NZ Dairy Autumn 2015

Autumn 2015

www.waterfordpress.co.nz

Builder branches out

INSIDE

Search on for best grass – PAGE 3

Would-be sheep farmer converts – PAGE 14

• Can apply rates below 7mm/per hr and depths down to 3mm, while still dealing with raw effluent • The GBMagnum has a mounted rain gun to provide twice the application area you would cover with a conventional travelling irrigator • Low Application rates, while cutting down the labour input

– Page 36

Goats ‘a great alternative’ – PAGE 19

Canny ways to tackle drought – PAGE 32

www.waterfordpress.co.nz

DAIRY PEOPLE » John & Shirley Vivian

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NZ Dairy

Farming a changing landscape Sue Russell There may be lots of ways to describe a farming journey extending back 25 years; one way John and Shirley Vivian see it – to a degree – is being one step behind what was happening.

By that, John – who sharemilks on a 80-hectare farm not far from Matakana, 40 minutes north of Auckland – means that in their early days the landscape that would lead them to farm-ownership kept shifting just at the point where they could have taken the next step.

“We were always a step behind,” he says. “The Rural Bank said that if we paid off our first stock loan in three years, it would finance us into a farm.

But when we achieved that. farm prices had gone up again and we didn’t qualify.”

Instead, the former engine driver and farm girl used the capital from the sale of their eight-hectare hobby plot of land to buy their first herd of cows and began sharemilking.

For the past 18 seasons they been on Tane Farm and currently have a herd of 250 predominantly kiwicross cows.

They also lease several lots of land in the district, running beef cattle on them and taking the stock from calves to two-year-olds.

John Vivian describes Tane Farm as roughly a third flat, a third undulating and a third rolling at the back.

The couple bought land next to the farm to build their house on, and the original farm-house is occupied by the full-time farm worker who has worked for them for a couple a year.

“Our best year has been 87,000 kilograms of milksolids. This farm is predominantly kikuyu and, to get the best production from it, we’re constantly managing it, including mulching and under-sowing the whole farm every year.”

Kikuyu, which comes from South Africa, was originally planted up north because of its ability to keep growing through droughts and into the winter when other, less hardy grasses slow. If controlled well, it is a nutritionally high source of animal feed, but if left to grow long without being grazed, it loses its nutritional edge.

The management and maintenance of kikuyu pasture and production capabilities was one of the key topics when the local discussion group Vivian belongs to visited the farm. For the dozen farmers

PHOTOS – Top left: Shirley and John Vivian and farm worker Robert. Top right: The management of kikuyu pasture was a key topic at a farm visit by a local discussion group. Above: John Vivian brings in the herd of 250 predominantly kiwicross cows. in the district who visited, it was an opportunity to share strategies about getting the best production from the grass.

“When we began farming here, there would have been about 23 dairy farms in the Warkworth discussion group. Now there are six or seven farms, so there has been a lot of change in the district over the time we’ve been here.”

Grant Dixon

He says the change hasn’t all been negative, even with the demise of dairy farming around the Warkworth-Matakana area.

“It has been good for farmers because they have been able to sell land for lifestyle developments and receive so much more than they would have, had the farm been sold as an ongoing concern.”

As he contemplates the possible end of his

farming career, he says he still thinks of himself as a farmer.

“I think Shirley is more of a farmer than me, but I’m very fond of the cows and will probably shed a tear or two when they are sold. We still have a few which were our kids’ calf-club cows. It’s true to say I’ve enjoyed the country life, which has been a great way to bring up a family.”

Simon Withers Grant Blackbourn

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Autumn 2015

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Builder branches out

– Page 36

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INSIDE

Search on the best grass – PAGE 3

Would-be sheep farmer converts – PAGE 14

• Can apply rates below 7mm/per hr and depths down to 3mm, while still dealing with raw effluent • The GBMagnum has a mounted rain gun to provide twice the application area you would cover with a conventional travelling irrigator • Low Application rates, while cutting down the labour input

Goats ‘a great alternative’ – PAGE 19

Canny ways to tackle drought – PAGE 32

www.waterfordpress.co.nz

NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Ernest & Catherine Blom

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South Taranaki sharemilkers Ernest and Catherine Blom are participating in an Agriseeds persistence trial, involving the planting of 40 grass cultivars in a one-hectare plot.

Search on for the best grass Karen Phelps South Taranaki 50:50 sharemilkers Ernest and Catherine Blom are involved in an Agriseeds persistence trial they hope will give them vital information about which grass will grow best on their farm.

The couple say they have not been growing crops as they have found the various grasses they have tried have not done well in the sandy soil of their coastal farm at Manutahi, around halfway between Hawera and Patea in South Taranaki.

The Agriseed trial, which the couple began in March 2014, involves planting 40 grass cultivars in a one-hectare plot. The Bloms treat the trial paddock the same way as they do every paddock in their farming operation.

“We have already learned that there are a couple of grasses the cows just don’t like,” says Catherine.

“We hope to see more results shortly as the trial reaches one year.”

They have found that earlier varieties have produced well on the farm, with pastures clocking up 20 years still performing admirably.

They also plant 4ha of maize each year and, this season, have grown an early variety that will be ready when they need it. It’s a way of helping reduce risk in dry years.

They have also been using a travelling irrigator to spread over 40ha of the farm, which has brought some much needed moisture this season.

“We have been running it on the fastest setting possible to get it around more of the paddocks,” says Catherine.

She grew up on a dairy farm nearby at nearby Pihama, completed a marketing degree and worked in sales before she and Ernest, an engineer by trade, went to manage her parents’ (Michael and Barbara Stevenson) ha farm in 2000. Ernest had moved to New Zealand from South Africa 10 years previously and had never milked a cow.

The pair contract-milked a herd of 280 cows for three seasons then moved to their present farm.

They are in their second season of 50:50 sharemilking the 160ha (effective) farm, called Mangaroa. The herd of 620 crossbred cows is milked through a 60-bail rotary shed. They also rear 120 calves and 60 yearlings on a 70ha run-off connected to the bottom of the farm, plus another 60 yearlings off farm.

The main focus this season has been to lower their empty rate, which sat at 13 per cent last season and has now dropped to 8%. The couple achieved this by 12 weeks of AB, a CIDR programme, pregnancy testing early and culling empty cows. This took pressure off the rest of the herd and meant the productive cows could be fed better.

Culling cows hasn’t resulted in a production drop. Production has remained stable and cow condition is better, says Catherine.

The Bloms worked their way through this season’s drought by using more palm kernel than they had budgeted, and maize saved from last season (they order 14ha as well as growing 4ha on farm). They aim to reserve 150 tonnes of maize each year to provide insurance against drought and feed-price increases.

The Bloms both take an active role working on

Catherine Blom gets alongside one of the Bloms’ 620 crossbred cows. the farm and employ two full-time staff. They are running a profitable operation even at the $4.70/ kilogram payout with farm working expenses sitting at $2/kg.

Last season the farm produced 260,000 kilograms of milksolids drying off on April 17. Final figures will depend on the weather but they are aiming for 280,000-300,000kg.

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DAIRY PEOPLE » Andy & Debi Whitehead

NZ Dairy

Opunake farming family Andy and Debi Whitehead with sons Troy and Kallum

Equity deal ‘win-win’ Karen Phelps

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The couple are in their fourth season of part ownership with Peter and Lynette Johnston on a 135-hectare (effective) farm near Opunake.

The Whiteheads are 70 per cent sharemilkers with 50% equity in the farm.

“It’s an awesome position for us to be in and it’s been really beneficial,” says Andy Whitehead “It’s a win-win for both sides. It helps younger farmers to take the next step and go into farm ownership, and it helps farmers who are wanting to wind up to get a bit of cash out of their business and start to hand their farm over.”

Another benefit of the partnership has been job security, he says “We are still accountable to our business

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partners, but we also have a 50% say in the running of the farm. It maintains the interest of all parties.

“The benefit for us is that by improving the farm, we get increased future value. For the Johnstons, they know their farm will continue to be well run and we can benefit from their many years of experience of farming in the area.”

Andy Whitehead grew up as Andrew Potroz (he took Debi’s surname when they married) on the other side of Mt Taranaki on a sheep and dairy farm, while Debi comes off a farm on the other side of the world in the United Kingdom.

Andy started working for his parents when he left school before getting a dairy-assistant position on a 300-cow farm. He met Debi at Young Farmers while she was in New Zealand on an agricultural exchange. A few months later he headed away on his OE, working on dairy farms in Canada, Denmark, and finally the UK where he met up with Debi again.

The couple returned to New Zealand in 1992 and worked as farm assistants on a 250-cow farm at Tikorangi for two years where they welcomed their first son, Troy, into the world.

They then headed to Wales for four years milking 120 cows on a farm that calved year round. They had another son (Kallum) there before returning to New Zealand where they saw more opportunities for their family as well as a way to buy their own farm by working their way up the dairy system.

They worked for a year on wages at a 460cow farm at Opunake, then took a lower-order sharemilking position milking 300 cows at Oaonui.

After three years of increasing production, topped off by an increase in payout, enabled them to take on a 50:50 sharemilking position with 200 cows for four years with Anne Flemming. They then moved to a 50:50 position on the Johnston farm

where they are now equity partners.

They have entered Sharemilker of the Year competitions, coming third in 2001-02 in the Taranaki region as lower-order sharemilkers, and third again in 2007-08 as 50:50 sharemilkers when they also won the environment award.

The 150-hectare Whitehead/Johnston farm at Opunake runs to the sea and includes 60ha of leased land. It is owned under a company, Kinatai Farms Ltd. Around 10ha of the farm is Queen Elizabeth II Trust covenant land.

The herd of 420 crossbred cows is milked through a 34-a-side herringbone shed. The Whiteheads use ayrshire, brown swiss and dutch belted breeds for variety.

Around 10ha of the farm has been re-grassed each year and the equity partners are starting to see the benefits in rising production. Last season the farm produced 161,000 kilograms of milksolids; the target this season is 175,000kg.

It’s a mainly grass-based system, with around 140 tonnes of palm kernel bought in each year.

The Whiteheads employ one full-time staff member, and say they have achieved a good offfarm balance by employing relief-milkers.

After farming for 30 years Andy and Debi Whitehead are fulfilling their dream of farm ownership through the equity partnership and are keen to move onto full ownership.

“Although there are no definite timeline in place for this, it remains a firm goal,” says Andy. “Our sons are now 21 and 19 and may one day want to join our business.”

The couple are involved in their community.

Andy chairs the Opunake High School Board of Trustees and the local Shell Todd Community Advisory Group, and is on the Egmont Plains Community Board.

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Hayden & Narelle Hilhorst

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Vet’s advice streamlines milking Karen Phelps Getting the advice of a vet on the cow-flow in their milking shed has resulted in a happier herd and shorter milking times for Atiamuri based farmers Narelle and Hayden Hilhorst.

The couple are in their third season of lowerorder sharemilking on a farm at Atiamuri owned by Hayden’s parents, Wendy and Peter.

They milk a herd of 710 friesian cows through a herringbone shed they recently extended from 40 to 44-a-side. They expected that this alone would speed up their milking times, but they were wrong.

“Cows were slow coming into the shed, so we were waiting and then cows were getting overmilked,” says Hayden Hillhorst.

“The vet advised us to get the cows in and, if the next row hasn’t moved in by the time they are finished, we’re now hanging up the cups.

“It sounds like it would take longer to milk, but it’s actually speeding things up. The cows are more relaxed as they don’t associate milking with painful teats any more, and staff are happier as well.”

The vet also noticed that rubber mats placed at the shed exit to protect the race and the cows’ feet were also slowing down the pace as cows were exiting cautiously because they were afraid of slipping on the matting. The matting was removed.

The Hilhorsts have also slowed down their backing gate because the cows at the back were getting pushed too much when those at the front were not moving fast enough.

A buzzer will also be installed to alert cows at the front that the gate is coming around to encourage them to move.

As a result of the changes, milking times have reduced by 30 minutes, resulting in happier staff and more relaxed cows.

Hayden’s parents converted the farm to dairy when he was a teenager. Originally 180 hectares, the farm has now been extended to 302ha (262 effective) by buying neighbouring land.

Hayden and Narelle came to the property in 2010 as farm assistants and, a year later, took over ots management. Twelve months later, they began lower-order sharemilking.

Hayden says they are concentrating on constant improvement in their business and on the farm.

Good pasture management is a key part of this and they tow a C-Dax pasture meter around the farm every seven to 10 days.

Cow numbers have been increased slightly since the Hillhorsts came to the property – from a stocking rate of 2.6 to 2.8. As a result, they do not need to top pastures as much.

Hayden and Narelle Hilhorst and son William in front of the 1.3 million litre effluent tank installed last year. Their daughter, Zoe, was born in late February, soon after this photo was taken.

Breeding is another focus, and they have been using 250 straws of sexed semen each season.

Significant investment has been made in a new farm-effluent system with a 1.3 million-litre PermaSteel tank installed last year to replace a sump. Hayden Hillhorst says the move was an example of their proactive attitude – getting things done before they become an issue. Now, with more than 30 days of storage, they have more control over when and where they spread and can fully use the nutrients in their pastures.

The Hilhorsts do all their own cultivation and fertiliser spreading because they believe it gives them greater control. It also allows them to indulge their love of machinery, says Hayden.

They grow 14ha of turnips for summer crop and 8ha of kale for winter crop. All but 180 of their cows are grazed on farm for winter.

Peter Hillhorst is still active on the farm, assisting with calf rearing and filling in when needed. Narelle and Hayden have a 20-month-old son, William, and a two-month-old daughter, Zoe. .

Last season they achieved 308,300 kilograms of milksolids, peak-milking 670 cows. This season they were targeting 340,000kg, but the dry summer forced a revision to closer to 325,000kg.

They have achieved this production through running the farm as a system 3.

The Hilhorsts are aiming for farm ownership and see their next step as a 50:50 sharemilking position.

They are applying for jobs, as they believe they can increase their equity faster by moving to a different farm.

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DAIRY PEOPLE » Owen & Gail Shepherd

NZ Dairy

Return to dairying no-brainer Karen Phelps When Owen Shepherd decided to return to dairy farming it wasn’t a hard decision – despite the fact he wasn’t exactly a young farmer any more and some might say his surname had perhaps primed him for a life of sheep farming.

“The bank reckoned that at my age I needed to think long and hard about it, and I said that I’d thought about it for years,” he says. “There was no money in sheep and cattle. It was either convert to dairy or sell the farm. I was also pining for dairy cows I think.”

Owen and wife Gail had both grown up on farms – Gail on a ballot dairy farm near Whangarei, Owen on a dairy unit at Wellsford. The Shepherd family farm was constantly expanded as his parents bought up neighbouring blocks.

Owen started milking cows when he was just nine and by the age of 12 was milking both before and after school each day. When he left school it was no surprise he chose to work full-time on the farm.

He met Gail, was married by the age of 21, and the pair went sharemilking on the family unit, buying part of the farm just four years later.

They then bought 45 hectares of scrubland off a neighbour and broke it in. When the neighbours’ farm came on the market they bought it in partnership with Owen’s brother, Paul. They acquired more land when another neighbour put the farm on the market, but a downturn meant they had to sell it again.

“I was always buying land,” confesses Owen.

“Gail kept saying she wasn’t going to sign the next piece of paper, but she never refused in the end.”

