Dairy News Australia Gippsland Region December 2023

DECEMBER, 2023 ISSUE 158

GIPPSLAND REGION

ROBOTICS REVOLUTION Alister Clyne says installing a robot milking system was about improving animal and people welfare, including decreasing workplace risk for staff. Page 4.

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2 // GIPPSLAND REGION

Chair’s message

Dairying requires courage and skills

BY SARAH O'BRIEN

I’D LIKE to say a warm hello to each and every one of you. My name is Sarah O’Brien, and I’ve been elected as the incoming chair of GippsDairy.

I would dearly love to take this opportunity to thank our outgoing chair Lauren Finger for her tireless and unwavering guidance over the past nine years as a farmer director to the board of GippsDairy.

I’m certain Lauren will enjoy a change of pace and her family will enjoy seeing much more of her as she finishes up. While industry leadership roles are fulfilling, they do take dedication and time out of the farm business, to which Lauren has delivered honourably.

Myself, my husband Mike and our three children currently sharefarm in the Macalister Irrigation District.

Our eldest daughter is only moments away from completing Year 12 and starting the rest of her independent life. The excitement is real for her, and the terror and trepidation Mike and I feel is a whole new experience for us in our parenting journey. I’m grateful to have our other two children not quite there yet.

What seems like long ago, when our oldest was only two years old, we left northern

Victoria during a drought where opportunities for progression were limited.

Mike was employed as a pasture manager on a large operation and I hadn’t even milked a single cow, but we thought we’d have an adventure and move to Gippsland.

I was very unsuspecting of this farming ‘thing’, which may have been a helpful advantage to Mike! My background was in business and a second career change into community welfare, case managing young people who were homeless or at risk of homelessness.

Community welfare is another intense career path and I was needing a reset, so I agreed dairy farming was a great option for ‘calm days and wide open spaces’. Did I learn a thing or two pretty quickly!

We decided on the back of some advice that Lake Glenmaggie was integral to this district and a beautiful area to live, and I would still agree.

Our lake is vital to profitable farming in this area, and after a flood event and spill this year, we’re grateful for every drop we’ve had to take us into summer. For some farmers in the district, major flood damage remains and I hope the after effects aren’t crippling into spring.

It really was an amazing week for us in Gippsland on the weather front. I honestly never thought we would see a Watch and Act bushfire warning as well

as an advice warning for flooding on the same day in our patch of Gippsland. Let alone an earthquake to take place only a few days later.

It’s through these events I am reminded of the courage and resilience each and every farmer has to operate from on a daily basis.

Daily decisions are dependent on so many variables like milk and commodity prices, irrigation, animal health, pasture rotation, human resources, bookkeeping and budgeting.

Managing all of this while being present with family and friends is quite the balancing act.

I commend us all for the skills and determination we bring to this industry in making important decisions daily to operate multi-million-dollar businesses.

As I write this, GippsDairy has been busy interviewing for our annual Don Campbell Memorial Tour to Tasmania.

I always volunteer to be on the interview panel to meet and admire the amazing young people we have coming through our industry.

I commend everyone who employs and nurtures our young farmers; they represent your business with pride and energy that always leaves me grateful knowing our industry is in good hands.

Good luck to each one of them — I’m certainly thankful I don’t make the final decision.

Sarah O’Brien is the GippsDairy chair.

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4 // GIPPSLAND REGION

Robotics revolution helps

BY JEANETTE SEVERS

Alister Clyne says installing the robot system was about improving animal and people welfare, including decreasing workplace risk for staff.

The Hanskamp feeding parlour ensures every cow gets their feed portion before returning to the paddock.

An open day was held and attended by dairy farmers from across Victoria.

The purpose-built staff area includes the computerised ‘brains’ of the system.

WHEN ALISTER and Katie Clyne invested in a 16-box DeLaval voluntary milking system (VMS, or robot dairy), their forecast return on investment was measured in labour efficiency and their occupational health and safety obligations.

