By Brad Markham
Rallying to the cause
I
t is 3.15am on a calm spring morning as Dannevirke dairy farmer Tania Cresswell slides on her gumboots and heads outside. The 29-year-old manages her parents’ 55-hectare dairy farm at Papatawa, milking 160 predominately Holstein Friesian cows. Tania jumps on to a two-wheeler motorbike, giving it a kick-start. The engine roars to life, piercing the pre-dawn silence. It is not long before the farm’s 14-aside milking shed starts to fill with cows gently jostling for position and eager to be milked. “An easy-going temperament is one of the main traits I strive for in a cow. I work alone a lot of the time, so having a docile animal is crucial,” she said. “Plus, I also give the cows a mineral drench in the milking shed, things like magnesium and iodine, and quiet cows are easier to drench.” During milking Tania zig-zags her way down the pit, changing clusters and identifying cows to draft for artificial insemination. “At this time of the year it’s a daily race 74
against the clock to get my farm jobs done and be on the road by 7.15am,” she said. Tania works as an artificial insemination (AI) technician with genetics company LIC, a seasonal position she has held for 10 years. “I did my training with LIC in 2011. After a month working as an apprentice, I was given my own AI run,” Tania sxays. The job sees Tania driving between up to 12 local dairy farms each day, inseminating cows on heat. “It’s a really rewarding job. The aspect I enjoy the most is getting out and talking to other farmers,” said Tania. “Mating is one of the busiest times of the year and people can often get stuck in their farm bubbles for long periods.” “If the grass isn’t growing and feed is in short supply, it’s nice to be able to let farmers know others in the district are in a similar situation,” she said. The biggest farm on Tania’s run milks about 700 cows. “When they synchronise a large number of cows to come on heat together, I have to inseminate 120 cows in one visit,” she said.
“It can take up to two hours.” LIC revealed Tania has inseminated 25,611 cows since she started as an AI technician. That is roughly 2561 inseminations a year. It is usually 11am at the earliest before Tania returns home. After a quick bite to eat, she heads back out on the farm. Tania is the third generation of her family to farm the property, which has 10ha of flats, the remainder of the land is hilly. “We tend to say we have mountain cows rather than just plain dairy cows,” laughed Tania. Her grandparents Bob and Gladys Cresswell bought the farm in 1950 and Tania manages it for her parents Keith and Gayle. The farm produced 52,000kg of milksolids (kg MS) in the 2019-20 season, about 10,000kg MS less than normal, and the best production has been 65,000kg MS. “The prolonged drought had a big impact on grass growth and milk production last season,” she said. Tania had to dry off on May 6 this year, three weeks earlier than usual. “I ended up switching to once-a-day milking
Dairy Exporter | www.nzfarmlife.co.nz | November 2020