It was a formula that worked and, in 1979, they bought their present farm at Matauri Bay Rd, north

Kerikeri farmers Owen and Gail Shepherd with sons Chris (left), who is herd manager, and Mark, who takes care of cropping and development work. of Kerikeri. The 265ha unit farmed sheep, which they continued to do for 18 years before converting to dairy in 1997.

The couple now milk 780 holstein friesian cows through a 40-a-side herringbone shed. It’s undeniably a small shed for such a large herd, and Shepherd says a new shed will be on the cards when the payout recovers. The farm is now 390ha,

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and they lease a further 60ha, which they are developing. All one to two-year-old stock are grazed off the farm.

Their youngest son, Chris, is the herd manager and has been using predominantly Liberty Genetics on the unit, as well as genetics from Samen NZ and World Wide Sires. They have also dabbled in montbéliarde, a French/Swiss breed with a better fertility rating than holstein friesian. The aim is to breed a cow with more capacity.

“I started using montbéliarde to see if I could increase fertility, but it hasn’t worked out exactly like that,” says Owen Shepherd. “The top two or three heifers each year are montbéliarde crosses,

but so are the bottom three usually. So, some seem to cross well while others don’t.”

Drainage is another challenge with around 100ha of the farm still needing attention.

“It has open drains and has been contoured, but we’re now going over it again and recontouring and putting in Novaflo,” says Shepherd. “ We’ve probably done 25-30 kilometres of Novaflo already.

This should give us a lot more grass and means we could possibly increase cow numbers as well as feeding the herd better. If we can drain the land better, the potential of the land is high.”

• To page 7

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Bryan & Suzie Jackson

|7

Bryan and Suzie Jackson on their 128-hectare farm at Kereone.

Moving, buying ‘conscious decision’ Sue Russell Bryan and Suzie Jackson bought their first farm – Suzie’s parents’ property at Kereone, near Morrinsville – in 2002.

Their farming life began in 1995 after leaving other employment – Bryan in the timber industry and Suzie with Anchor Products at Hautapu. They had two years at Kiwitahi on a 400-cow farm, then in 1977 went sharemilking for Suzie’s parents on their 75-hectare farm.

In 2000 they acquired a second sharemilking job for Jack Pickett at Morrinsville with 240 cows and put a manager on that property, Then, in 2003, they bought 63ha of Suzie’s parents’ farm and leasing the remaining 12ha.

Track on a further four years to 2007 when through the neighbouring 53ha farm. The following year the, decided to give up their sharemilking job, sell the cows, build a 44-bail rotary shed, and combine the two dairy farms into one unit.

Nearly three years ago came their final acquisition of land, the purchase of the final 12ha from the original farm – giving a total dairy unit of 128ha.

“We decided basically that every three years or so, we would move or buy more to further our farming career,” says Bryan Jackson. “It was a conscious decision right from the start so that we could progress.”

The farm carries a herd of 440-450 cows at peak and has evolved into operating a system 5 feeding regime. The Jacksons have used the services of Interlac consultant Chris Pyke, and believe his advice has been key to their progression.

“We have had a consultant for support for 10 years now and he gives very sound advice,” says Bryan.

Plans to develop the farm further include considerable riparian planting and, most recently, building a new 5-million-litre lined pond and drying beds.

“We have a man with us who has just returned to dairying work, but it is true that Suzie and I do a lot of the work ourselves.,” says Bryan Jackson.

“We manage with a full-time assistant, along with another we employ from spring and over the peak.”

The couple are part of the Kereone discussion group which meets regularly by visiting farms in the district. After a farm visit, the consultant sends the

Owen starts ‘taking a step back’ • From page 6 The Shepherds typically re-grass around 44ha a year, planting maize then permanent pasture.

Italian ryegrasses have proved a winner on the land producing “colossal” amounts of feed.

Oldest son Mark handles the cropping and development work, leaving Owen and Gail free to look after the accounts and take an overall view of the family business.

Grandson Axel works on the unit as a farmhand and the farm employs one other full-timer as well as a relief-milker and milk harvesters. Owen says this set-up gives them a great deal of flexibility.

Last season the farm produced its best result yet – 295,959 kilograms of milksolids from 670

owner an objective assessment of what he/she has observed.

While a discussion group day is under way, everyone who attends is also asked to give their thoughts about the farm’s situation.

One of the key advantages Bryan Jackson sees to belonging to the discussion group is that it gets farmers off their land and on to other farms, and it’s a good catch-up time.

“The discussion group acts as a conduit for farmers to rub shoulders and share their experiences.”

The Jacksons have two sons – Bradley, who is

a diesel mechanic apprentice, and Cameron, who is in his final year at Morrinsville College.

They have made it clear to both boys how important it is to have a trade or qualification before embarking on farming.

Both Bryan and Suzie Jackson are looking forward in the not too distant future when they will take a step away from their hands-on duties.

“Farming is a good life, it takes hard work and commitment,” says Bryan.

“It is very much a big-picture thing, deciding on a strategy to follow that will bring about the goals you have set.”

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cows. This season the target is 320,000kg with 780 cows.

The Shepherds are looking to farm succession, as Owen is now 72 and plans to take things easier.

He has already started taking a step back – the morning of this interview, he went fishing, and he and Gail have done missionary work in the Philippines.

“I’m always there but I want the boys to make as many decisions as possible,” he says. “Using a farm consultant for the past two years has proved useful as it has helped the boys focus, and gives goals and structure.

At some stage the boys will want to own their own farm and it will be a challenge to us as to how they can do that.”

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DAIRY PEOPLE » Graham & Vanda Robinson

8|

NZ Dairy

Family business ‘nearly there’ for Taranaki couple Kelly Deeks Business will become a family affair this year for the Robinsons of Taranaki when son Michael goes into partnership with his parents, Graham and Vanda.

Michael Robinson has been sharemilking 630 cows on a family-owned, 205-hectare farm for the past six years.s follows a two-year stint on the home farm after he completed a two-year course at the Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre.

The senior Robinsons have been on their dairy farm on Dudley Rd, Inglewood for 27 years. They bought it as a 71ha unit with 160 cows.

“We got to about 220 cows on the home farm and nothing else was coming up around us,” says Graham Robinson.

“We had built a new house, but nothing else was really happening, so we looked for another farm to buy and found an 80ha block a couple of roads across from us.”

The Robinsons then bought another farm opposite that. One of these two farms on the same road now carries 630 cows on 205ha, the other 520 cows on 170ha (run by manager Tyrone Awahou, who was promoted after spending three years working under Michael).

The home farm on Dudley Rd is now 200ha

(effective) and runs 600 cows, with a 36ha run-off block next door.

Graham Robinson says the family business is nearly there in terms of growth.

When a small run-off block next door to the 170ha farm is incorporated into the dairy platform and cow numbers are increased to 600 next season, the total operation will involve three 600cow farms.

The Robinsons have a jersey-supplement herd which was registered about 15 years ago, and sell a few heifers every year – although they have been developing the business more than they have been selling cattle.

Their interest in jersey cows dates back to their sharemilking days when they were dealing mainly with jersey and crossbred cows.

“On our last sharemilking job before we bought the Dudley Rd farm, the owner asked me to buy his in-calf, friesian heifers when we took on the job, and we had at least 40% crossbreds in the herd at the time,” says Graham Robinson.

“When we sold half our cows to buy the first dairy farm, we sold all the crossbreds because there was a good market for them.”

The Robinsons have sought to breed a large

• To page 9

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Graham and Vanda Robinson (top) are entering into a partnership with son Michael on their Inglewood property (above). The family will have three 600-cow farms in operation next year.

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Landcorp Cirenester Dairy

|9

Happy staff, happy farm – manager Karen Phelps Cirenester Dairy may be a good example of what a talented farm manager is able to achieve in a short space of time.

Since farm manager Daniel Amoamo took the helm two seasons ago. he has managed a series of significant improvements that have resulted in a more efficiently run unit and rises in production.

Amoamo grew up on a 60-hectare dairy farm at Reporoa, so is familiar with the region. He admiots that after finishing school,.he wasn’t keen on a dairy career: “It seemed like hard work when I was young,” he says.

It was only when he and wife Melissa had their first son in 2006 that he started to think seriously about dairying again for the security it could offer his young family.

Landcorp, which had just started developing farms in Reporoa that year, seemed like a good option as it provided a clear career pathway, he says.

He began as a dairy assistant on Landcorp’s Broadlands farm, which at the time milked 1000 cows. He then progressed on similar-sized farms within Landcorp – second in charge for two years on Renown Farm; second in charge for two years, then manager for two years at Endeavour; then to Cirenester a season ago when Landcorp took on the sharemilking contract for the farm-owner, Pengxin Group.

In that first year he managed both Cirenester and Plateau farms, which milked a total of 1800 cows on 580ha. This season he is concentrating on Cirenester, milking 900 cows on 278ha.

Significant investment has been made in fencing, gateways, troughs, a new effluent pond,

Landcorp farm manager Damiel Amoamo says staff is his priority. and upgrading the four houses on the property.

With the farm tidied up, the goal this season is to increase production. Amoamo sees his four fulltime staff as his key starting point.

“The staff are my main priority because production is a flow-on effect of this,” he says.

“If you look after your staff, they look after the cows and yout production increases. My definition

of success is watching my staff grow.”

Amoamo says staff can also benefit from the same Landcorp career pathways that have brought him up through the dairy system. For example, Landcorp pays for AgITO training if the staff member successfully passes their chosen course.

“We try and show staff that they could be a manager too one day. All my staff are responsible

for aspects of the farm. This gives them a sense of responsibility and pride in their work as well as opportunities to learn.”

He works on having quality one-on-one time with staff members and sees this as an important investment that pays dividends.

“It’s beneficial for both manager and staff. You can both agree on how things will be done on the farm.”

For example, he was recently encouraging staff to enter the Trainee of the Year award in the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards.

“They said they would enter if I entered the Farm Manager of the Year award, so we all entered. It was great networking with other farm managers and made me examine our own farm-management systems and goals.

“It gave me a better idea of where we are and where we want to head. It was a good experience, and I’m looking forward to entering again next season.”

Cirenester milks a herd of mainly friesian and jersey-cross cows through a 74-a-side herringbone shed. The farm is part of Landcorp’s Tahi Group, which includes 13 dairy farms and two dairy support blocks Amoamo says Pengxin Group continues to make significant investment in Cirenester and it has been a positive experience working on a wellmaintained farm. For example, around 20 per cent of the farm is being re-grassed each season to get pastures up to standard.

Last season Cirenester achieved production of 278,000 kilograms of milksolids and is on target to produce 310,000kg this season.

But rising production is not the only priority for Amoamo: “We have low staff turnover and a happy farm.

To me that’s success.”

In-shed feeding helps herd weight

Authorised Dealers The Robinsons have worked hard breeding a large jersey cow, with live weights now 430kg.

• From page 8 jersey cow and have got there now with 430 kilograms liveweight, after starting with 380kg years ago.

An in-shed feeding system installed about eight years ago has contributed to the herd’s liveweight growth, as has rearing most of the replacement stock on the run-off block for the past eight years.

This has allowed the family to have more control

and do a job on the rising two-year-olds, says Robinson.

Another breeding focus has been getting the cows up to producing more than 20 litres a day, and this has now been achieved. with the cows up to 22 litres.

With this rapid growth phase now behind them, the family will now concentrate on quality and focus on improving the production worth and breeding worth indexes of the herd.

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10 |

DAIRY PEOPLE » Whakatohea Trust

NZ Dairy

Lameness eased by work on Kelly Deeks Farm manager Josh Collier has been working hard on realigning races this year to reduce lameness on the 930-cow farm near Opotiki he runs for the Whakatohea Trust.

Dairy farming is one of Whakatohea’s major business interests. The trust bought its first dairy farm, on the Waioweka flats near Opotiki, in 1952, followed by a second dairy property in 1968.

In 2010 the trust engaged Price Waterhouse Coopers and Dairy New Zealand to review its operations. In 2011 it moved to implement the recommendations of the review by combining the two milking sheds under one 235-hectare (effective) operation and reducing cow numbers.

The same year a new feedpad was built to accommodate 600 cows, and a new effluent pond was installed to manage the effluent from the dairy unit.

In 2012 a brand new 60-bail rotary shed was built to improve efficiency and allows milkproduction targets to be raised.

The Whakatohea Trust has taken a long-term lease arrangement for a 395ha support block at Motu, which is used for grazing young stock, heifers, calves, carry-over cows, the fattening of beef stock, and providing grazing services to other parties.

A local Motu farmer is employed to manage the property and the trust has invested considerable time and funds into improving the pastures, fencing, and water systems.

Josh Collier joined the Whakatohea Trust staff 2013 as shed manager after 13 years in the South Island, which included working on dry-stock and Whakatohea Trust invested in this 60-bail rotary shed to improve efficiency and increase production.

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Whakatohea Trust

| 11

races He is also concentrating on on better use of feed: ‘We are growing a lot grass here. We do a weekly pasture ride and do our feed budget on a week-by-week basis.

We’re trying to get our break patterns right.’ dairy farms, and helping with a conversion when the sheep farm he was working on was converted to dairy.

Last year he was promoted to Whakatohea farm manager, with three full-time and two part-time staff, as well as relief-milkers and calf-rearers.

The 2013-14 production target was 370,000 kilograms of milksolids.

“After a dry January and February and wet, cold weather at the end of calving, we got it up around 360,000kg milksolids, so we weren’t too far away,” he says.

This season the weather has been taken into account and the production target reduced to 363,000kg milksolids, which he says the farm is on track to achieve.

Last year the Whakatohea Trust bought a 40ha feed block about five kilometres down the road from the dairy unit. Cows are wintered there, and maize and lucerne grown.

Collier has been working to improve the races this season after noticing some lameness issues resulting from the races not having been adjusted since the two farms were brought together.

“They hadn’t had a lot of work done to them, and the cows do walk some distance as it’s 3.5 kilometres down a long narrow farm to the shed from the furthest paddock.

“I’ve realigned all the races and we are noticing some improvement.”

He is also concentrating on improving the empty rate and on better use of feed.

“We are growing a lot of grass here. We do a weekly pasture ride and do our feed budget on a week-by-week basis. We’re trying to get our break patterns right.”

The exterior of the rotary dairy shed near Opotiki.

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DAIRY PEOPLE » Colin & Crystal Sinclair/Stewart & Alex Weatherstone

12 |

NZ Dairy

PHOTOS: From left, farm owner Bruce Sinclair and staff on the cups; effluent screens on the Iti conversion; cows enter the shed for milking; dog and calf hitch a ride.

Former sparky hot-wired to farming Sue Russell His decision to leave his life as an electrician behind him to return to custodianship of two family-owned farms in the Waikato feels very much like coming home for Colin Sinclair.

That was seven years ago. He and wife Crystal live on the conversion dairy unit, Iti Flats Ltd, while Colin’s parents Bruce and Meiri live on the home farm, Nui. Both farms are near Walton, and each has a 2IC in charge of the day-to-day processes.

“For the last six or seven years everything has been bred to jersey,” says Colin. “It has been a change in breeding policy because we believe they are a more efficient animal. We’re actually growing jerseys to the size of some friesians.”

Nui is 145 hectares (139 effective) and Iti 190ha total (165 effective). Both carry just under 350 cows.

When Colin returned to the family farm, the Sinclairs bought a 57ha block near Morrinsville.

This was sold and Iti Farm was bought and converted to dairy. Each farm has a run-off.

While Nui will pretty much be operating at capacity next season, Sinclair says there is still plenty of potential for production increases at Iti. In hindsight he says he would have done more under-sowing earlier to get pasture off to a strong staff.

