Green Park Sheep King Country

Clare Bayly

From left, Brad, Andrew, Paul and Kieran White.

e running of the sheep – the ock on the run to the dairy. Converting the dairy from cows to sheep saw the roof extended by ve metres.

You see the dust cloud before you see its creator – 860 sheep ‘stampeding’ down the race of an Otorohanga farm, bound for milking.

Farmer Paul White says it’s a sight which causes him to pause and re˜ ect on the path he and his sons, Kieran and Brad, have followed since they made the decision to switch from cow to sheep dairy a little more than a year ago.

In contrast to sheep grazed in mobs for wool or meat, dairy sheep are accustomed to twice daily handling and relish the maize which is on o° er in the dairy – hence the rush to get there. ˛ at, says Paul, is just one of the contrasts he notices after a lifetime of milking cows.

“Dianne and I have dairy farmed at Ngahape for 35 years. Our boys – Kieran, Brad and Andrew – grew up on the farm but developed corporate careers, Kieran as a ÿ nancial analyst, Brad a rural banker and Andrew in the airforce,” says Paul. Crossroads

“Aspirations change over time, however, and we found ourselves at a crossroads – Dianne and I wanting to step back and the boys wanting to return to farming.

“˛ ose talks resulted in Andrew taking up the contract to milk on the home farm but neither Brad nor Kieran were interested in milking cows. However, the prospect of being trailblazers for the emerging sheep milking industry appealed. Financially and environmentally it stacked up.

“In December 2019 we purchased an 81 hectare dairy farm north of Otorohanga. It was a great property with a new e˙ uent system but pretty-much everything else needed to be converted to enable the farm to transition from milking cows to sheep. We planned to start with 860 ewes and increase the ˜ ock to around 1200 ewes.”

Settlement date for the new farm was June 1, but thanks to ‘wonderful vendors’ the White family were able to start work on the conversion on May 20.

“A priority, after securing the property, was to call the contractors who would work on the conversion. We’d elected to ‘go local – a decision which proved to be prophetic (in hindsight) because of the subsequent pandemic and closing of the borders.

“We gave them six months’ notice that we were converting the farm and they’d need to be there from day one and work until it was completed because we had to get it done in a very tight timeframe. We needed people we’d worked with before, people we could trust to commit and work to the time constraints we were facing.”

More work

As if revamping the farm in six months wasn’t enough, the family also decided to upgrade one of the farm houses.

On cue, the team of contractors converged on the property – LB Fencing, Wolvers Contracting, Qubik/Waikato Milking Systems, Landmore Agri plus electricians, plumbers etc. ˛ e paddock subdivision in place on the farm was suitable for sheep but the fencing, designed for cows, needed extra wires. Erecting ÿ ve wire fences, three of which are electriÿ ed, was carried out by Luke Brown of LB Fencing and Fred Hawkins.

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Biological Fertilisers

Solid and Liquid Fertilisers Liquid BioChar/Humus Builder /Cal-Phos

Increase soil humus and biological activity – from $15/ha

Soil Force

Biological Phosphate Fertiliser

Re-Charge/Nano-Cal/Multi-Cal

Calcium-Carbon Fertilisers

Stock Primer – Mineralised Carbon Drench

Build immunity, suppress pathogens; e.g. Rotovirus & E.Coli for as little as 4¢ per cow per day

Humates/Humic Acid/Fulvic Acid

Increased water retention & nutrient release.

New Biological Controls for Cricket, Cicada, Argentine Stem Weevil, Clover Flea –all added into solid and liquid fertiliser programmes. Biological PSA management options. Reams Soil Testing, Home Garden Fertiliser.

e White family with the contracting team who turned up on day one and worked to get the conversion done in time for lambing. From left Wolvers Contracting Paul Wolvers, Landmore Agri’s Shayne King, farmer Paul White, Qubik’s Nick He er, farmer Andrew White, Waikato Milking Systems Gary Feeney, farmers Kieran and Brad White. Blindings streamline entry to the dairy and ensure good ow.

Ewes during milking showing the bail gates in operation.

e 16 tonne ‘Big Dutchman’ silo from Landmore Agri has 90mm feed lines to the dairy.

At the same time Paul Wolvers, of Paul Wolvers Contracting Ltd, widened race crossings to eliminate pinch points, cleaned drains, formed raceways, levelled out fence lines for the fencers, widened and upgraded the tanker track, and helped with improvements around the milking shed. ˜ e farm had good cattle troughs but they were too high for sheep, so pumice was laid around the exterior, raising the ground level so the sheep could reach the water. ˜ ey also arranged blocks inside the troughs to act as steps so any wayward lambs, falling into the water, could get out.

Just in time

˜ e fencing, races, drain and trough work were partly completed by the time the 860 ° ock of in-lamb ewes arrived on farm on June 8. Lambing started on July 20 and ÿ nished on September 16, with milking underway on August 10.

Converting the 18-aside herringbone to a 40-aside sheep dairy would see the builder extend the roof by ÿ ve metres and raise the platform 300mm to a height of 1m to accommodate the change in stature of cows to ewes. Blindings were also attached to the yards and entrance to funnel sheep into the dairy and a transportable foot bath (used once a day to prevent scold and foot rot) was built for the exit race.

