planted on the farm.

Calves are inside for only a week and then are out in paddocks on the runoff, with plastic coats on and a shed for shelter. They’re fed ad lib once a day, and Robert said he would never go back.

“It probably takes a bit more milk but we have no bugs, no sick calves.”

Also on the runoff are the yearlings, and during the winter the cows as well on fodder beet, moved two to three times a day to protect the soils and to keep the cows fully fed.

“Shifting them several times a day takes all of their stress away. There is not the hierarchy in the cows stopping some of them getting enough to eat and they can eat all day and be happy.”

His father ran the sheep farm for 37 years before Robert took it on, the fifth generation to farm in Gummies Bush.

“A lot of my friends at school were off dairy farms and from the age of 11 I used to milk after school at a neighbouring farm. I realised I was drawn to cows rather than sheep.

“While my father used to love a pen full of lambs to dag, for me it was milking cows.”

Robert converted the farm in 2001 and, with land values high in the area, realised profitability was key.

“There are a lot of intergenerational farms here and land is like gold. Every little bit of it you’ve got you have to make the most of.”

But several years ago two moments made him reconsider what he was doing.

The first was his kids asking him what he was doing home.

“I suddenly realised they hardly saw

Top: Robert and contract milker Jordan Hawke. Above: Calves out in the Southland sunshine in the first week of September.

me home, that’s how much time I was spending on the farm. The second was when I was putting a line into a cow to give it an intravenous bag because it was down. I thought I could be doing that for people.”

He joined the Riverton St John as a volunteer and when a paid full-time position came up in Invercargill four years ago he applied and got the job.

“I was turning 40 too and there is something about turning 40.”

He and his wife Cate and their two children, Isabella, now 16 and Luca 11, moved off the farm to a lifestyle block on the edge of Invercargill, half an hour away.

David Monteith, who had worked with him for years, stepped up to contract milk, and now his daughter Kelly Hawke and her husband Jordan have taken it on.

“The similarities between dairying and working as an EMT (emergency medical technician) are quite odd. You’re still problem solving.

“With farming you are always trying to figure out feed and weather and cows, and with patients each one has a problem you need to deal with.

“You never know what is going to happen each day, just like farming.

“And farming set me up with being used to early mornings and shift work and thinking on the spot and being in the public eye and doing the right thing.”

Moving off-farm made him also reconsider where the farm was at, and he finally decided to enter the Ballance Farm Environment Awards.

“I’d been thinking it’s not quite ready yet and then you realise it will never be perfect.”

This year the farm picked up the Bayleys People in Primary Sector Award, the Waterforce Wise with Water Award, and The Plant Store Planting and Design Award.

St John employs about 25 people in Invercargill and, apart from the wife of a dairy farmer, he is the only one with a connection to farming.

“I get from a lot of them – why are you here? You used to be self employed, no boss. But you value yourself a bit more when you’re paid an hourly rate.”

He works a four-day shift, two days, two nights and then four days off.

“And you can switch off. With the cows I could never switch off. I used to be a volunteer for St John as stress relief from the farm.

“Now I come out to the farm on my days off and it’s my stress relief from St John.

“It’s just a pleasure to be here.”