“I think that by the 2016-2017 season, Iti will be running at 90 per cent. There will be 400 cows on it by that stage.”

Productivity was down 12% in the first half of the season, but rose 7% in February on Nui and 11% on Iti, mainly as a result of regrassing.

Colin Sinclair’s management responsibilities extend over both farms and he has regular contact with the 2ICs. He and Crystal are equity partners

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in the Iti property, while Bruce and Meiri own the majority of the whole operation.

Sister Karyn is also very much part of the farming enterprise, rearing the young stock until they are two years old and, with her partner, Hugh, covering relief milking on both farms.

When Iti was upgraded, the decision was made to futureproof it so that, in time, it could cope with 700-800 cows, which is possible for someone wanting to move to a higher-input system.

It is nearly a quarter-century since Meiri and Bruce took on the home farm, but their relationship with the district goes back much further.

“They have been in this district for about 45 years and have seen a lot of changes and development,” says Colin. “This region is blessed with very good ash-based soils and we are starting to get to the point where we can have a life.”

He has no doubt about what is the most

important aspect of running a farming operation – it’s all about staff.

“Our staff during the conversion were absolutely fantastic. They had been involved in conversions and the two years with us gave them the confidence to progress further on in their own careers.”

Eight people, half of them Sinclair family members, look after the two farms, and Colin thinks aspirations to increase production, particularly on Iti, are highly achievable.

“If we get to 110-115,000 kilograms of milksolids, I will be very happy with Nui, and 120,000kg for Iti. Next season we will have a big increase in numbers with 170-odd heifers joining the main milking herd.”

Animal welfare is a priority. Crystal is a practising vet in Hamilton, and influence and input into treatments and eye for stock condition have seen somatic cell counts greatly reduced..

Consolidation focus for Karen Phelps Stewart and Alex Weatherstone are the fourth generation to farm at Tuhitarata, 25 kilometres south of Featherston.

The original 40-hectare block of the farm was bought in 1931 by Stewart’s great grandfather, who milked around 80 cows. Stewart, who grew up on the land, says it is a great feeling to be farming Rotopai.

Over the years the farm has grown to 1150ha; a 270ha lease block gives them a total milking platform of 635ha.

The Weatherstones will winter a herd of 3000 predominantly jersey cows and plan to peak-milk 2950 cows next season.

They have two dairy sheds on the farm.

One – a 60-bail rotary built in 2001 – is fully automated and requires only one person to run it.

They also have an 80-bail rotary at the other end of their farm; this was built in 2013.

The farm is operated as one unit though, with a block manager in charge of each herd. There is a ‘floating’ boundary to allow some paddocks and cows to swap between the areas each block manager is in charge of. This depends on factors such as grass growth and time of year.

It’s a predominantly flat farm with sand hills

running through the middle – a reminder that many moons ago, the farm was part of Lake Wairarapa.

The Weatherstones use a stand-off area. Around 150ha of the farm is steep hill country, which they use to graze sheep and to contract-graze beef cattle.

The Ruamahanga River runs along the western boundary. They obtain 200ha of irrigation water from here and an additional 100ha from groundwater – which means that around 40% of the milking platform is under irrigation. They re-grass 80-90ha of the farm each year.

The Weatherstones’ winter crops include 90ha of rape, kale or swedes, and 1000 bales of hay and straw. They have their own equipment for cultivation. .

They buy in around 380 tonnes dry matter of maize silage, 450 tonnes of grass silage and 1000 tonnes of barley.

The property is owned by the Weatherstone Family Trust, with Stewart and Alex as operations managers.

Both of the Weatherstones still have a hands-on role on the farm, and they employ 10 full-time staff,/ Both of Stewart’s parents, Bryan and Sherry, are also still involved.

Production last season was 330 kilograms of milksolids per cow – 1450kg per hectare. This

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Landcorp Moutoa Dairy

| 13

Shelter could be first of many Kelly Deeks

Landcorp Farming has built a Herd Home® on one of its nine Moutoa Dairy farms near Foxton. Brian Wilkinson, Landcorp’s farm business manager for the Moutoa dairy unit, Landcorp is always looking to be innovative and, if this HerdHome® is a success, will look at rolling out more across the complex.

A local builder began construction in March,

using materials supplied by HerdHomes® Systems.

“It will be large enough for 300 cows, and our plan is to winter everything at home on that farm,” Wilkinson says. “We also plan to use the HerdHome® in the autumn and do all our feeding out in there.”

The cost is around $600,000, and Landcorp is expecting a 12.5 per cent return over 10 years, as well as the benefits of comfort for the cows and a reduction in the nutrient footprint.

Wilkinson has been with Landcorp for eight years; he was hired to oversee the transition when Landcorp decided to replace the 50:50 sharemilkers on the nine Moutoa farms with managers.

“It has worked really well and we’ve exceeded everybody’s expectations,” he says.

“We’re directly involved with all the managers

4th-generation farmers

PHOTOS – Above: Gavin Payne and farm consultant Helwi Tacoma get alongside the cows. Left: Cows enjoy a taste of turnip;, Lower left: Break feeding. and staff. We set production goals together rather than each having individual goals.”

There are 4700 cows across the 1400-hectare Moutoa Dairy Unit; the farms range in scale from 200 cows on 60 hectares, to 1000 cows on 280ha.

The smaller farms are used to train managers.

“All the farms are neighbours and that creates a bit of competitiveness, which is healthy,” Wilkinson says. “When we started, we had a goal of achieving a total of 2 million kilograms of milksolids, which we did a couple of years ago.

“This year we’re looking to produce 2.1 million kilos of milksoilds, which equates to about 1500kg milksolids per hectare and 440kg per cow.”

One of the major benefits of the group being close together is what managers can learn by looking over the fence, or talking to one another.

And, if one farm or manager performs well, the others follow suit: “The managers are competitive

by nature and desire to constantly improve.”

Pasture harvesting has always been a priority.

Wilkinson says the unit is now growing a lot more grass and is much better at using it.

Chicory was introduced into the pasture mix and low pH levels are addressed with dressings of lime to help lift grass production to an average of 16 tonnes of dry matter per hectare. Turnips and maize crops are grown as supplements for the long summer.

“We make sure we eat everything and we leave behind nice residuals,” says Wilkinson.

“We do quite a lot of pre-topping. Before the cows go in, we cut the grass so that they require a lot less energy to eat it, and eat a much bigger mouthful.

“It’s a bit controversial. We’re spending time and money harvesting the grass, but we’ve done all the numbers and we make good money out of it.”

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Stewart Weatherstone plans to peakmilk 2950 cows on the home farm at Tuhitarata, near Featherston, next season. season they are aiming for 370kg per cow, which works out to 1550kg per hectare.

The couple have three children: Isla, 9, Edward, 7 and Vienna, 3.

So what are their plans?

“Consolidation,” says Stewart with a laugh.

“Sustaining what we’ve got.

“Irrigation will be the key to better utilisation of the farm, but where the water is coming from we’re not sure yet.”

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14 |

DAIRY PEOPLE » Nick & Nicky Dawson

NZ Dairy

Would-be sheep farmer converts his passion Kelly Deeks Nick Dawson has converted his passion for sheep into a substantial dairy-farming career, and now has an equity partnership in two neighbouring dairy farms at Patoka, in Hawke’s Bay. Originally from Christchurch, he wanted to be a sheep farmer, thinking it would provide a great family lifestyle.

In his quest for his own sheep farm, his future father-in-law suggested he get into sharemilking to build up some funds.

“Back then, sharemilking wasn’t a very popular option, but it was the only way to get your own farm,” says Dawson.

He moved to Taranaki and started on a dairy farm as a farm assistant. Over the next seven years he progressed to manager, then sharemilker.

Almost 14 years ago, he moved to Patoka for a 50:50 sharemilking job on a 220-hectare dairy farm almost 14 years ago because, he says, it is predominantly a sheep-farming district.

When, after three years of sharemliking, the farm owners sold up. he and his wife, Nicky, bought the farm in partnership with Palmerston North dairy

farmers Stuart and Anne McPhail.

His sheep-farming dream has since fallen by the wayside, but Dawson has passed his passion on to his 17-year-old son, Ben, who bought his first 10 suffolk ewes from his uncle and now runs his own stud with about 30 ewes.

The Dawsons and their partners have added to their farm with the purchase of a 180ha run-off block six years ago. They grow silage on 60ha of flat land on this block, and run about 220 calves and bulls for mating on the remainder.

Last season, the partnership bought the 400ha bull farm next door, and converted it to dairy.

The Dawsons run 450 heifers and jerseys, and milk them once a day on the 400ha, which is a very hilly and long farm.

“The back of the farm is where the heifers go, and when it gets dry, we go further and further out on the hills,” says Nick Dawson.

“We milk the cows twice a day for three weeks before mating, to help get them into the routine, and we get a percentage more milk out of them at that time.”

He says the system has worked and for the past two years, even in drought conditions, the cows have kept their weight on.

“For two years in a row, we’ve had six per cent empties over there. The whole thing is about getting them back in calf and looking after them.”

On the smaller farm, they run 360 cows that are milked twice a day, and another 70 lighter cows that are milked once a day. The once-a-day milking regime is used because towards the back, this farm is quite hilly and quite a distance away from the dairy shed.

Dawson likes to run 2.6 cows to the hectare across the two farms, which allows him to use every scrap of grass and makes the run-off block more viable.

He says dairying in Hawke’s Bay with no

irrigation and unreliable grazing has taught him the importance of being self-sufficient.

“Sometimes there’s a bit too much land, but most times there’s not enough,” he says.

Dawson, who is the Federated Farmers dairy chair for Hawke’s Bay, says the region may be only 1% dairy with 73 herds and an average herd size of 700 cows, but it still makes about 25% of the national dairy income.

Local dairy farmers are making inroads on their environmental issues, and the Dawsons have tried to set an example for them by twice entering and winning the Livestock Improvement Corporation Dairy Farm Awards.

PHOTOS – Above: The mongrel mob..the Dawson dogs ride in style.

Far left: The view from the back of Nick and Nicky Dawson’s farm.

Left: The dairy shed, with snowy Kaiwekas in the distance.

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Graham & Lynley Lawry

| 15

Award-winning Te Awamutu farmers Lynley and Graham Lawry at their Wairakau Stud.

Breeders show Midas touch Karen Phelps Being part of the JerseyGenome scheme as well as achieving Gold status at the Jersey New Zealand Herd Recognition Awards for the third year running is testament to years of careful breeding by Graham and Lynley Lawry.

“It’s a reflection of all the hard work we’ve been putting it,” says Graham.

The couple milk a herd of 485 registered jerseys on a 145-hectare block (138ha effective) at Ngahape, near Te Awamutu. Two of their heifers have been selected in the JerseyGenome scheme – Wairakau Mur Pamparone (BW 276, PW 384 and LW 467), as “elite”, and Wairakau Mur Pampathree (BW 271, PW 388 and LW 471), as “highly commended”. The heifers are embryo-transfer sisters and the son of Pampathree, which was selected for the 2014 JerseyGenome team.

JerseyGenome is a joint venture between Jersey New Zealand and CRV Ambreed to identify potential bull mothers. Established in 2008, the scheme aims to generate sires that will enhance the breed by marrying technologies such as genomic selection with the skills and experience of Jersey NZ members..

The first crop of JerseyGenome-bred bull calves filtered through as candidates for the 2012 Jersey Genes team. Seventy-two people came to JerseyGenome field day at the Lawrys in February.

The Lawrys’ herd achieved Gold 3 status in the Jersey NZ Herd Recognition Awards after previously achieving the Gold 1 and Gold 2 status. The awards are designed to acknowledge members’ herd achievements and their support for the Jersey NZ through use of its products and services.

Members must qualify in five areas to be considered for the award – they must use jersey genes; they must TOP and classify their entire twoyear-old contemporary group of heifers; they must register all animals over jersey 12 content; the must complete at least four herd tests within a season; their herd must have negative EBL status.

If a member meets all five criteria, the level of recorded ancestry in the herd dictates which status and level will be awarded. Recorded ancestry of over 98 per cent results in a Gold level award, followed by the number of years the breeder has achieved this status.

So what is the Lawrys’ secret? It could be technology combined with a good eye. Graham Lawry says they have been concentrating on

breeding for udder improvement, temperament and protein breeding value.

“We nominate all the bulls and use SireMatch to select the bulls we want from CRV Ambreed and LIC. We then use SireMatch for recommendations on which bull should be put with which cow in the herd.”

The Lawrys employ lower-order sharemilker Keenan Jacobsen, who is in his fourth season on the farm. Lynley and Graham rear the calves on their farm, feed the bobby calves, rear a lot of the replacements and take an overseeing role. They say they are aiming for a slightly bigger, more robust jersey.

Droughts have hit the farm over the last few years. Young stock are grazed off farm, the Lawrys

buy in more than 300 square bales of hay, and make their own pasture silage. They also buy in 360-370 tonnes of palm kernel, which is fed in bins in the paddock.

They say that having owned the farm for so long (Graham bought the original 34ha block in 1975 when he was 26) has helped them cope with the dry weather.

Last season the farm produced 177,955 kilograms of milksolids with 473 cows. This season the target is 160,000kg, which reflects the dry weather. Their best production season was 189, 076kg in 2011-12.

The Lawrys have three sons, one of whom, Nathan, 23, has a second-in-charge position on a farm at Winton, in Southland.

The Lawrys’ secret could be technology combined with a good eye. They have concentrating on breeding for udder improvement, temperament and protein breeding value.

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16 |

DAIRY PEOPLE » Paul & Andrea Jenkins

NZ Dairy

Owner in US a Sue Russell Since taking up a contract-milking position on a 164-hectare farm not far from Te Kauwhata, Paul and Andrea Jenkins have experienced exceptional increases in milk production.

And there are some good reasons why this has happened, says Paul Jenkins.

“The owner of the farm actually lives nine months of the year in San Francisco, and just in the last couple of seasons or so, I think he has really started to understand what the farm needs and trusts us with the advice we give.

“So much so he spent $300,000 on a feedpad and silage bunker that can hold 500 tonnes of maize, as well as a palm-kernel bunker that can hold up to 40,000 tonnes.”

The main farm has an effective milking platform of 150ha, with a further four hectares planted in native bush and 10ha used for cropping. A smaller allotment of 70ha not far away carries 220 of the 585 mainly crossbred herd.

This smaller farm is run by the Jenkins’ worker, Tyler Thorpe, who also helps out on the main farm.

Despite the drought the farm produced 81,000

It has got to feel like you want to get out of bed every morning, or it could be a tough, unsatisfying way to make a living. kilograms of milksolids in the 2013-14 season, and productivity has been running a massive 42 per cent higher this season.

If things keep going the way they have this season, the farm will achieve a record target of 120,000kg of milksolids, says Jenkins.

The smaller farm also had a record year in the 2013-14 season, producing 81,500kg of milksolids.

“There are several reasons we’re ahead, not just the kinder weather.,” he says.

“We have 40 or so more cows and the fact we’ve now got a fully working feedpad means the cows are fully fed each day and there has been

Young guns: Michael (left) and Brendon Jenkins have ‘free range’ over the farm.

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Above: Kaitlyn Jenkins sets about bringing the herd in for milking. Below: A farm worker helps to feed out on the $300,000 feedpad.