Twenty-three years ago, Alister’s father Alan Clyne, joined three separately managed dairy farms with herringbone sheds into one farm after building a rotary dairy on the property known as Hillside, at Tinamba in the Macalister Irrigation District.

Today, the business, Hillside Dairies, owns and leases a combined 668 hectares of country, under a mixture of flood and pivot irrigation.

They grow 30ha of corn annually that is harvested in April as pit silage, and fed to all livestock.

They buy in 500 tonnes of hay annually, a mix of oats, vetch and straw, and 600 tonne dry matter of corn silage.

Optimising the capacity of the rotary dairy, the farm grew to a 1300-cow production system.

They had peaked and run-over with the number of cattle they should have on the farm.

“Since 2004, we have milked between 900 and 1300 cows,” Alister said.

“I run four cows/ha on the milking platform.”

Alister and Katie also own a 92ha dairy farm called Greenvale across the road, and brought the 30-bail swingover dairy shed into

production, offloading 400 cows to be milked and grazed there.

The second lactation and above Augustcalving cows move from Hillside Dairies to join the herd on this farm.

“We bought that farm in 2016 and we swung it into production when we realised the 50-unit rotary dairy was maxed out,” Alister said.

“Firing up that dairy took the pressure off the rotary system and the country, and it makes use of that land.”

They now milk a combined total of 1500 cows over the two farms.

Dry cows still return to Hillside Dairies until they calve.

Spring-calving heifers get milked at Hillside in the rotary dairy.

Both herds are a mixture of Jerseys, Holsteins and crossbred cows; but the joining system is now 100 per cent artificial insemination using sexed semen.

“Originally, we were using conventional Jersey semen over all heifers,” Alister said.

“Now we’re using sexed semen, and now we breed Holstein to Holstein and Jersey to Jersey.

“Eventually there’ll be less cross-bred cows on our farms.

“We also calve four times a year, which is something we started this year.”

The business’ traditional calving pattern was 50:50 autumn and spring calving — calving began in February and August.

“With the robots coming on, rather than carrying over empty cows, we now join and calve in November and June,” Alister said.

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Four milking bays in the 16-box DeLaval voluntary milking system are prioritised for testing cell count.

DAIRY NEWS AUSTRALIA DECEMBER 2023

GIPPSLAND REGION // 5

lift efficiency and welfare Solar-generated power is a key part of dairy operations.

“There are about 100 cows in each of those two groups.”

Realising the rotary needed upgrading, Alister took a look around at what other dairy sheds farmers were investing in, including VMS systems.

“The original idea was the rotary needed upgrading and needed a fair bit of money spent on it,” Alister said.

“It was ageing and well used, and it was time for a rethink and upgrade.

“I went to visit some robot dairies in Victoria and interstate. Luckily there has been some decent sized operations fired up in Australia in recent years.

“We remain committed to the dairy industry, so it was about finding a solution for us for the long term.”

Milking in the rotary dairy required long hours.

“It was a 6.5-hour shift each milking in the rotary system, with two people working,” Alister said.

“We began the morning shift at 2am, and we’re back at 12.45pm for the afternoon shift.

“We rostered people to one milking a day, because you’re in there for a long time cupping up.

“With 1100-1300 cows, it’s long hours of milking, and staff are physically tired.

“I want to work for another 25 years. I want to milk and enjoy the benefits.

“If I’m experiencing pain from the labour of working in the rotary shed, that’s an indicator everyone else is in pain too.”

At the same time as Alister and Katie were considering their future infrastructure options, the pandemic began.

“With COVID kicking off, it created a lot of issues around managing staff within those restrictions,” Alister said.

“It’s also getting harder to find people who want to milk cows.

“We needed to make working on a dairy farm fun, and improve the comfort of the animals and the people.”

It was about three years ago — in late spring 2020 — that Alister first talked to the De Laval technicians.

“I made a very pointed decision that I was going to do something about the dairy, instead of buying more land,” Alister said.

“When you build a rotary dairy and get it paid off, you’re ahead of the game.

