Waerenga Waikato

Bruce and Jenni Cotman have been farming at Waerenga, in the Waikato, for 23 years.

“I grew up on my parents’ dairy farm and became a builder when I left school. It was a great trade to get into but, after living and working in Auckland for the latter part of the 13 years I was in the industry, we had a hankering to return to the Waikato and farming,” says Bruce.

“We worked on Mum and Dad’s farm for a few years before a neighbouring property came on the market. We purchased that farm and milked on both properties.

“We had staff, but there were times when Jenni and I would be doing four milkings a day. This, combined with concern at the tough time heifers often get being milked, twice a day, with mature herd mates, encouraged us to concentrate on our own farm, moving to once-a-day milking.

“In hindsight, that was a great decision because it freed us to improve the property and the benefits are evident in herd health and output.

“We operate a very simple farming system, with no bought-in feed, and the herd averaging around 400kg MS per cow on grass and silage.”

Clare Bayly Bruce Cotman in the lower of the two standoff pads he has built to provide the optimum environment for his cows.

The upper stand-off pad is nearing completion.

Working with the weather

Bruce says they graze all stock – herd and young stock – on the 100ha effective property.

“We milked 135 Friesian cross for the last couple of years, down from a high of 180, and aim to milk 150 in the 2021/2022 season.

“The soil on our farm is heavy clay, prone to being very wet and pugging in winter, and drying out in summer, so managing cow health and condition during extreme weather has always been a challenge. We overcame this by standing the cows off on a couple of woodchip pads.

“Woodchips provide comfortable footing and bedding for cows but maintaining them is costly both in terms of time and money. They require regular maintenance to ensure they are as free from effluent as possible and the surface needs to be scraped and refilled with fresh woodchip each season. We wanted a surface which would provide the optimum environment for the cows, be easy to keep clean and have a long life.”

Bruce and Jenni considered a range of coverings for the standoff pads. “We liked the concept of rubber but soon realised there are vast differences between the product offerings on the market. Some rubber matting is very dense and hard whereas we wanted a surface that would be comfortable for the cows either standing or lying down for 12 to 14 hours a day.

“Our search led us to Southland farmers Paul and Kyllee Henton who developed the AgriTech Cow Comfy Rubber Matting system.”

Common goal

Paul says he easily identified with what Bruce and Jenni wanted to achieve.

“Kyllee and I designed the mats to provide our herd with the best care and comfort possible – and the Comfy Cow is the result; a durable, premium product on which cows will happily stand or lie for days on end.”