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY PEOPLE » Grant & Helen Bishop

good listener

Experience helps in face of ‘double whammy’ Karen Phelps

Paul and Andrea Jenkins, pictured milking in their shed, have longer-term plans that include sharemilking or leasing a farm in the Te Kauwhata area. less damage to the pasture. We have also done a lot more under-sowing of grass and had a much faster and more compact spring calving yielding a lot more milk.”

Andrea Jenkins is very much involved in the farm, driving machinery, taking care of the administration and maintaining the farm records.

Their three children – Kaitlyn, nearly 13, Brendon, 11, and Michael, six, have ‘free range’ over the farm. Paul Jenkins calls them his ‘lap dogs’ as sometimes they are out and about on their bikes bringing in the herd when it is milking time or up to the feedpad.

A 30-a-side herringbone shed on the main farm has been upgraded with new cups; the smaller farm has an old 22-bail rotary.

Early in February the farm hosted a Dairy New Zealand discussion group with RD1 farm adviser Brent Bishop talking about pasture.

“We are in the planning stage of maybe going to start using some hybrid grasses,” says Paul Jenkins.

“They are faster growing than rye and will cope

much better, given that the soil is about 70% claybased. It is very good that Chris (the farm owner) is keen to listen to what we think is the best thing to do to enhance the farm’s performance.”

Paul Jenkins says there are some key factors that meld into creating a successful life based on the land.

“It has got to feel like you want to get out of bed every morning, or it could be a tough, unsatisfying way to make a living.

“Some young people today think farming is an easy option to get employed but when you have to pay a minimum wage of around $35-40,000 because of the longer hours we work, you have to have someone who is really keen and wants to make a career of it not doing it just for pay day.”

Andrea describes living on a farm as her ‘dream come true’ after working as a legal executive: “I just always wanted to raise kids on a farm. You’re working at home and it’s a neat lifestyle.”

The couple’s longer-term plans include moving into a 50:50 sharemilking situation or, if they “get lucky”, finding a farm to lease in the area.

| 17

50:50 sharemilking position milking 220 cows, and then to their present position.

They milk through a 20-a-side herringbone shed, and do not employ any staff. They say their biggest challenge is balancing the stocking rate against the climate, which can be wet in winter. Typically they feed around 180 tonnes of palm kernel over a season in troughs in paddocks to plug in the feed gaps.

The Bishops use the expertise of a farm adviser, and say this has been particularly useful during the drought. They have extended their rounds to 30 days from the end of December, and have also had the advice of farm-owner Bev Mellow.

“Bev is always available for us to call so that we can troubleshoot,” says Helen Bishop. “She definitely loves her farm and knows a lot about it.

She has been on this farm for something like 50 years.”

Cow condition is their current focus so that their stock can head into next season in good health.

They are working to achieve this by supplementing with palm kernel, and either drying off cows if they get too light or putting them in a separate mob so that they can be fed better.

Last season the property produced 99,000 kilograms of milksolids. The Bishops say they were on target to easily make 110,000kg milksolids this season but now, depending on how the weather pans out, they are hoping to see 95,000kg in the vat.

The couple have two children – Lily, 8 and Quin, 5. With Quin having just started school, Helen says they will be seeking additional challenges; their ultimate goal is farm ownership.

Like many dairy farmers, Grant and Helen Bishop have been seeing what they describe as “brown, crispy pastures” rather than verdant farmland.

The Taranaki couple are in their second season of 50:50 sharemilking a herd of 220 friesian and friesian-cross cows on a 70-hectare (effective) unit at Kaponga.

With only 20mm of rainfall since January, like many in the region they are hoping for a good downpour to help their grass grow.

“It’s quite daunting putting the cows in the paddock at the moment,” says Helen Bishop.

“To cope with the dry conditions, we’ve culled 20 cows we expect to be empty even though it’s obviously too early to pregnancy-test yet. We’ve also had to buy in an extra 30 tonnes of palm kernel.”

The Bishops’ experience as dairy farmers has no doubt set them in good stead to cope with a double whammy of low payout and dry conditions.

Both grew up on dairy farms in Taranaki – Helen at Opunake and Grant at Stratford.

Grant started his farming career by alternating between managing a 400-cow farm at Rahotu and his parents’ unit.

After they were married, their first job together was managing a 180-cow farm at Opunake for four years. They then spent 12 months managing a slightly larger unit of 550 cows, also at Opunake, before taking on their first 50:50 sharemilking position, milking 165 cows at Midhurst, near Stratford.

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18 |

DAIRY PEOPLE » Murray & Malou West

NZ Dairy

They’re all Wests: From left, Jonathan and Asha, and Malou and Murray.

Production up despite dry January Jo Bailey Murray West says January was the driest he’s seen in 40 years on his Inglewood farm.

However, the challenging season hasn’t been detrimental to his 470 cows.

“We’re lucky the farm doesn’t dry out as much as others around here. and Inglewood generally has a pretty good rainfall. Apart from January, we had some decent falls.”

With plenty of supplement on hand, West’s herd has done more than survive the dry spell – it has thrived.

“Overall production is tracking around 6.5 per cent up on last year, which is pleasing,” he says.

“We should do more than 200,000 kiohrams of milksolids after sitting around 190,000kg for the last few years.”

The cows were fed silage and grazed on turnips, a crop he has been growing for the last three or four years.

“We grow around seven hectares of turnips and feed out around 4kg per head per day. It’s really helped to put condition on the cows and maintain them.”

Around 150 tonnes of palm kernel is also fed to the cows each year on the 210-hectare (191ha effective) dairy farm Murray West took over from his parents around 30 years ago.

“I grew up here, then went away to do a mechanic’s apprenticeship for four years before coming back. Farming was something I always wanted to do.”

Although he has spent so long farming the property, he is still open to looking at new ideas and new ways of doing things.

He has always engaged a farm adviser, and for the last four years has worked with Murray Mace, who visits the property every six weeks or so.

“Our current focus is on grass management and getting the cows in better condition before winter.

“One of the biggest improvements has been the intensive new grassing programme

we’ve implemented over the last few years using 150 ryegrass with clovers. Pastures have really improved, which has helped to push up production.”

Grass growth is closely monitored, with Murray’s wife, Malou, doing a farm walk every week.

Just over four hectares of maize has also been grown on the farm this year as a winter supplement.

This season West has entered a new partnership arrangement with his nephew, Jonathan West, who with his wife, Asha, has a financial interest in some of the cows.

“Jonny started off with us years ago when he left school, then went sharemilking for a few years.

He is managing the milkings and the married couple who help us out on the farm, and I still do all the tractor work. It’s the first year I haven’t milked the cows myself, but the adjustment hasn’t been too bad.”

The cows will be wintered on farm this year – apart from the heifers which are run on a runoff block owned by Jonathan West close to Mt Taranaki.

Murray West says they have a “little bit” of Johnes disease in the herd, with four or five animals a year succumbing to it.

“You can’t do much about it except cull the

cows when they lose condition,” he says.

When it comes to the environment, Murray has fenced off most of the farm’s creeks, has undertaken riparian planting, and spray-irrigates effluent.

Around 10 other local dairy farmers came to a discussion group day on the farm a few months ago.

“Some of them commented that we were managing the pasture pretty well. I haven’t been to many discussion groups myself, but might go to more now that I don’t have to milk.”

Murray West is not a big fan of governement and Fonterra regulations, which he says are “killing’ farming.

“I know we have to be careful with the environment. But I reckon things are going over the top. “ Owning land doesn’t mean much if you can’t do what you want with it.”

He says the drop in payout has had an impact, especially with the new partnership being in its first year.

“If it doesn’t improve it will be harder next year because we won’t have the reserves.

“On the positive side, our production is improving, so I’m pretty happy with where things are at, given the challenges of the season.”

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NZ Dairy

GOATS » Goatland

Goats a ‘great alternative’ Jo Bailey Kerry and Robyn Averill have no regrets about switching their dairy business from cows to goats more than 10 years ago, although the industry is not for everyone, says Kerry.

“Running a dairy-goat business is extremely demanding, and costs a lot more to set up and run compared to cows. We’re flat out all day with milking, cleaning pens, and a list of other jobs that goes on and on. But we love it.”

He says the same basic principles apply to handling goats as cows, although they are much smaller and friendlier animals.

“The personality and inquisitiveness of the goats is one of the biggest differences. They love human contact. If someone new comes into the barn, they are straight over for a chew and a pat.”

The Averills decided to give up milking 200 cows on their 50-hectare property at Tauhei, near Morrinsville, when they struggled to make a decent living and there was no opportunity for them to expand.

“We were grazing our heifers at a property owned by a member of the board of the Dairy Goat Co-operative,” Kerry Averill recalls. “After chatting to him, we believed goats could be a great alternative for our smaller farm, so waited for an opportunity to become a supplier.”

The Hamilton-based co-operative manufactures infant formula from the goats’ milk it collects from its 70 or so, mainly Waikato-based suppliers.

The co-operative has developed a strong niche in Asia and a growing market in Europe for the product, which is an alternative for babies who may not tolerate cowmilk-based formula Dairy-goat farming is not the easiest market to break into, says Averill. However, the co-operative’s policy of taking on only enough suppliers to meet market demand keeps the payout “strong”.

“The easiest way for a new farmer to enter the market is to buy out a supplier when they are selling up, which is what we did.”

The Averills bought 400 goats and shares in the Dairy Goat Co-operative to set up Goatland.

Soon after, they increased the herd to 600, then

• To page 20

Goats enter Kerry and Robyn Averill’s 100-bail rotary milking shed. The Averills milk 1400 goats on their 50-hectare farm at Tauhei, new Morrinsville, in the Waikato. ‘The personality and inquisitiveness of the goats is one of the biggest differences (from cows),’ says Kerry Averill. ‘They love human contact. If someone new comes into the barn, they are straight over for a chew and a pat.’

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| 19

20 |

GOATS » Goatland

NZ Dairy

Costs are high but returns good enoug • From page 19

Three full-time worker and three relief-milkers are needed to milk the Goatland herd.

bought out another supplier’s 400 goats. They currently have 1400 milking goats, plus 400 kids and 50 bucks, on the farm.

Kerry Averill says there are good returns to be made in dairy goat farming, but it’s not a cheap game to get into.

“We achieve good returns, but we spend a lot too. The goats are housed in five custom-built barns around the clock which were a huge cost to develop, and we spent over $1 million on our hightech, 100-bail iCONVEYORS rotary milking shed five years ago. It’s also a really labour-intensive operation. I used to milk the 50 cows myself, but now employ three other full-timers, plus three reliefmilkers and another three or four part-timers during kidding.”

July is the busiest month, with kidding at its peak.

“We get very few single kids born, with most of the does having two or three kids each. Last year we had 1000 does kid within seven days, which was pretty hectic.”

Around 400 of the kids born each year are kept for replacements, with the balance sold to other farmers or raised for goat meat.

When it comes to breeding, there are some interesting differences between goats and cows, says Averill.

“Goats have a shorter cycle and are quite a unique animal in that you only have to kid them twice and they could milk for the rest of their lives.

This year we’re trialling ways to extend lactations by not mating any does over five years old. We could eventually take that down to the third or fourth kidders, and not mate them again to reduce the number of kids we have on the ground.”

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NZ Dairy

GOATS » Goatland

| 21

gh to get your goats cows. It takes the Goatland staff around two-and-a half hours to milk the goats in the morning and a couple of hours at night during peak times.

“This year we’re going to winter-milk around 400 goats as a trial to see how they go,”says Averill.

He says the goats “love” being housed inside, as they are not so keen on the elements outdoors: “They hate water, so it’s far less stressful for them in the barns where they produce a lot more milk too.”

The feeding regime is mainly grass-based, with lucerne and grass silage making up the bulk of the diet.

“We also supplement some maize, molasses and other minerals through the shed to make sure they are getting the right balance. It’s not too dissimilar to cows, as the goats are still essentially converting grass into milk.”

All the Averills’ goats are electronically monitored via leg and eartags, and every animal has a collar and name-tag.

“Both the herds we brought were already named and we’ve continued with the practice. Its easier

to remember a name than a number when you’re dealing with the animals.”

Goats normally stay in the herd until they are eight or nine years old, provided they are sturdy and still getting in kid.

“There can be a lot of stress on older does at kidding, with toxaemia and blood poisoning a risk. Animal health is a big consideration for goat farmers, as the stock is susceptible to a range of diseases. Pneumonia can be a real issue for kids.”

Averill doesn’t plan to increase the herd too much more, but is looking to overseas genetics to improve quality: “We’ve got some semen arriving from Australia shortly and we’re looking at a few other bloodlines in America and Europe.”

He and Robyn try to accommodate groups to visit Goatland, with kidding the most popular time for visitors.

“We have bus-loads of schoolchildren and retirees come to see the goats, which love to be handled. Some of the children from the city have never touched an animal before, so it’s pretty special to see them in the pen playing with the kids.

The power of animals is amazing.”

PHOTOS: Goatlands owner Kerry Averil (left). The feeding regime is mainly grass based with lucerne or grass silage making up the bulk of the goats’ diet.

22 |

ON FARM Âť Makowhai Farms

NZ Dairy

Not a cowshed in sight ... and

Rangitikei farmers Barry and Maree Taylor are content leaving the running of the family dairy operation to their sons, Michael and Aaron.

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ON FARM » Makowhai Farms

that suits Barry just fine Jo Bailey Manawatu dairy farmer Barry Taylor can’t see a cowshed from the new house he and wife Maree built on the original farm settled by his greatgrandfather three generations ago.

And that suits him just fine.

For the last few years the Taylors have left the day-to-day running of the family dairy operation, Makowhai Farms, to their sons, Michael and Aaron, after generously allowing the boys to use the equity in their 190h-hectare home farm to borrow enough money to buy their own 100ha farm two doors away.

The construction of Barry and Maree’s new house was part of the succession-planning process, and Barry says he is happy to be pretty much retired from farmwork, although he keeps a close eye on the overall management of the family farming business.

“It has been a few years since I’ve been involved with the milkings. The boys ring me when they want me to do a bit of driving or cart some silage, but they pretty much run it all these days.”

The two farms under the Makowhai umbrella are run together under a family equity partnership, along with a recently set-up agricultural contracting business.

“It’s all working out really well. Aaron runs the farms and Michael looks after the contracting business. They are both doing what they’re passionate about and have really grown into their roles over the last seven or eight years.”

Barry Taylor grew up on the original 55ha, 130cow family farm near Ohakea, and became a 50:50 sharemilker when he was 21.

He bought the farm from his parents, John and

Judith, in 1978, a couple of years after he and Maree got married.

Their farming business grew significantly over the years following a series of land acquisitions, and the investment in a centrally placed, 50-bail rotary cowshed, which dramatically cut walking times for cows on the long, narrow property.

The Taylors now milk just over 1000 cows between this shed and the 30-a-side herringbone shed on the smaller farm.

“Although the properties are farmed separately, everything goes through the same bank account.

All the supplement feed comes out of one stack and we swap cows between the farms as needed.”

Barry Taylor says they are concentrating on increasing production – aiming for 500 kilograms of milksolids per cow or 500,000kg of milksolids off the two farms – rather than lifting cow numbers.

“We’ve brought a nutritionist, Tracey McGowan, on board to help get our feeding regime sorted.

She is in her second year with us, and visits once a month. So far she’s helped us lower costs and increase production by around 50,000kg milksolids, which is really good.”

One of the biggest changes has been the introduction of a higher level of supplementation to the cows’ diet, as opposed to the more traditional grass-based system previously run by the Taylors.

An in-shed, grain-feeding system was installed in the cowshed in November 2013 because they wanted to move away from palm kernel towards feeding their own homegrown barley and a bit of brewer’s grain.