In tandem with the work at the dairy, the builder and his team also carried out renovations to the farm house.

Choice of a milking system saw Paul and his sons install the ÿ rst Waikato Milking Systems’ 40-aside AGILI Rapid Exit Sheep Dairy in New Zealand.

“It’s a great piece of engineering and design capable of milking up to 1200 sheep,” says Paul. ˜ e system features the new Waikato Milking Systems MCU, a state-of-the-art Milking Control Unit. ˜ e combined pulsator and cup remover can also have optional milk yield measuring capabilities.

Bells and whistles

Installed by Te Awamutu’s Qubik, the dairy has ‘all the bells and whistles’ including a special rotary lobe milk pump which maintains milk quality. A Qubik automatic plant wash system frees milkers to focus on other areas of the farming system, conÿ dent a complete wash cycle is carried e˝ ciently and e˙ ectively.

In contrast with cows, milking sheep is ‘a speed a˙ air’, far faster than milking cows with each row of 40 ewes taking around six minutes. Sensors in the MCU detect when milk ° ow ceases, activating the cup removers and avoiding over-milking.

Paul quipped that Kieran and Brad are now much ÿ tter than they were when they started milking the ° ock. “You’re on the move the entire time.” ˜ e system is conÿ gured so minimal labour is required while still enabling a high throughput. Ideally one person will be able to milk the ° ock, freeing others to get the second or third ° ock to the shed for milking. ˜ e New Zealand-made Landmore Agri dairy feed system features a single 16 tonne storage silo with 90mm feed delivery lines, which feed maize through one dispenser per two sheep.

Milking Systems

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Refrigeration + Water Reticulation

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Oubik are proud to have supplied and installed the new sheep milking system, water reticulation, refrigeration and pre-cooling system for Paul & Dianne White.

Landmore Agri’s Shayne King says the dairy feed system’s manual adjustment enables feed to be customised to each bail. Nick He er from Qubik checks out the Waikato Milking Systems’ Milking Control Units.

Close up of a sheep cluster attached to the auto wash jetter. e ground around the outside of the cattle troughs was raised so the sheep can reach the water. Kieran White – the two cup clusters are smaller and easier to handle than those for cows.

˜ e system has a manual adjustment which enables feed to be customised to each bail. On average, each ewe receives between 300 and 400 grams of maize at each milking.

First milking

˜ e in-lamb ewes are a mix of the main northern hemisphere dairy sheep breeds – East Friesian, Awassi and Lacaune on a Coopworth base – purchased from Maui Milk, which pioneered sheep milking in the Taupo region in 2017. Maui Milk also collects Greenpark Sheep’s milk, processing it into pure milk powder at the Innovation Park in Hamilton.

Paul White says the majority of the 860 sheep were ewes, with around 200 hoggets, so most of them ‘knew the ropes’. ˜ ey knew they’d be fed in the dairy and this desire to ‘get in’ certainly helped over the ÿ rst few days as they got used to the new dairy.

“After around ÿ ve days they were coming in very happily. You simply open the gate to the paddock, and they run down the race. ˜ ere’s no need for a backing gate; they’re really keen to get into the bails and start feeding.

“At the start we had three people milking but now Kieran and Brad are milking 400 ewes per hour. All up it takes around 2.5 hours to milk the ˛ ock.”

Relax in time

Kieran and Brad say the lifestyle, milking sheep, is similar to cows but they anticipate that over time it will be more relaxed as sheep have a shorter milking season, drying o˝ around March. ˜ e environmental aspect of sheep milking was a drawcard for the White family.

“We don’t have the pugging issue you get with cows – all those little hooves ˛ atten and improve the pasture. We’ve planted 40 shade trees but that’s just a start – we want to provide as much shade from the sun as we can. ˜ e sheep will be shorn twice a year for animal health reasons, not wool price.

“And the environment in the dairy is completely di˝ erent to cows – there’s no e˙ uent in the pit so there’s no need for Kieran and Brad to wear aprons. ˜ e ˛ ock is quiet, eager to be milked and don’t kick.”

Paul, Kieran and Brad admit the past year, since taking over the farm, has been frantic. “We barely had time to pause and re˛ ect.

“In hindsight, going with New Zealandmade products was a huge advantage because everything was in the country. It doesn’t bear thinking how we’d have managed had aspects of our new dairy been overseas when the country closed its borders during the Covid lockdowns,” says Paul.

“Transitioning from cow to sheep milking has been a huge learning curve but we’ve had tremendous support from our contractors and suppliers. We simply couldn’t have done it without them. ˜ ey committed to being here from day one and went over and above to see us right. Right move

“We’re convinced making the move to sheep dairy was the right move – for the family and the farm.

“Kieran and Brad and their partners are enjoying the transition to farm life. ˜ ey all agree they have a higher quality of life than they had in the city and are continuing the family’s farming tradition, albeit it in a new and emerging industry.

“Sheep milking is an industry for the present but, more importantly, the future, so we’re pretty happy.”

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