ELIOT & MARY COOPER
NZ Dairy / Summer 2012
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PHOTOS – Eliot (right) and Mary Cooper are aiming to have their cows (above, on their way to milking), produce 100% of their bodyweight. A pivot irrigator (below) waters 49 hectares of the Coopers’ Takapau property.
All about the cows Kelly Deeks With their 30-a-side herringbone dairy shed the only limiting factor to increasing production, Eliot and Mary Cooper are content to concentrate on per-cow rather than per-hectare performance. The Coopers are aiming to get their 600 friesian and crossbred cows, which have an average weight of 520 kilograms, to produce 100% of their bodyweight this season. “We’ve got cows that will do it,” Eliot Cooper says. “We aim to calve better than a five condition score, and we have achieved that this year. We’re also focusing on herd genetics to achieve our objective, as well as feeding good-quality feed and making sure the cows are well fed at all times.” This focus on per cow production has seen the Coopers using Livestock Improvement Corporation DNA-proven premier sires at mating for the past three years. “We’re identifying the cows that are performing, and focusing on making sure they are getting in calf early,” Eliot Cooper says. “We invest a fair bit in using CIDRs to get a tight calving spread.”
The Coopers feed about 90% grass, supplemented by 500 tonnes of maize silage, a small amount of palm kernel, and processors’ byproducts (mainly sweet corn and beetroot) bought through James & Sons. They also feed turnips which have been grown on farm as part of the re-grassing programme. Last season they grew their maize on farm as well, but having reached the end of the re-grassing programme of more than 30 hectare a year, they plan not to grow maize this season. The Hawke’s Bay climate and the Cooper farm’s free draining soils make it ideal for winter milking – they milk 230 of their cows through winter, drying them off in February and calving in March. As well as their 283-hectare farm at Takapau, in Central Hawke’s Bay, the Coopers are in equity partnerships milking 850 cows at Mangatainoka, in the north Wairarapa, 600 cows in the Waikato, and 600 cows in Victoria, Australia. Cooper visits the Victoria farm every couple of months. It’s a lot like the farming conditions in the Waikato, he says: “We’re in a rain-belt there, but we still feed a bit of grain to the cows.” They have owned the Takapau property for 12 years, and run it with an assistant manager and Eliot milking most days. They started with a 117ha block and 300 cows. “That was ticking along nicely and producing 1600 kilograms of milksolids per hectare, then four years ago we bought the 166ha dry-stock farm next door,” Eliot Cooper says. “We have been slowly converting that to dairy, it is almost all complete and we’re now in our last year of developing our pastures. Development of the new block has included the installation of a pivot irrigator, which irrigates 49ha of the farm and complements the Roto-Rainers used on the original dairy block.
‘I like to do it my way’ bigger, then the black cows go north, and the brownish ones stay south. “There is no difference in management of the herds. Feed them well, and they produce. You make sure you know what's going on so that you can put the feed into them if necessary, especially in the spring period.” There a two dairy sheds – 19-a-side and 34-a-side herringbones. The plan is to have just one shed – a rotary – in the middle of the properties in the next few years. In his early years, Fleming kept a high stocking rate. Lately, he has lowered the rate, and finds that his production is higher because he is feeding them better.
He buys in about 350 tonnes of palm kernel a season; 200 on contract, and the rest at spot prices as needed. This is fed out on the paddock. The lower stocking rate is also part of his philosophy of having a better balanced life, so that he can take a bigger role in family life, such as his children's sports. Jane, his wife, does the farm books, and has taken full control of calving since everything came under their own control. “She does a great job,” says Tim Fleming. “When I was younger, I went hard out, I focused on the farm,trying to get there quicker. Now, I think it's running better. I like to think there are heaps of ways of doing farming, but I like to do it my way.”
The herds are run together until calving, One shed does the milking until the milking herd gets bigger, then the black cows go north, and the brownish ones stay south.
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