“We feed around two to three kilograms of grain to the cows while they’re being milked,” says Barry.

“I’m a big fan of the in-shed system which helped

• To page 24

Maree and Barry Taylor outside their new house ... not a cowshed in cooee.

Although the properties are farmed separately, everything goes through the same bank account. All the supplement feed comes out of one stack and we swap cows between the farms as needed. They are concentrating on increasing production – aiming for 500 kilograms of milksolids per cow or 500,000kg milksolids off the two farms - rather than lfting cow numbers.

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| 23

24 |

NZ Dairy

ON FARM » Makowhai Farms/Hugh Candy & Kerry Lucas-Candy

Contracting part of business • From page 23 us make a 10 per cent gain on production last season ahead of the previous year.”

He reckons the addition of fodder beet to the cows’ diet has also contributed to the rise in performance: “We’re in our fifth year growing fodder beet and have noticed good benefits. The cows milk really well on it.”

The family company also owns and leases run-off land where they grow supplements and run stock.

The Taylors decided to start the contracting operation after buying a maize chopper to use on their own farms, and finding there was demand to provide a service to other local farmers.

They’ve also invested in a fodder-beet planter and harvester, which is kept busy through the renewed interest in the supplementary crop over the last few years.

“Michael is mad keen on machinery, so is in his element running this side of the business,” says Barry. “We were busy right up to Christmas with grass silage after an extremely good grass-growing year, and starting cutting the first maize silage in February.”

A couple of staff help with the contracting business, and a further six people (including farm managers) are employed on the dairy farms.

Barry says the lower payout means “no luxury spending” on the farms. But the farm’s recent rise

We’re in our fifth year growing fodder beet and have noticed good benefits. The cows milk really well on it in production, combined with a close watch on costs, has put the operation in a good position to ride out the downturn.

After so long in the industry, he has seen it all before: “I reckon the media has hyped it up a bit more this year because the country is so dependent on dairying. I remember the mid-1980s when we borrowed money at a high interest rate to alter the house and budgeted $4/kg milksolids, but was paid only $2.80. Dairying has always had its ups and downs.”

Barry and Maree’s daughter, Ann-Maree, and son-in-law, Jason McEwan, are sharemilking 400 cows at Kairanga, just outside Palmerston North, and own a 190-cow dairy unit (Rata), around 40 kilometres from Makowhai.

“It’s cool they are all involved in dairying. Maree and I offer our support whenever it’s needed.”

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Equity seen as route to farm ownership Sue Russell Waitoa dairy farmers Hugh Candy and Kerry LucasCandy enjoy their busy lives on their 102-hectare (effective) farm in the heart of the Waikato.

The couple are 50 per cent sharemilkers on the property owned by the CW Schultz Estate and administered by the Public Trust.

“We’re in a record season for production to date – three per cent up on last season and expecting to achieve 130,000 kilograms of milksolids,” says Hugh Candy.

“We try to have a core herd in top condition through to the end of the season.”

They plan are dry off by the end of April with calving scheduled to start on July 8.

The couple have employed a 2IC for the past 18 months. And it is working very well, says Hugh.

“Dyson was originally a relief milker for us.

We try to employ our staff for two or three years and help them gain the experiences to see them progress further in their farming careers. That’s very satisfying to be involved with.”

English-born Kerry Lucas-Candy has a long association with the dairy industry here, bringing

with her dairy-management skills acquired in the United Kingdom.

She worked for a Matamata relief-management, recruiting organisation for a decade. It was during this time that she and Hugh met and discovered they both had the same dream of one day owning a farm.

They worked together for three years before they took on a second, variable-order sharemilking job, which ws managed by Kerry. She also did an AB run for many years, using her AB technician skills.

It was this hard work and their combined capabilities that got them into herd ownership.

Some years ago Hugh and Kerry decided the best way to fast-track toward farm ownership was to go all-out to increase their equity, and in 2009, they formed an equity partnership with a five-year agreement.

Hugh Candy says it is really important that equity agreements have a life to them: “I think it is vital that there is a mechanism to buy more shares or buy your equity partners out.”

He says Kerry’s experience and skills have been pivotal to their achievements, which include winning

• To page 25

NZ Dairy

ON FARM » Kristy & Dave McPhee

| 25

Logging to dairy rewarding shift Sue Russell Switching from owning and running a logging company to a new life as equity dairy farmers in Hawke’s Bay has been a rewarding and invigorating experience for Kristy and Dave McPhee.

The couple have not only made the adjustment to a very different lifestyle, but have substantially improved the farm’s outcomes in the three-plus seasons they have been on their 200-hectare (125ha effective) farm at Patoka.

“Everybody said ‘Stick to what you know’, but I was beginning to feel like I was getting a bit too old for logging,” says Dave McPhee.

“So, when we made the decision to look at farming, we took on a sharemilking position in Dannevirke just for a year. It gave me the chance to come to grips with the basics of dairy farming.” .

Securing ownership of their own farm came with the financial support of Dave’s brother, Matt, who lives overseas.

“Matt has been looking at wanting to invest in a piece of New Zealand and knew of three other expats with a similar desire. So, between them all and with what we had in cows, we were able to buy this farm,” says Dave.

Leaping through a pathway that usually takes a great deal longer than one year to become equity farm-owners meant it was important for the McPhees Dave to concentrate on what they knew and accept there was a great deal yet to learn about the industry.

To bridge that gap, the couple engaged Dean Edwards, from Farm Wise Consultants – it was the best thing they could have done, says Dave McPhee.

“Dean is very conscious about pasture quality

Think tank: From left, Veterinarian Helen Taylor, Dave McPhee, Dean Edwards (FarmWise consultant), Grant Nicholson (Ecolab), and Pete Mackie (Elders). and profit per hectare. The smartest thing you can do is surround yourself with people who know what they are doing.”

Added to this, there is a mountain of free information available, he says.

“You just need to know where to look and whom to ask.”

The McPhees are milking 430 crossbred cows.

Young stock graze over 75 hectares of their land that is too steep to be part of the milking platform.

“We rear all our own stock on the farm,” says Dave. “I remember when we came on to the farm that we inherited a lot of feisty girls who sure taught us how things should be done.”

This season has been tracking about 11 per cent

We rear all our own stock on the farm. I remember when we came on to the farm that we inherited a lot of feisty girls who sure taught us how things should be done.

System proves the right level • From page 24 the New Zealand Sharemilker of the Year title in 2004.

The engine room of the farm is a 36-a-side herringbone shed built seven years ago which Hugh describes as having ‘all the bells and whistles you’d want’ – including a really effective variable-speed water pump.

“It means we can be driving the backing gate, the cooler and washing down the pit, and the pump will still keep up,” he says.

Their 415 predominantly jersey-bred cows are run in two herds.

Working to a system 3 feeding programme – all grass supplemented with silage and palm kernel - is proving to be the right level for the farm’s infrastructure.

“We are considering adding meal, but to do that we would need to upgrade our effluent system on our own farm.”

The couple have three children. Their older son, Lewis, is 13 and boarding at St Paul’s Collegiate, in Hamilton, while their daughter Ferne and their

It’s really something for me to look at the Te Aroha ranges and know that my dad and his dad basically looked at the same view.

That feels really good to me.

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didn’t come into farming with any preconceived perspectives.”

The McPhees; have two sons, Stephen, aged 17, and Hamish, 13. While Hamish especially loved everything to do with logging, he is starting to really enjoy the farming lifestyle and all that goes with it, says Dave.

“Stephen loves the lifestyle and can drive anything on wheels.”

And how does Dave McPhee describe the relationship bwteen the farm and their equity partmers thousands of kilometres away?

“They are quite chuffed with the fact they own a piece of land and are really interested in what is happening on it. They keep in touch regularly and also visit and the whole arrangement has worked out very well.”

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younger son, Russell, go to the local Tatuanui School.

Hugh’s connections to the district run deep, with both his father and grandfather having farmed in the area.

“It’s really something for me to look at the Te Aroha ranges and know that my dad and his dad basically looked at the same view. That feels really good to me.”

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up on previous milksolids performance, something McPhee says is mainly due to the run-off and summer feed.

“We had a very cold spring. We went from winter to summer almost with very little spring growth. In our time here, we have had one good drought with the rest fairly typical Hawke’s Bay summers.”

The farm has a 40-a-side herringbone dairy shed and the McPhees have no plans to add any new technologies into the system.

Asked about what aspects of the new life he savours most, Dave McPhee says there are two key things.

“The routine of knowing what is going to happen tomorrow, and living in such a nice part of the world. I think we are doing so well because we

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26 |

ON FARM » Richard & Sharon Grayling

NZ Dairy

Farm managers Rob and Lisa Dunn stand beside the control box that is part of Richard and Sharon Grayling’s new effluent system at Te Poi, near Matamata. A new two-million litre concrete tank replaces the old small tank which had to be pumped out each day.

Effluent targets long term The effluent system is just one example of the time and money the Graylings have invested into their farming operation since buying the farm in 1999. It was ‘almost a conversion’ even though the property was an operating dairy farm when they bought it. They have built a new shed, races, fences, houses and water lines.

Karen Phelps Richard and Sharon Grayling have made significant investment in a new effluent system as part of their long-term plan to run their farm sustainably.

The Graylings, who milk 325 kiwicross cows on their 120-hectare (effective unit) at Te Poi, close to Matamata, have a new two-million-litre concrete tank, which replaces a small tank they had to pump out daily.

The new system also includes a series of sand traps – the effluent passes through these before it reaches the tanks so that only liquids are pumped on the pastures.

The system includes a pump operated through a variable-speed drive, from King Electrical. A flowmeter controls the variable-speed drive, providing control over the application rate. As well as giving

a read-out of the current flow rate, it keeps a permanent record of daily, weekly and total flow rates, and a programmable logic-controller collates all the times and parameters.

“For example, when the travelling irrigator reaches the end of the paddock it will automatically turn the pump off,” says Richard Grayling.

“If a high or low-pressure situation occurs, it will turn the pump off and set an alarm.”

The aim has been to keep the system simple, he says (in line with the Graylings’ overall farming philosophy).

Close to a year down the track, he says the results of the new system have been beneficial – giving them greater control over when and where they apply effluent to their farm.

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• To page 27

NZ Dairy

ON FARM » Steve & Maria Poole

| 27

Management key in downturn Jo Bailey With the right management it is possible to maintain a high-input farming system during a downturn, says South Taranaki farmer Steve Poole.

“This isn’t necessarily easy when the payout is $4.70, but you can’t change your system because of one year’s payout. We’ve managed to keep our full farm working costs under $4 by sourcing supplementary feeds that are priced right and still provide good nutrition.”

He says it is possible to remain “fairly profitable” by using grass first, then fully using any supplementary feeds that are introduced.

“We grow all our own maize silage on our 210-hecatre home farm and nearby run-off, which helps to keep our feed costs at a reasonable level.

We also feed PKE, soy hulls and DDG, or whatever gives us the most bang for our buck.”

Cows are fed on a feedpad for an hour or so before milking to ensure they are getting the allocated nutrition.

Steve and his wife, Maria, bought the Kapuni property 12 years ago and milk just over 800 cows.

They have made production gains every year, with this season’s 450,000 kilograms of milksolids up around eight per cent on last year.

He puts this down to pasture renewal, development of the herd, fine-tuning of systems, and building a 60-bail DeLaval rotary cowshed three seasons ago in a central location to reduce walking times.

“The shed is also fairly well automated. This has helped with staff retention because they enjoy the working environment a lot more. The data we collect has also made decision making easier.”

A dry spell over summer didn’t have much

We just fire a bit more feed into the cows when it’s needed. The season has finished with a nice autumn delivering early rains and good grass growth.

Farm workers Sam Hughson, Juan-Andres Soutto, Dillon Eades and manager Jarrico Murray. impact on the farm, which is “geared up to cope”, he says.

“We just fire a bit more feed into the cows when it’s needed. The season has finished with a nice autumn delivering early rains and good grass growth.”

Around 100 to 120 cows are calved in autumn and milked through winter.

Poole says one of the biggest advantages of this regime is stock retention.

“It’s a great way to build up herd numbers and we can give any good young empty cows that didn’t get in calf during spring mating another chance.”

Winter milking also benefits the farm’s four fulltime staff, especially new workers, he says.

“Normally new staff start on June 1 when there is a bit of a lull before they are straight into the high-pressure environment of spring calving. Winter milking means they can get to know the shed and machinery with the pressure off, and be fully trained with routines established before the busy time.”

Steve Poole grew up in a dairy-farming family and has worked in the industry since he was 19.

His two brothers are also dairy farmers, and two of his four sisters have married dairy farmers.

“I attended Flock House Farm Training Institute after secondary school and intended to do an agricultural degree at Massey University.

However, when I saw the opportunities in dairying, particularly in sharemilking as a way of building equity quickly towards farm ownership, I pursued that instead of the degree.”

These days he leaves the milking to his staff,

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Nicole Grayling on the silage bunker at her parents’ Matamata farm.

The Graylings make their own silage and also grow 7ha of maize a year on the farm.

Graylings farm low-cost system • From page 26 the time and money the couple have invested into their farming operation since buying the farm in 1999.

Richard Grayling says it was “almost a conversion” even though the property was an operating dairy farm when they bought it. They have built a new shed, races, fences, houses and water lines.

When they built their 36-a-side herringbone shed, they were seeking a building that would be sustainable, fit in with the land and weather conditions, and be low maintenance.

The result was a shed with a distinctive ‘sail’ shape and a curved roof to take advantage of the prevailing winds. The milk-room was positioned so that summer, west winds blow in, which helps keep the milk cool and saves around 25 per cent on the farm electricity bill.

The bail area takes advantage of the winds blowing from the east in winter, straight over the Kaimai Range. This helps to move the cows into the shed as it blows from behind them.

The shed is built from steel with no timber components. It has a Waikato Milking Systems loop-line milking system and a Read slide-pulsator system.

The Graylings work a low-cost system – total

farm costs, including wages, sit at $3.26 per milksolid compared with $2.59 two years ago, which illustrates the difficulties farmers face with rising costs, says Richard.

They make their own silage and grow 7ha of maize a year on farm. They buy in around 120 tonnes of dairy meal each year to feed through an in-shed, feeding system.

Last season the farm produced 141,000 kilograms of milksolids; the target this season is similar – between 135,000kg and 140,000kg depending on the weather.

As part of easing their way out of the day-today running of their farm this season, Richard and Sharon Grayling have employed farm managers (Rob and Lisa Dunn) for the first time.

The next step could be a contract milker or lower-order sharemilkers. The Graylings have three children: Nicole, 18; Monica, 17; and Megan 15.

“Our aim is to keep the system simple so that we can milk the cows and still go to the beach if we want to – which is just as well, as with the low payout, the beach is all we can afford at the moment,” Richard jokes.

“We believe farming is a family job and that’s the beauty of it; the kids are learning from a young age how the world works. We find farming a very relaxing and rewarding job. We’ll probably always be involved on the farm in some way.”

with his role to oversee the operation, keep a close eye on the cows’ nutrition, mix feeds, and manage the nearby run-off where young stock are run and supplements are grown.

Maria Poole manages the calf-rearing, and they are both busy with their five children, who range in age from nine to 18.

Steve Poole is also in his second term as a director of LIC – a role that takes him away from the farm regularly.

“Staff is an increasingly important part of our operation as I try and do more stuff off farm. We’re lucky to have fully trained, really good staff we can rely on.”

