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DAIRY PEOPLE: Roger Dettling
NZ Dairy / Summer 2014
Curtain set to fall on Dettling dairy dynasty One full-time staff member is employed on the farm, Albert Dettling looks after the run-off and young stock and is on call, and Mary Dettling does the farm bookwork. It’s a farm that has been in the Dettling family for Roger Dettling says the biggest challenge facing three generations, but now it’s time for the family to the farm has been high somatic-cell counts, which sell up and let somebody else take the reins, says they are seeking to address. After having had no Roger Dettling. heifers in the herd for two years (he admits this has According to Dettling the farm is ripe for not helped their cell count), they have introduced 90 development – it has a 60-bail rotary cowshed with this season. capacity to easily milk 1000 cows. They have been culling heavily based on cell “Someone will probably come in here and put count and are focusing on general milk hygiene on a feedpad and increase cow numbers. There’s as well as good mixing of teat spray. They have a lot of smaller areas of land close by that could be purchased. We positioned the cowshed for growth.” invested in a Dairymaster ClusterCleanse system, which completes a His grandfather backwash of chlorineJosef, bought the original It’s a bit sad, but we’re treated water after each 25-hectare property at cow has been milked. Midhurst, which sits at the also looking to the future The system will pay for foot of Mt Taranaki, moe itself in one year, says than 50 years ago. Roger. Roger’s parents, Albert and new things. There’s “The cost of this and Mary, took over and system is no more extended the farm, which always something else than the dumped milk now totals 190ha (160ha and gradings,” says effective). Until recently around the corner. Roger Dettling. “It has the farm was larger, with definitely meant fewer a separate 90ha block cases of mastitis and with its own dairy shed it’s stopping the spread from cow to cow.” and a 86ha farm with a dairy shed across the road Cell counts started at 46,000 this season, the from the home farm. The three farms were milked lowest they have ever been. Over September the separately. count has been averaging 130,000, compared with After completing a National Certificate in Agriculture level-three and level-four course with the the 350,000 of last season. A lot of attention is being given to managing Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre, Roger Dettling pasture. The farm has acquired a pasture meter returned to work on the family farm in 2006. that attaches to a motorbike, allowing the farm to To begin with, he managed the three separate farms. The home farm and the farm across the road be assessed in just 90 minutes, and enabling faster and more accurate farm decisions. Dettling has were later combined to form one dairy unit and a also been following the Dairy NZ rotation planner, fully automated 60-bail rotary shed was built in and has improved planning and grass management. 2008. The 90ha farm was then used as a run-off Normally around 200 tonnes of palm kernel is until it was sold recently. bought in spring, but because of the better pasture The Dettlings now milk 400 predominantly planning and the mild winter, only 20 tonnes of friesian cows on their 160 effective hectares, and use a further 25ha of the farm as a run-off. Roger is meal was bought for this season. Around 10ha of presently contract-milking the farm until it is sold. • To page 15
Karen Phelps
The Dettling farm at Midhurst, at the foot of Mt Taranaki, includes a 60-bail Dairymaster rotary cow shed with capacity to milk 1000 cows.
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