“You know how to invest in a significant asset.

“Then you can invest in something significant

again, which is about improving our assets.”

After scoping out their plans, the couple worked with De Laval technicians to identify the best system and tweaked it to suit them.

“I used what De Laval know and then put my spin on it for what I wanted to work,” Alister said.

Investment included stabilising the power supply, which is supported by a solar system and three compressors.

The new dairy shed sits alongside but separate to the rotary dairy shed, which is still in commission.

“The rotary shed is there to train the heifers to milk, and for the fresh-in-milk cows, and hospital cows — cows with lameness or mastitis — to go through,” Alister said.

“We also use it for AI and pregnancy testing.”

The new dairy shed has 16 DeLaval V300 boxes and the yards leading into it include seven draft gates set up with seven interchanges, that enable cows to be drafted for milking and return to the paddocks along nine laneways according to a computerised plan.

The interchange and laneway system was designed to allow two herds to be managed, each with a four-way grazing system.

Four of the milking boxes enable prioritising cows that need their cell count measured.

The De Laval system boasts a 99 per cent accuracy with teat spraying, with capacity to change the pattern of spray.

There is an automated detergent dispensing system for washing down, and recycled water is used in the automated flood wash.

The cows receive their feed portion in a separate system, which required a new behaviour paradigm.

“The Hanskamp out of parlour feed stations helped transition the cows,” Alister said.

“When we first got the cows going through the new dairy on July 24, in the first week we put them through the feed stations and the draft gates.

“We milked them first at the rotary dairy and sent them once a day through the feed station.

“They knew there was something different and they learned to use that first.”

He said the out of feed station parlour has taken bossiness out of the herd, because the individual bays enable a cow to choose to feed, and she isn’t interfered with by her neighbours.

“The Hanskamp feeders with the walkthrough design means you don’t have cows that have already been fed mixing with cows that are trying to get in to get their feed ,” Alister said.

“It massively improves the ease with which you can transition your cows from the rotary dairy to the robots.

“I think now about how hard transition would have been with the older style out of parlour feeders that have cows walk in and back out — cows can leave the dairy without being fed.

“If they’re timid, they won’t feed, and that affects their production and lifetime performance.

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It’s a robotics revolution Continued from page 5

“And that’s a risk of failure in the system.”

Alister said cows were eating their portion and less likely to return to the paddock without doing so.

“In this system, they’re feeding on their own, they feed quietly, and then they leave,” he said.

“That’s been very helpful.

Hillside Dairies has finished their first few months after installing the 16-box robot dairy, and beginning the transition in late July.

“The new system has exceeded my expectations,” Alister said.

“In the first week, we walked them through the feeders and draft gates.

“About a week later, we applied batch milking and put our first group of cows through the robots.

“We put 200 through on the first day, then added a group of 300 on the second day, then another 200 cows on the third day.

“The balance of cows were added in on the fourth day, and we put 980 through that day.

“It was hard yakka but we needed to pull off the band-aid because we had calving starting.

“For the next week, we broke them into herds of 330 cows.

“After a week, 150 cows from herd one came in and left on their own.

“By the end of the next week, 400 cows were coming through on their own volition.

“They started coming in at 9.30pm and they were through by 1.30am.

“We stuck to the batch milking for a month.

“At the end of the month, we had 15-20 stubborn cows who didn’t want to do it.

“At the end of that next week, we pulled out five cows that the robots couldn’t get the cups on.

“By September 12, the herd was entirely voluntary.

“Production hasn’t declined or increased significantly. We’re on par with that we expect.

“Our late lactation cows that calve in November are already trained and are going straight back into the robots.”

By mid-November, Alister has noted about 25 per cent of the herd still has to be fetched from the paddock for milking.

But the investment has already paid off.

“We invested $5.8 million,” Alister said.

“Production hasn’t declined or increased significantly. We’re on par with what we expect.

“My gut feel is that lameness is not as big an issue because the cows are not being pushed.