Dairy farming is a continual learning curve, he says.

“It’s important to keep tweaking and fine-tuning things to get better results. We can always add other feeds in to improve production. However, profitability is just as important. Whatever we do has to be cost-effective because we want to make a dollar at the end of the day.”

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28 |

ON FARM » David & Clare Beuth/Gary & Helen Baylis

NZ Dairy

Shelters allow ‘maximum use’ Sue Russell Going to a rural primary school in the Wairarapa gave David Beuth his first taste and passion for dairying.

“I helped one of the local guys milk and thought even then that working on the land and with cows was what I wanted to do.”

That wish however was parked for a while when Beuth left school to go commercial crayfishing in Gisborne. His first job on a farm was in Carterton for a year in 1987, and then on to farm management for a further three years before heading off on his OE when he based himself in England for two years.

“When I got back from overseas I was a farm manager for another year before taking on a lowerorder sharemilking position with 180 cows again in the Wairarapa. I was there for three years before getting a 50:50 job at Waihau Bay, on the East Cape, where we stayed for six years.”

He describes his time on the East Cape as one of really knuckling down, making some serious money, and launching his and wife Clare’s longterm farming career.

That hard work paid off because the next move was to farm ownership in the Mamaku district near Rotorua where the couple and their family are now in their 13th season.

Despite the unlucky connotations that can come with that number, this season is proving very successful and they are tracking four per cent above the previous year’s production figures.

“We’re at 640 metres altitude and this area gets a lot of heavy dews, even snow some times. So, we haven’t been so badly affected as other places with the lack of rain, though for the last two months we are behind as it has got dry even for Mamaku.”

Top: David and Clare Beuth with their children, Georgia and Adam, Above: David Beuth in one of the two HerdHomes® on the property.

Five years ago the Beuths decided to increase their farm’s capacity by building two HerdHomes® on their farm. The benefits that have come from

being able to stand their cows off pasture have been immense, he says.

“I remember still that in our first year here, we

made a lot of mess because we weren’t used to these soil conditions. Having the Herd Homes® has greatly changed our stock management systems and means we’re making the maximum use of our farm, though there are still tweaks to be made.”

The Beuths’ aim is to produce 1400 kilograms of milksolids per hectare using a feeding system 3, grass supplemented with silage and some palm kernel from their 101-hectare (95ha effective) property.

A 24-a-side herringbone shed is running at peak capacity, which means that if they decided to increase the herd size by much, they would need to new shed.

The Beuths have two children – 14-year-old Georgia goes to Western Heights High School, in Rotorua, and Adam, aged 11, to the local Mamaku Primary School. Dave Beith is in his third term as chair of the Mamaku Primary Board of Trustees.

“As for me I’m just the general dogsbody at school, like most parents of a rural-based school are,” says Clare.

The Beuths have just taken on a full-time employee, Russell Smith, who was their reliefmilker. David Beuth says it has been a big step employing someone to take on the day-to-day tasks.

“Our next step will be to employ a younger person, have a manager, and a 2IC.” Clare’s history as a farm consultant for the New Zealand Dairy Board for a decade following a degree at Massey University has meant she has brought into her own set of skills and understandings into their farming business.

“For me living and working on a farm is ideal,” she says.

“That whole thing about bringing children up with them not closed in, being outside and not hearing the neighbours is just wonderful.”

Farming pair look to Sue Russell

In his near 40-year career in the dairying industry Gary Baylis has steadily gone about building capacity – from leaving school and milking 100 cows, through sharemilking and farm acquisition.

This year he and wife Helen took another significant step by acquiring their neighbouring farm and extending their total milking platform to 290 hectare at their base at Rahotu, in Taranaki. They already own two farms –150 hectares and 59ha,.

They will take possession of the new farm in June. Gary Baylis describes it as very nice land, just needing some fertility and pasture improvement along with some re-fencing – unlike the other neighbouring property they bought in 2006.

“I sometimes joke that we have the driest soil type known to Man, and to help this situation we have rounded off some of the hills to try to create a more fertile environment. I didn’t realise the hills would perform so badly.”

He has also observed that many of the new grass species are nowhere near as hardy as the traditional species. Because the soil is so dry, it becomes very open; to alleviate this, he plans to broadcast chicory seed when he fertilises.

Until five or six years ago, the Baylis herd was

exclusively jersey; then they began cross-breeding.

“We decided to move away from pure jersey to be able to run a lower number of cows, and it is also a lot easier to rear cross-bred calves,” says Gary Baylis.

Production has gone up every year since.

Last season they produced 255,000 kilograms of milksolids; they expect to reach this season’s target of 280,000kg.

The increased performance has been achieved partly through the introduction of palm kernel through summer, he says.

They have a lower-order sharemilker on their smaller farm, four kilometres away from home base where they employ Raymond Benjamin as a full-time farm hand.

“Both Helen and I work full-time on the farm until the end of AB,” says Gary. “In fact, Helen spends more time in the shed than I do, as well as rearing the calves and driving the tractors.”

Over the last five years or so Helen Baylis has also developed an interest in the use of homoeopathic remedies to enhance animal health.

This sprang from a course she did on Maori medicine.

“I just started to trial things and record results.

We use both conventional treatments as well as homeopathic ones.

“I love to see our stock happy and healthy. They are like our family and I discovered that as their overall condition improved, they became a lot easier to work with. I also make a formula to put in the calf milk, which settles them down when they come off Mum.”

Cows graze on some of the Baylis’s ‘rounded off’ hills.

NZ Dairy

ON FARM » Mike & Nicola Johnston

| 29

Mike and Nicola Johnston (right) will be left with the cream of their jersey herd (left) when they downsize their dairy operation from 600 to 300 cows.

Couple lick off the ‘absolute cream ’ Kelly Deeks The Johnston family are preparing to downsize their dairy operation next season, turning their 220-hectare (effective) dairy farm with 600 cows into a 130ha dairy farm with Mike and Nicola Johnston milking 300 cows.

The couple, who are in their eighth season on the farm (at Douglas, in Taranaki) owned by Mike’s dad, Grant, have just bought a 25 per cent equity share in the 130ha.

The Johnstons had been milking their 600 jersey cows through an old 50-bail rotary shed on a challenging 140ha lease block next door.

The lease expires at the end of this season, so the family are renovating what was Grant Johnston’s original 24-a-side herringbone shed, pushing it out to 30-a-side.

With Mike having been trained as a mechanic before starting his dairying career and Grant a dab hand at engineering, building and welding, the pair have enough skills between them to do a lot of the shed renovation work themselves.

Mike and Nicola, who will be milking the cows with the help of one staff member, have decided not to include automatic cup removers in the shed.

However, they will have a drafting system with the aim of making milking more efficient and the herd easier to manage.

All that remains after the shed is finished is to sell the surplus cows, then the couple will be ready to start next season.

Mike Johnston says he will be left with the absolute cream of the herd, following the family lines and his own personal sentimental attachments.

The Johnstons had a good season last year... not an overall record as the two previous years they had fed palm kernel, but a no-inputs record.

“The payout was looking good when we started feeding palm kernel and last year it kept climbing, but I didn’t want to be stocked up that high and have to buy in feed,” he says. “It’s easier to go with the season and buy in feed at the end if you need

it. If it’s more work and you’re not going to break even, you’re better off doing some capital work and keep on top of costs.”

He also thought he was stressing his cows too much with feed at the start of calving, so he pushed the calving date back this season. While that resulted in production being 35 per cent behind in August, it is now back up to 5% ahead.

“I err a bit on the side of caution and I just don’t over stock it,” he says. “When everyone seems to be dry, we’re still scraping through.”

While this season may finish early for the Johnstons because of lease ending, with silage and hay he says he could still match last year’s production of 185,000 kilograms of milksolids.

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Helen and Gary Baylis: ‘You have to have a bit of balance because it can crazy sometimes.’

She has developed her own teat salve which she says works really well, and plans to market the product. To free her up to develop these products, work, a contract milker will be employed in the 2015-16 season.

So what’s the secret to succeeding in dairy farming?: “If you work together it certainly helps,” says

Gary. “You have to be a bit tight with money and have a clear goal of what you want to have saved before taking the next step. You can make good money farming, but you can’t spend it if you want to get anywhere.”

“All that, and a love of animals,” adds Helen.

“And you have to have a bit of a balance, some time off, because it can get a bit crazy sometimes.”.

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ON FARM » Darrel & Amy Weston/Shaun & Kirsty Rose

NZ Dairy

Northern move chases production Kelly Deeks Taranaki dairy farmers Darrel and Amy Weston are heading for warmer climes next season when they shift to Northland to work on a new farm bought by their equity partnership.

Darrel, a Taranaki local, and Amy, originally from Motueka, are looking forward to the move with their four children, Charlie, 11, Caleb, 10, Sam, 6, and Stella, 3.

They are also looking forward to the challenges of swapping the developing Opunake farm they have worked on 11 years for a much more developed Kerikeri farm where the system will be all about chasing production.

The new venture is a result of a strategic plan developed by the equity partnership, who went into partnership on the Opunake farm in 2007.

“The equity partnership we’re in works really well as everyone has their own expertise to bring,” says Darrel Weston. ‘We’re good at implementing

The equity partnership we’re in works really well as everyone has their own expertise to bring. the systems needed to get maximum milk production from the cows.”

The business, BMW Farms, owns 100 hectares at Opunake, leases another 100ha, and is milking 580 cows this season.

The Westons have made production gains at the Opunake farm every year since 2007 – from 202,000 kilograms of milksolids to on target for 283,000kg this season.

Continued on-farm development has contributed to the gains – 130ha of the 200ha has been regrassed during the past nine years, and an inshed feeding system was installed two years ago to

improve efficiency and reduce wastage.

The Westons have increased their equity with the purchase of the Kerikeri farm – at Opunake they own a third of 100ha, at Kerikeri they will own a third of 275ha. The Kerikeri farm, which will carry 600 cows, comes as a going concern. It will also have be split calving, another new challenge for the Westons who have not winter-milked before.

“We’re looking forward to the challenge, and to having to calve only 300 cows at a time,” says Darrel. “The workload will be spread more evenly across the year.”

The farm infrastructure includes a large, covered feedpad, and an in-shed feeding system will be

installed soon after they arrive.

“We’re moving from a developing farm to a chasing-production sort of system. Here we did a lot of capital development, which we won’t be doing there.”

Instead, the immediate focus will be on condensing the calving pattern and getting to grips with the land and the climate, which will see the Westons growing about three tonnes less of dry matter per hectare than they do at Opunake.

However, the amount of imported feed will be about the same, so what the Westons have learned about inputs over the past couple of years will be valuable.

On the move: Taranaki farmers Amy and Darrel Watson with children Caleb, Charlie, Stella and Sam.

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Karen Phelps Carterton based farmers Shaun and Kirsty Rose estimate they will save around $40,000 a year by doing their own contracting essentially halving this farm expense.

The decision to buy a second-hand bale wrapper was made partly to help lower costs after the reduced payout, and the Roses estimate they will produce around 1300 bales of balage and 300 bales of hay a year.

“It hs given us more control over timing, and we can make the bales when each row is at its optimum,: says Shaun Rose.

“So, because of this flexibility, this season we’ve made more supplement than we would normally have.”

The couple farm a 180-hectare (effective), 190ha (total) unit. Around 60ha of the farm is leased and they also have a 110ha lease block they

use as a run-off. They milk 520-530 predominantly crossbred cows through a 40-a-side herringbone shed. The herd is a real hodgepodge, but Rose says it works well.

“We have no breeding plan as such and hybrid vigour is what we breed for. We breed by eye depending on the cow. It’s not all that scientific and it’s give us a very varied herd with all sorts of colours and sizes. But it seems to work as different breeds have different strengths and weaknesses.

“For example, jerseys and ayrshires tend to eat out the paddocks better; ayrshires are hardy and rarely get health and feet issues, while jerseys and friesians tend to produce better.”

The couple runs a low-costs system with total farm average working expenses of around $3.50$3.70 per kilogram of milksolids. Rose says this is beneficial in a low-payout year.

They buy supplement only occasionally and aim for a self-contained system. All cows are wintered on the run-off. Yearlings go out to graze at a local grazer at nine months and return just before calving.

NZ Dairy

ON FARM » Tauhara Moana

| 31

PHOTOS – Left: A DairyNZ monitor farm field day. Right: A group inspects the PGG Wrightson regional research site at Tauhara Moana.

Self sufficiency the goal Karen Phelps Tauhara Moana Trust is aiming to farm selfsufficiently after an agreement to lease 961 hectares of land from Contact Energy to use as a support block. All of Tauhara Moana’s young stock are now grazed on the block and most of the cows wintered there.

The block is also used to grow substantial supplement to support the trust’s farms, reducing the need for buying in feed, says Tauhara Moana’s long-term farm consultant, Mark Johnston.

The trust now operates two farms after a decision two seasons ago to split the original property and milk through two dairy sheds.

Johnston says the aim was to raise profitability by effectively halving the walk for the cows, which used to be 10 kilometres.

Tauhara Farm is a 365-hectare (effective) unit peak-milking 1050 friesian and friesian-cross cows through a 60-a-side herringbone shed; Moana farm is a 409ha (effective) unit peak-milking 1188 cows through a 60-bail rotary.

The farms are in the Central Plateau area under Mt Tauhara, with Lake Rotokawa running through the Moana farm.

The split into two units also coincided with the decision to re-establish a partnership with Dairy New Zealand, which has seen the Moana unit become a monitor farm. Previously the entire farm was operated as a focus farm for three years.

One of the thrusts of the project is to build

relationships between Maori agribusiness and DairyNZ. “Trusts often have to make big decisions, and the decision to expand this dairy operation into two farms is a good example,” says Johnston.

“But trustees don’t always come from a farming background, making knowledge of the dairy industry sometimes a challenge. Now, information about the Tauhara Moana Trust farms is shared with both the trustees and the community, particularly other Maori dairy farms.

“This has definitely helped trustees identify what is important when operating a dairy farm so that they know what questions to ask of consultants and can make more informed decisions. This means they no longer have to rely on someone like me to tell them something is a good idea as they now have the capacity to know it’s a good idea themselves so it gives a lot more control back.”

He says a great deal of focus is being placed on the support block, with 155ha planted in lucerne, which is then harvested as silage and taken back to the dairy farms to be fed out over summer.

The block is also used to harvest grass silage, with 300ha taken back to the dairy farms and 200ha grown on the support block over winter. As a great deal of the block is browntop, around 100ha has been cropped each year and re-sown into white-clover pasture. J This has resulted in huge benefits, says Johnston: “Last year we harvested 650 tonnes of dry matter of grass silage off the support block.

This year, it will be 1100 tonnes. By spring this year

we will have re-sown 300ha of the block, so there will be more big increases to come as we continue this process.”

Other benefits include an increase in the stocking rate – up by 700 cows over the past two seasons with plans to increase cow numbers by an additional 150 over the two farms next season.

Johnston says the overall aim is still firmly on sustainable profitability and greater control.

“In dry years profitability used to be challenged as we had to buy in feed and we were at the mercy

of the market, as well as dry-off cows earlier affecting our production. Now, by growing our own supplement, there should be less variability around profit.”

Supporting this is the farm’s participation in a yield and persistency trial by PGG Wrightson.

Johnston hopes this will reveal which ryegrass species and crops are best suited to the farms.

The production target is a combined milksolids total of 810,000 kilograms this season, up from 731,000kg last season.

