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DAIRY: DOUG & DEE COTTER/STONE FARM
Business Rural / Summer 2013
Jury out on winter switch Karen Phelps Doug and Dee Cotter have yet to see the results of changing from winter to seasonal supply on their South Canterbury dairy farm. The decision to make the change was based on several factors: • difficulty in growing good enough winter crop on the farm to satisfy the demands of the herd; • a fertiliser policy that did not allow for enough nitrogen in spring and resulted in a lack of pasture growth and tillering; • the heavy soils were hard to manage in a wet winter when on a round of 100-plus days. “Carrying higher covers into winter meant that those paddocks were slower in the spring,” says Doug Cotter. “We favoured the winter-supply system as we calved only half the herd every year, and the
remaining cows were milked for two consecutive years. This had very positive advantages on cow retention and health and, surprisingly, was less labour intensive.” The Cotters are in their third season of farming the 135-hectare (effective) unit at Seadown, just north of Timaru. They are milking 450 cows this season – up from 390 last season. The herd is predominantly friesian and is milked through a 42-a-side herringbone shed that has with automatic cup removers. When on winter supply, the couple were achieving around 500 kilograms of milksolids per cow. They are aiming for the same figure this season on seasonal supply, and are targeting farm running costs of $3 or less per kilogram of milksolid. Doug Cotter says that this season they are concentrating on growing more grass and raising
Doug and Dee Cotter: concentrating on growing more grass and raising feed efficiency. feed efficiency. They have an all-grass system, and use a 30ha lease block for some wintering and for running some young stock. The rest of the cattle are wintered off farm. Cotter has also changed his fertiliser and the regime. He has bought a spreader that is capable of
We favoured the winter-supply system as we calved only half the herd every year, and the remaining cows were milked for two consecutive years. This had very positive advantages on cow retention and health, and, surprisingly, was less labour intensive.
turning solid fertiliser into liquid; it follows behind the herd, spraying a little and often. “I’m also not afraid to go into the pasture in front of the herd and mow, especially when cover gets up to around 3000 kilograms of dry matter per hectare. “We aim to fully feed the cows all the time, but to balance that with residuals. We have lifted residuals to 1600 rather than 1500, and we don`t use break fences.” The farm is irrigated with centre-pivots and a gun. Cotter uses a two-pond effluent system so that effluent can be sprayed across 55ha through the centre-pivot. The Cotters employ two staff, Glen and Kirstin Sullivan. Dee Cotter helps take care of calf rearing, fills in where needed, and attends to the farm bookwork. Doug and Dee Cotter have three children: Liam, 10, Stella, 9 and Jack, 7. Doug Cotter comes from a dairying background, having grown up on a dairy farm. He left farming at the age of 21 to do his ‘OE’, then returned to the industry in his late 20s as a lower-order sharemilker in the Waikato. After a year on the 170-cow farm, he and Dee then took on their first job together. They have had a series of sharemilking positions as they have progressed up the career ladder.
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By rotating stock across two farms, using the benefits that come from two very different sets of soil conditions, an enterprising farming couple are producing a top milksolids output with minimal supplementary-feed input. “We’ve got a unique soil situation here over the two farms we operate,” says Gareth Lewis. He and fiancé Hayley Brocket are in their fifth season of sharemilking on Stone Farms, a two-farm operation 15km or so from Burnham, just south of Christchurch. “ A hundred metres in one direction, the soil can be bony and really light, while 100 metres in the other direction, it can be boggy and heavy,” says Lewis. “By harnessing the advantages of this soil-quality range, we can sustain our herd of 900 crossbred cows with little supplementary feed. This makes a huge difference to our bottom-line profitability.”
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Gareth Lewis and Hayley Brocket...they run a farm each. In spring, when it can get really wet, all the calving happens on the ‘light-soiled’ farm, while during summer, when the infamous nor-westers dry everything out, the ‘wet block’ holds its moisture well and supplies the herd with grass feed for longer. He says managing pasture cover and growth is a big part of the reason the system work. It begins with walking the farm, measuring growth and quality. This allows Lewis and Brocket
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to set the round well and to identify any surplus or feed deficiencies. They also look really closely at the weather so that they can be as prepared as possible for the regular seasonal variations – and able to cope with the unexpected. The farms are owned by Kieran and Karen Stone, for whom Gareth worked as a schoolleaver 10 years ago before doing a tractor-
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