Fonterra spurs Oz conversion

Marcus Crowden is a fifth generation farmer at Caveside in the Meander Valley west of Launceston where a 550ha aggregation supports dairy and beef cattle, sheep and poppy growing.

They have built their milking herd up to 320 cows on an effective area of about 110ha and are continuing in expansion mode with the new dairy about to start up. They aim to milk 450-500 cows between the two properties.

They are intent on growing a stable cashflow business with the encouragement of processor Fonterra which is also investing in Tasmania and will take all the milk they can produce. 

“We’ve built our dairy on high performance ryegrass pasture, supplemented with our own hay and silage production,” Crowden says. 

But a grain feeding component introduced over the last decade has helped stabilise production through a series of dryer seasons.  They are now buying about 600 tonnes of feed mix a year shipped in containers from Melbourne. “Our profit comes from the pasture, but we are getting higher production with a grain component and it’s an easier system to manage.”

They have owned the 90ha conversion property since 2007 and have carefully planned a phased development which will start this spring.

They are breeding up their own stock for the new dairy with the first batch of 60 heifers to be introduced after calving with another 125 in following seasons. “We want to select the best heifers for the new farm with the aim of having a 9000-10,000L herd compared to the home farm where our average production is about 8000L,” Marcus said.

With the opportunity to build an optimal new dairy, Crowden did a lot of research, including visiting New Zealand. 

The property has been subdivided with electric fencing into three areas, each containing a block of ten 1.8ha paddocks. 

Plans have been made to install a centre pivot which will travel over the fencing to irrigate about 55ha.  

An allocation of 150 megalitres has been bought from the Meander dam scheme at a cost of $A1100/megalitre and an expected annual usage fee of about $A60/meg. The system water will complement dam storage totaling about 400 megalitres between the two farms.

To provide feed for the first season on the new property, an initial 16ha block of irrigated perennial rye has been established.

Crowden says he believes the future of dairying was in automation and the couple has bought two robot milking units and provided for a third. This will the first voluntary milking system DeLaval has introduced in Tasmania. Each unit has a capacity of about 2500L in 160 milkings a day with the herd expected to settle into a pattern where each cow averages about three milkings a day.  

The new dairy has been designed for ease of natural cow flow and is capable of fully remote operation with electronic systems and video cameras installed to allow system monitoring from the home farm 4.5km away.

Grain mix will be fed during milking and the dairy also has three feeding stalls in an outer parlour, with provision for another three units as numbers increase. Cows will receive a measured ration of 10-12kg a day, depending on milk production and likely to be evenly split between the two feeding points.

Crowden says the new dairy will incorporate a pad for silage feeding, but he is also planning to paddock-feed silage to encourage the cattle to move around the property.

A flood washing and effluent irrigation system has been installed which will automatically clean the milking complex.

Cashflow from their existing dairy is funding the expansion on the new property and Crowden hopes the business will one day support replacing the ageing herringbone on the home property with robot milkers.

“We’ve got a lot of learning ahead of us to bed down the system and get the new dairy working smoothly,” he said.

Their cows will also need educating. 

Crowdens plan to introduce the herd to their new surroundings and feeding routine before calving.