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of some big savings It has given us more control over timing and we can make the bales when each row is at its optimum.

So, this season we’ve made more supplement than we would normally have made due to this flexibility.

He says a big project has been building a new 2.6-million-litre effluent pond and a 25-million-litre water storage pond.

“During summer we come under a period of irrigation restrictions, so we will now be able to store water pumped from a water bore during winter, This will give us certain production no matter what the weather.”

The couple see the new effluent pond as giving them more control over effluent dispersal on the farm, aiding environmental compliance as well as ensuring they get the most value from effluent on their paddocks.

Production should increase as a result.

Last season they totalled 175,000 kilograms of milksolids; this season they are aiming for 180,000kg.

They now own Shaun’s family farm. He started managing it after leaving school and the couple bought it off his parents Jan and John Rose this season. While paying down debt is the immediate priority, growth is a goal.

Their four children – Eva, 9, Bailey, 7, Jono, 3 and Siena, 2 – are all showing interest in farming.

“If they see one in the ute, they all want to pile in,” says Shaun. “They all love being on the farm.”

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32 |

ON FARM » Natalie & Ian Butler

NZ Dairy

Canny ways to deal with drought Karen Phelps Three of the four years that Natalie and Ian Butler have been sharemilking have been drought.

The couple remain pragmatic and say it’s just something they have had to work with and put into their farming plan.

Part of this has been identifying ways in which they can reduce their expenses. One simple change they made recently – and shared on a Dairy New Zealand field day on tactics in tough times to help farmers in the region to deal with the double whammy of low payouts and dry weather – saved them $5000.

The Taranaki couple made the significant saving by working with their electricity supplier to ensure they were on the best invoicing and metering rates.

Around 40 hectares of the farm is under k-line irrigation and the Butlers have also helped halve the farm-owner’s electricity irrigation costs.

“Someone else on the field day had reduced costs by reviewing their fuel costs,” says Natalie.

“That was something we hadn’t thought of, and will be investigating.”

They have made a number of other changes to reduce expenses, improve efficiency and raise production on the 200ha (effective) unit, owned by Ken and Christine Sole, at Pungareghu.

“The farm has been formed from smaller farms, which have been bought out. A lot of paddocks and races were quite small, so we’ve redeveloped the farm to work more efficiently,” says Ian. They also aim to double the area under irrigation by getting the system running properly.

Because of the dry weather, the herd of 550 crossbred cows has been put on 16 hour milkings, which has lowered electricity costs in the 40-a-side herringbone shed and helped drop a labour unit, which the Butlers are putting to use elsewhere on

Sharemilkers Natalie and Ian Butler have made significant savings on their power bill. the farm. They say cows are in better condition as a result.

They have also widened races, re-fenced paddocks and developed the farm-water supply.

They believe the farm can now achieve 250,000 kilograms of milksolids while maintaining its system 2 status..

The Butlers also aim to reduce their reliance on bought-in feed. They usually buy in around 90 tonnes of palm kernel to feed out over spring, but

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are looking at growing fodder beet on the platform for shoulder feeding. They currently grow 7ha of maize on the non-effective area of the farm and 11ha of turnips.

If they find the fodder beet works well, they plan to grow it once they have harvested their turnip crop and hope to avoid the need to buy palm kernel.

They are confident their plan will work as fodder beet needs eight degrees Celsius soil temperatures and the farm never gets below that.

And they have their eye on tightening the calving spread. In their first season the six-week, in-calf rate was 50 per cent. In their second season this rose to 60% and this season 70%.

“We’ve also been taking the bull out to close up the calving pattern,” says Ian. “We calved for 16 weeks in our first season and we’d like to get that down to nine or 10 weeks.

“We’re also investigating short-gestation semen and maybe not using bulls at all next season. Our bulls cost us more than $100 per pregnancy and we don’t think that seems very efficient. We think we can get an extra 1300 days in milk by using short-gestation semen, which would really help us to reach our target milk production.”

This season the couple are aiming for 215,000 kilograms of milksolids – up from 203,000kg last season.

Ian Butler comes off a sheep farm in Central Otago. After leaving school he managed orchards in Roxburgh. Natalie grew up in Dunedin and has a double degree in commerce and accounting. She worked for the Fonterra Edendale plant in a financial

role before moving to Fonterra’s Taranaki-based facility. This move led the couple into dairy farming.

Ian’s first job was as a relief-milker and general farmhand for Waiwera Holdings. He was in this role for just four months before his experience managing large orchards with up to 100 staff saw him move to a management position for the company on a 160-cow unit. Six months later he moved to a 600-cow (eventually 800 cows) farm for Waiwera Holdings. The couple then took on their first lower-order sharemilking position on a 300-cow farm at Hurleyville for two seasons before moving to Pungarehu.

The farm employs one full-time staff member plus two relief-milkers. Natalie has been full-time on the farm since the end of 2013 when she left her job at Fonterra.

She says her financial background has helped them keep a good eye on expenses and run the farm efficiently, but the change from desk job to farmer has not been without its hurdles.

“I was quite lonely when I came on to the farm because I’d been used to a lot of people in my workplace. Becoming a regional co-ordinator for the Dairy Women’s Network and the Dairy Connect officer for Taranaki has helped me achieve the balance I needed.”

“You’ve got to be happy in what you do otherwise you won’t do it well,” agrees Ian. “We do sit down and discuss what’s making us happy on a regular basis to identify what we need to work on or change.”

“It’s an ever changing goal,” says Natalie.

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Federated Farmers national board member and West Coast provincial president Katie Milne has been named 2015 Dairy Woman of the Year. by the Dairy Women’s Network. She farms with her partner at Rotomanu, Lake Brunner on the West Coast of the South Island.

They have a small, high-breeding-worth jersey herd of 200 cows, rear replacement heifer calves on a separate run-off, and run a local contracting operation making silage pits, hay, balage, effluent spreading from ponds, herd shelters and stand-off pads.

The judging panel said she demonstrated “an unselfish contribution to the dairy industry delivered with a passion and zest that gets attention”.

“She already plays in a space beyond her immediate expertise, experience and comfort zone, epitomising a dairy woman determined to make a difference and thus achieving great advocacy outcomes for the wider dairy industry.”

She has been the Federated Farmers West Coast provincial president since 2008, and is the national board’s spokesperson on adverse events, rural

Winners: Katie MIlne (left), Jo Sanford (right, with her partner), Rachael Nicholson (far right). security, local government, accident compensation and employment. Her prize is a Fonterra-sponsored scholarship to the Global Women Women in Leadership programme valued at $25,000. This will give her 12 months of exposure to women in leadership roles in New Zealand business.

Western Southland farmer Jo Sanford and Northern Southland mum Rachael Nicholson won

ON FARM » Ralph & Pam Gore

NZ Dairy

| 33

Brad Gore with some of the 495 jerseycross and kiwicrossbred cows.

Chicory ‘essential’ in battling the dry Karen Phelps Dealing with drought for the past three seasons has been the biggest challenge for Ralph and Pam Gore.

The couple converted to dairy, near Matamata, six seasons ago.

“A significant percentage of the farm was planted in old sheep and cattle grass species,” says Ralph Gore “In six years we have re-grassed more than half of the farm. It’s an ongoing process.”

The Gores have identified chicory as essential in helping them through the dry summer months, and plant around five per cent of the farm in chicory each year. It excels in dry conditions and helps provide much needed protein from January through to March, says Gore.

They also identify all the empties early in January and buy in additional palm kernel, this year 130 tonnes on top of the normal shed-meal requirements. The farm has an in-shed, mealfeeding system to feed meal and molasses. The Gores have also engaged a nutritionist.

Ralph Gore says it’s a balance between drying off early, or buying in extra palm kernel and milking the herd for longer: “Of course you never know what the weather will do. It’s a guessing game,” They have also upgraded their effluent system by putting in two solids ponds to remove solids before the main holding pond. This has reduced

blockage issues in their sprinkler system.

They plan on reticulating another 35 hectares of the farm. At present, 45ha is spread with effluent.

Ralph and Pam have stepped back from the dayto-day management of the herd now that their son, Brad, 28, has taken over as contract-milker.

In fact, their decision to convert to dairy was prompted by farm-succession plans.

“After 40 years of sheep farming I could never see my kids making a fortune out of it. Being in prime dairying land, it was pretty apparent that was the best option to support a future for them,” says Ralph.

“I am quite willing to encourage Brad to take as much responsibility as he can. Lower-order sharemilker will be the next step. We have farm debt to service, so we want to make sure each step we take is the right one.”

The Hinuera farmer was originally bought by the Gore family in 1936, and they have tried a multitude of farm systems to make the figures work.

When Ralph bought the property in 1972, he began cropping 30-40ha of maize to help support the sheep and cattle operations.

In 1984 he fenced off 25ha and bred a herd of 200 deer hinds.

Now they peak-milk 495 kiwicross cows through a 50-bail rotary shed on the 180ha (170 effective) unit. They employ a full-time herd

dairy, community efforts

the Dairy Community Leadership Award. The other finalists were Te Aroha farmer Tania Earnshaw and Western Southland farmer Katrina Thomas.

Open to all Dairy Women’s Network members, it recognises dairying women who make significant contributions in their local community through leadership and support.

Sanford and her husband converted their

Tuatapere, Western Southland sheep-and-beef farm to dairy in 2007, and now milk 800 cows. She says “giving back to the community” is very important to her and “sharing my knowledge, skills and experience gives me huge personal satisfaction”.

Nicholson and her husband, Scott, started their farming career 50:50 sharemilking at Riversdale, Northern Southland. They milked on three farms over seven seasons, increasing their herd and building capital with the aim of buying their own farm, which they achieved in 2007 and converted in 2008.

After having children, Nicholson joined numerous committees as well as the Dairy Women’s Network where she became the Gore regional group convener for four years until 2014.

The family has since sold their farm but still live in the community, which has freed her up to be involved in more community groups. She still has her AI tech certificate and leases dairy stock.

Sanford and Nicholson won a leadership course sponsored by calf rearing specialist Milk Bar and an Agri One sustainability course sponsored by ASB.

manager and a part-time calf-rearer.

Ralph Gore has quickly recognised that the key to a successful dairy operation lies in the quality of the herd. They bought a mixed jersey-cross and kiwi-crossbred herd and they’re working on improving it.

Last season the farm produced 207,000

kilograms of milksolids – around 430kg per cow.

This season the target is 220,000 to 230,000kg – 430 to 450kg per cow.

The Gores are looking at buying or leasing a support block to graze their replacement stock rather than contract grazing. The aim is to have better control over costs and stock.

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34 |

ON FARM » Mark & Phillipa Davey/DAIRY SERVICES » AgWorx

NZ Dairy

Listen up, then Karen Phelps

AgWorx is based in Matamata, an area general manager Craig Hawes describes as ‘an extremely competitive market’.

When a client has a problem, AgWorx people think outside the square and work to come up with a customised response, says general manager Craig Hawes. And that, he adds, is the Matamata-based, milk-and-water-systems specialist’s point of difference.

“We listen to what the customer wants and then we have a meeting with our staff. It’s more a brainstorming session to pool our knowledge and find the best system and equipment to suit the customer’s needs.”

He says the company’s longevity in the

business should give customers confidence it will remain around to service their needs.

AgWorx has a wide variety of services. These include: the supply and repair of milking equipment; machine testing; water-filtration systems; swimming and spa-pool equipment and servicing; stainless-steel fabrication; general engineering services.

The company was formed more than 40 years ago by Hawes’s grandfather, Jim Jobe, the man who developed the famous ‘jobe valve’, which now used in water troughs internationally.

Today Ag-Worx is owned by Jim Jobe’s daughter, Sylvia, and her husband, Terry Hawes (Craig’s parents) who still work in the company.

Manager the key to fortnightly commute Sue Russell Mark and Phillipa Davey live on one of two farms they own in the Waikato, an hour’s drive from one another.

Home-base is a 40-hectare property near Te Aroha, which is used as a support block for young stock from the other farm, between Tokoroa and Mangakino. When the Daveys bought this farm 14 years ago, it was producing 60,000 kilograms of milksolids a year. Its 70 hectares now support 200 cows.

Having a more substantial property away from home means fortnightly trips for Mark Davey to check on how the season is unfolding and to catch up with farm manager Steven Andrews.

“The farm has always basically been a oneman operation, so it was really important to get a manager who is able to cope with what is going on, and is reliable and trustworthy” says Mark.

Forecast production for this season has been modified slightly, down to 100,000kg milksolids from 105,000kgs. The plan is to milk through to mid-May, all going well.

“The weather conditions at the start of our season were really good, but the dip came in late January and that has affected our overall production,” says Davey.

There is a strong dairying community around Tokoroa, partly because of the mainly pumice and ash based soils prevalent throughout. These soils are relatively free-draining and demand the steady supply of precipitation that usually occurs in the district. A benefit of this situation is that a substantial amount of effluent produced from the farm’s activities can be spread over the land reasonably often.

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PHOTOS – Above, left: Farm manager Steven Andrews with the cows at Tokoroa. Above, right, Phillipa and Mark Davey, with Zac, on their Te Aroha property.

Lower, right: Mark Davey and Wendy Dewar (South Waikato area manager) check the maize crop. Bottom, left: The wintering barn at Tokoroa. pond was built in 2011, and 32 hectares of the farm is irrigated from either the cowshed effluent tank or the pond, using either an electric pump or one mounted on the tractor.”

“Our current nitrogen leaching figure sits at about 38,” says Davey. “I was told a few years ago that Environment Waikato was looking for the desired figure in our area of 27.”

Meetings were held between his fertiliser company, Kiwifertiliser, and Environment Waikato because he was considering building a stand-off pad. Eventually the Daveys decided on a Red Path composting shed with a plastic liner and woodchip floor area allowing 7.5 square metres per cow.

“Because the roof has a shade cloth underneath it in the summer, it’s a cooler place for the stock to be, reducing heat stress which often leads to them eating less than desirable to maintain good condition. They now tend to go out in the

evening past the heat of the day and get their grass allocation then.”

While the Tokoroa farm has the capacity to produce more with more stock, Davey says any decision to increase needs to be considered alongside the costs of employing more staff.

“One person can milk 200 cows and feed them a little bit more using very little extra time. But if you start introducing more stock and more food, all this uses time in labour.”

The exception to the one-man-run farm reality occurs each spring when a part-timer is employed to feed the calves for a few hours each day for 10 weeks, and to help around the shed.

Smell from the effluent pond has been a

problem, so Davey did the research and decided to introduce slurry bugs, a biological effluent treatment.

“It’s a dry powder you put into a bucket and work with water, then tip it on the yard and wash it into the pond. It makes the pond aerobic from its natural anaerobic state.”

The clever little bugs break up the crust the effluent forms at the bottom of the effluent pond.

The Daveys say they are happy with the way their farming business has unfolded.

“It’s nice to have the time now to get involved in community groups,” says Mark. “I still do an AB run in the spring for LIC, but have recently joined Te Aroha Lions and I’m enjoying that very much.”

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NZ Dairy

DAIRY SERVICES » Ag-Worx

| 35

think outside square The business employs 10 staff, including a filtration technician, a milking-machine technician, a water-pump specialist, and engineers.

Ag-Worx holds a number of agencies, including DeLaval, Grundfos, Davey, Dab and Lowara. In addition, it is an agent for Trueform spa pools, Filtermaster pool equipment and Pool & Spa factory equipment .

When it comes to fittings and accessories, it holds agencies for Alkathane, Galv, V-Belts, CamLock, and Nora gumboots.