“The cows are looking well and we’ve always put a lot of emphasis on feeding well — that hasn’t changed.

“Some cows do stand on the concrete a bit longer, so we’re aware of that and keeping an eye on it.

“We have some high congestion periods in certain zones and we’ve identified where it’s better for cows to come through an area in the daylight rather than night time.

“When we decided to invest in this system,

I had to think about how am I going to make this pay.

“Labour saving is the only way you can justify it.

“Investing in this dairy, I am paying forward labour for 15 years.

“I’m also keeping us in the industry, with the benefits of voluntary milking for the cows — their health and wellbeing is better.

“People’s health and wellbeing is better — there’s better OH&S, and there’s been a massive change to our levels of fatigue.

“Anyone who now works on Hillside Dairies is not buggered in the shoulders and back in the same way we were before.

“Everyone who works here is still here for plenty of hours.

“The team is three less people, and that cut to the workforce was what I intended to do anyway.

“We get more work done with less people with the change in the system.”

There is a 24-hour on call roster for the entire system, shared between Alister and his manager.

Normal rosters begin at 5am, and staff are finished work by 5.30-6pm.

“We can all be more flexible with our time,” Alister said.

“I can take time off for family activities.

“The biggest challenge for me has been getting my head around all the reports and the action we have to take to make sure the cows are getting milked.”

Part of the inner workings of the new dairy shed.

Three compressors ensure a stable power supply.

The rotary dairy is still in use, for training heifers, for cows fresh-in-milk, and for cows needing treatment.

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DAIRY NEWS AUSTRALIA DECEMBER 2023

GIPPSLAND REGION // 7

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AVERAGE INCOMES for Gippsland dairy farmers participating in the Dairy Farm Monitor Project were the second highest in 17 years, but that had to be balanced against a big increase in costs.

The latest project report found that variable costs in 2022-23 were the highest in 17 years of the project.

Profitability for the Gippsland participants was strongly influenced by the very high milk price (second highest on record accounting for inflation).

Increased feed costs were the main contributor to a large increase in costs for Gippsland participants in 2022-23.

Homegrown feed costs increased due to a combination of increased costs for fertiliser, irrigation, hay and silage making, fuel and oil, and pasture improvement.

A $0.64/kg MS increase in concentrate costs pushed up feed costs to $2.79/kg MS in 2022-23.

More concentrates were fed per cow (16 per cent increase) at higher prices per tonne (21 per cent increase).

Fodder costs remained unchanged between years. The wet conditions required farmers to purchase more silage for their milkers.

Herd costs increased in 2022-23 with a focus on sexed semen and using herd testing for selection of the future milking herd.

Shed costs increased in the last year mainly due to an increase in costs of dairy supplies, with a minor increase in shed power.

Many farms supplemented their energy requirements with solar generated electricity.

On the income side, in 2022-23 average gross farm income was the second highest in 17 years for Gippsland participants increasing 31 per cent from the previous year.

An increased use of supplements (16 per cent increase) at higher per unit price (concentrates, silage and hay) to manage challenging seasonal conditions and lower homegrown feed production.

The report noted strong returns allowed for investment in land and capital purchases.

Gross farm increased to $10.47/kg MS (31 per cent increase) boosted by a 35 per cent increase in milk price to $9.63/kg MS. Livestock trading profit declined by four per cent to $0.80/kg MS, while other farm income made up $0.04/kg MS on average.

Escalating costs dampened the effect of the high gross farm income on profits in 2022-23.

The average return on total assets was 6.9 per cent, and was the second highest in the 17-year history of the Dairy Farm Monitor, well above the long-term average of 4.1 per cent.

The average return on equity for Gippsland participants was 12.1 per cent and was the third highest over the history of the DFM in Gippsland. The long-term average return on equity is 4.5 per cent.

As for outlook, in Gippsland, participants expected stable returns in the coming year and had similar expectations for production (milk and fodder) and costs to be stable also.

The biggest concerns for Gippsland farmers were labour and input costs.

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