Hawes says there has been a trend towards automating sheds in the region, particularly automatic cup removers.

“Staffing can be an issue for farmers here.

Automatic cup removers help solve the problem as one person can often operate the shed at milking time. It has been a big trend in sheds around here over the past couple of years.”

Other trends have been driven by regulatory changes, such as milk-cooling equipment and water filtration.

“A lot of farmers are finding their water supply to the shed is not up to standard and are facing water exclusion penalties. We have been able to successfully filter iron and manganese as well as other elements from farm water supplies using the patented Aquafier IM filtration systems.”

Hawes says the company has plans to expand over the next five years and is looking at opportunities further afield in the North Island.

“We’ve got some quite big plans for the company. including developing a few of our own unique products.”

PHOTOS – Left: Not a lot of spare space in the showroom of AgWorx’s store in Matamata.

Lower left: A new, farm-water treatment system produced by AgWorx

He describes Matamata as an extremely competitive market and says the company’s standing as a family business has helped its growth.

“Customers know us and know we sell only high-quality products that last the distance.

Because a lot of farms are passed down from generation to generation in this region, we have been working for some families for many years.

“In fact we are proud to be the longest standing milking-machine dealership in Matamata. Our customers know they can rely on us and that we are here for the long haul.”

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DAIRY SERVICES » Gibson Construction

36 |

‘Builder for farmer’ spreads wings Jo Bailey Rural, residential and commercial construction company Gibson Construction (formally Gibson Rural) has opened a Taupo branch to service a growing portfolio of work in the area.

“We have worked in the region since 2013 and opened the new branch in early March,” says general manager Chris Cliffe. “This signals our commitment to clients in the central North Island and our desire to become involved in the local community,” The Te Awamutu firm is known for its work in the rural sector, he says. As a “builder for farmer”, it has been involved in a wide range of projects - rotary, herringbone and robotic milking sheds, feedpads, silage bunkers, effluent management systems, and ancillary buildings. The firm also builds milking sheds for cows, sheep and goats.

More recently Gibson Construction has extended its work into the housing and commercial markets, working on variety of projects, says Chris.

“Under the umbrella of Gibson Housing and Gibson Commercial, which are divisions of Gibson Construction, we are developing a robust presence in the residential and commercial building markets.

We have been involved with a number of new builds, renovations and extensions.”

The company has built houses ranging in value from $250,000 to well over $1 million; its commercial projects include new buildings, office fit-outs, and educational facilities.

“Our focus is to provide customers with a stressfree experience and a high-quality product at a reasonable rate, whatever the project.”

Gibson Construction offers a design-and-build service, and can manage the entire project.

“We are extremely flexible, and happy to work from customers’ plans.” says Cliffe Having a “highly qualified, experienced and resourceful team” has earned the company a reputation for delivering prompt service and a fresh approach.

Several new tradesmen and project managers have joined the business over the last year. Management has been bolstered to support the growth - a quantity-surveying division looks after the housing and commercial arms of the business, and there is a manager to handle human resources, and health and safety.

• To page 37

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NZ Dairy

PHOTOS – Three samples of Gibson Construction work in the dairy field – a yard-side view of a dairy shed (above left), a backing gate (above) and a shed interior (below).

NZ Dairy

DAIRY SERVICES » Tetley-Jones Agriculture

| 37

Firm cultivates farming niche Sue Russell Ross Tetley-Jones and Diane Tetley are into their 23rd year of rural contracting. You’d say they must be doing quite a few things right.

Their base a few kilometres south of Otorohanga provides them with a sizeable chunk of land and a catchment of farms to work on, mostly from 10 kilometres or so north of Otorohanga through to south of Te Kuiti and south.

“We’ve operated long enough in the area to have grown a strong core of regular clients, including several Maori Affairs Trust farms,” says Ross Tetley-Jones.

When they bought the business as a going concern, they could see that with the gear they had acquired, there was plenty of room for expansion.

This took about three years to see through.

All these years on, Ross is still very much frontline and hands-on, though the company’s fleet now extends to six tractors. To help maintain the service his clients have become used to, he has employs a full-time tractor operator who has been with the company for 15 years.

“We’re very lucky to be in such a stable position regarding staff because in this industry, it is really hard to find and keep the good operators,” he says.

Tetley-Jones Agriculture concentrates its activity around hay balage, cultivation and direct drilling, mowing and windrowing – enough to sustain a solid amount of work through the busy season from mid-September to mid-March.

In the peak of the contracting season, the business can employ up to seven staff on shortterm contracts and eight tractors can be operating.

“We take on at least two full-time seasonal guys.

We recently had two full-timers from the United Kingdom and they were great.”

The bailer has been kept exceptionally busy this

PHOTOS – Above: Part of the Tetley-Jones Agricuture fleet at rest. Lower left: A tractor with drill and discs in behind. season, turning out 17,000 silage bales instead of the usual 13,000 or so.

Tetralogies has chosen not to contract for maize cutting because there are plenty of operators concentrating on this work.

With his work-life embracing contracting and farm ownership pretty much in equal measure, his philosophy has very much been to turn profitability from the contracting business into his farming business and the acquisition of land.

“There has been very good growth and we have also picked up a couple of extra-big jobs. Over the years, our business has shifted away from the smaller farmers to the bigger ones. We do very little

advertising as this is very much a word-of-mouth industry.”

While the couple have carved out a solid business against a sizeable amount of competition in the area, he remains aware of the key factors.

“You have to be pretty passionate to sustain the energy for this, and be prepared to work stupid hours and have no life during the season.”

He is a member of the New Zealand Contractors’ Federation, which is lobbying the Government to change the migrant work rules to make it easier for contractors to access skilled seasonal workers from overseas.

“We want to see an extension to visas so that

these very capable workers, who are keen to come out here and be part of this industry, can find good employment.

“It’s disappointing to sense that the Government thinks that because you don’t need any special licences to operate, anyone can use these machines.

“Most drivers are in charge of machinery worth a minimum of $250,000. It is demanding and highly skilled work.”

Tetley-Jones appreciates that upward of 95 per cent of his customers are repeat clients. He puts this down to offering value for money through the standard of the work he and his staff do.

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‘Builder for farmer’ expands • From age 36 While the Waikato and the central North Island is the centre of most of Gibson Construction’s activities, it is not limited to these markets, says Cliffe.

“We can work nationwide and have

completed several large-scale projects in the South Island.”

The company has also launched a new website (www.gibsonconstruction.co.nz): “People can view our full product range on the site, find information about key people in the company, and get an idea of the company ethos and ethics”

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38 |

DAIRY SERVICES » Paul Steiner Contracting

NZ Dairy

‘Best machinery’ crucial factor Karen Phelps Paul Steiner Contracting has chosen to concentrate focus on certain aspects of contracting so that he build expertise and experience in key areas.

“We focus on earthmoving, excavation and specific types of cartage.” says company owner Paul Steiner.

“This means we can offer a high-quality service rather than spreading ourselves too thinly over too many services,” Steiner, who grew up on a dairy farm at Tatuanui (between Morrinsville and Te Aroha) and is a qualified diesel mechanic, started his business in 1993 with one 10-tonne excavator.

The business grew quickly when a competitor company closed and many of its clients moved to Paul Steiner Contracting. The firm now employs up to 10 staff depending on the season. Equipment includes excavators, bulldozers, rollers, tip-trucks and trailers.

“A lot of what we do comes down to using the best machinery for the job,” says Steiner. “We always keep up with the latest technology to ensure our customers receive the quickest and most comprehensive service.”

The company works largely for the rural sector, plus regional councils, builders, plumbers and drainlayers.

Its services include drain cleaning and new drains, v-drains, hedge, tree and stump removal, effluent-pond construction, cow-race and tankertrack construction and maintenance, site-work and demolition, and paddock contouring. It can supply pit sand and metal, and offers fertiliser and lime cartage and transporter hire.

Effluent ponds are currently a big area of work as farmers strive to meet compliance regulations.

Steiner has completed a DairyNZ effluent-pond course to equip him. His company often works in with local contractors, such as Pondco and Enviroline NZ, which install pond liners.

Safety is a major consideration, he says.

“At the end of the day, the most important thing about what we do is to ensure everybody’s safety on site.

“We take people’s well-being very seriously and conduct ourselves in such a way that accidents have little chance of happening. We are completely

insured and our staff are safety-trained.”

Paul Steiner Contracting is based in the Morrinsville area, but will travel further afield depending on the contract. The company has built effluent ponds across the area from the Bombay Hills to Taupo.

A lot of its work is derived from word of mouth from satisfied clients. In the past five years company growth has meant significant investment in plant, from two to seven excavators.

“When I started the company I had just an excavator,” says Paul Steiner. “Farmers were happy to book me in for excavation work and then get other contractors for other jobs to do with their project.

“Today clients want to make one phone call and have one company that can do it all. We have enough gear available to do the complete job. It makes things easier for farmers as they are busier now.

“We pride ourselves on not just providing a highquality service to clients, but also on the best in customer care. This means taking an approach that puts customers’ needs and convenience first. We’ll always go that extra mile to ensure our customers are satisfied with the job.”

PHOTOS: Effluent pond construction is currently a big area of work for Morrinsville-based Paul Steiner Contracting. The company specialises in earthmoving, excavation and specific types of cartage.

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DAIRY SERVICES » Osborne’s Transport

| 39

Upgrading the fleet is the priority for Te Awamutu-based Osborne’s Transport. The new Isuzu (right) is the newest addition (in January).

Isuzu is the favoured brand because of its reliability, driver comfort and the ability to turn in tight places.

Transport in partners’ blood Karen Phelps

Te Awamutu-based Osborne’s Transport has been servicing the greater Waikato region for more than 70 years. The company’s longevity boils down to the fact it is very much a family-owned and operated business, says George Powell, who with his brother-in-law, John Buckley, owns the company.

Powell is in charge of dispatching and orders, while Buckley takes care of health and safety, and human resources, as well as attending stock sales to generate business.

The company’s office manager is George Powell’s wife, Denise, while their daughters, Sophia and Chrissi, have administration and sales roles. The Powells’ son, Alex, drives and assists in despatch, and son-in-law Stu Mitchell is the company’s mechanic, servicing the fleet and driving when necessary.

Transport runs in the blood for the two partners.

As soon as he left school George Powell worked for his parents in the family transport business, G H Powell Ltd, in Makuri. His parents also owned a small farm, which gave him an understanding of the needs of rural people. In 1980 his parents sold the business to Pahiatua-based Gleeson Transport and he began working for Gleesons as a livestock driver.

He moved to Te Awamutu in 1987 and worked for Osborne’s Transport in a variety of roles, including driving and despatch.

John Buckley’s parents also had a transport business (Buckley Bros) in Pahiatua and that too was sold to Gleeson Transport. In 1999 Powell and Buckely, along with some other family members, bought Osborne’s Transport in a family partnership.

“Osborne’s was started by Eric and Les Osborne, from Te Awamutu more than 70 years ago,” says Powell. “So, taking over a company with this much history, it made good sense to keep the name.”

The priority for Osbornes Transport is to

Northland and has occasionally taken loads to the South Island.

“Service, that’s what it’s all about,” says George Powell.

“If you do a good job, people will come back to you. It’s about sticking to times, and communication with customers from the beginning to the end of the job.”

Ensuring that stock reaches its destination stress free and in good condition comes down to experience. he says. Three of the company’s staff have a combined industry experience of 100 years.

“Animal welfare is a priority. The ramifications for carting sick or injured animals are pretty serious. It’s in everyone’s best interest to get it right because only healthy animals can be sold.

“Animals pick up on your energy. If you deal with them calmly, they generally do what you want them to do.”

Osborne’s Transport is a member of the New Zealand Road Transport Authority, which Powell says helps the company keep up to date with rules and regulations.

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Company co-owner George Powell at the despatch desk. constantly upgrade the fleet. The favourite brand is Isuzu, because of its reliability, driver comfort and the ability of the vehicles to turn in tight places.

With three new four-axle trucks and two new five-axle trucks in the past year, the company can now cart loads from 12 to 50 tonnes.

Most of the firm’s clients come from within a 50-kilometre radius of company headquarters in Awamutu.

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40 |

DAIRY PEOPLE » Matt & Tracey Honeysett

NZ Dairy

Left: The opportunity to spend time with their three sons is one of the things Matt and Tracey Honeysett enjoy about the farming lifestyle.

Lower left: The effluent system on the 420-hectare (effective) property the couple farms in southern Wairarapa.

‘We wouldn’t have it any other way’ Sue Russell What began as a connection with New Zealand in 2001, when English-born Matt Honeysett decided to spend a year here, has turned into a positive, longterm career in the dairying industry.

He remembers helping his grandparents in England during the school holidays on their dairy farm, and this gave him the taste for working with animals and on the land.

“When I arrived here I planned to stay a year and no longer, I did return after the year, but came back in 2003 and have been settled here ever since.” .

Matt and wife Tracey are equity managers of a sprawling 420-hectare (effective) farm near Featherston, in South Wairarapa. The 1200-cow, crossbred herd produced 384,000 kilograms of milksolids in 2013-14 season, about 50,000kg up on the previous season.

“We are breeding towards a mainly kiwicross

herd as we have quite challenging soils in the winter and want a cow light on its feet but also efficient at producing,” says Matt Honeysett.

Aspirations are high for this season’s production figures 415kg milksolids per cow, with the plan to total 450,000kg next season milking the same number of cows.

Since the Honeysetts took on the farm on June 1, 2013 a massive amount of work has been done to enhance its infrastructure – two new pivot irrigators; a new underpass below a road crossing the farm; three new water-storage ponds; an effluent-solid separator and storage pond; drainage; extensive regrassing; upgrading the cowshed with automatic cluster removers (ACRs) and a DAL (Dairy Automation Ltd) system.

“We have also spent a lot of money culling and upgrading the cows. Since we bought, we’ve sold and culled 500, replacing them with three-yearolds.”

Guiding this major works programme is a

five-year strategic plan. the outcome of roundtable discussions with the other equity partners.

However, solid production levels and a great payout have seen most of the development accomplished in the first year.

“The farm was a bit of a building site from early December right through to the end of last season.

We have a little bit more drainage ahead, though we’ve completed 90 per cent of it.”

Honeysett says these major improvements have moved the farm from what he described as an average unit to the point where it can produce a consistent volume profitably.

Helping on the farm is 2IC Joe Watchman, two full-time diary assistants and a part-timer.

Honeysett is very much hands-on every day, catching up with the 2IC weekly to discuss and implement projects.

“We’ve also spent a lot of money upgrading the 50-bail, rotary cowshed. which now has automatic cup removers, DAL milk meters with cell-count

meters on the bails, and automatic drafting and weighing.”

But key to producing more milk is the ability to grow more grass, he says.

With the major work done, the tasks ahead centre around attention to fencing and the like to enhance the aesthetics.

The farm operates on a level-3 feeding system; grass-silage based. Grain, which can be fed out in the shed, is supplied only through early lactation. A quarter of the farm has been completely regrassed.

Honeysett feels he has been very blessed with his farming life: “There hasn’t been one day that I’ve woken up and said ‘Oh, I have got to go to work’.

I really enjoy the flexibility of it. I can take time off to go to kids’ sports days, and while it is a 24/7 vocation, there are quieter times.”

He and Tracey share their lives are three sons, four-year-old twins Isaac and Eli, and Jesse, one.

“It’s a very good place to be with a young family and we wouldn’t have it any other way,” says Matt.

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