Early research showed OAD would succeed

Research in Taranaki in the 1990s set the benchmark for what could be achieved by OAD, he said at a recent seminar at Eketahuna. It was a ‘powerful experiment’ that took four years to compare the Friesian and Jersey breeds, looking at increasing herd numbers for OAD by 15% and at the results over several seasons. 

“What came out – and we didn’t realise this – was that 1000kgMS/ha was some sort of psychological barrier, and once our Jersey herds on OAD had got to the 1000kgMS/ha, it gave a lot of farmers confidence that their whole system wasn’t going to break down.”

Clark says they never really looked strongly at the profitability because his feeling was that every farm was different and every farm is going to make a decision. Some with large mortgages were not going to look at OAD while others with less financial pressure could see benefits. The early research was quite small – herds of 45 cows – but the work proved that essentially nothing ‘nasty’ would happen to cows on OAD and this has continued to give farmers the confidence to go with it.

“Today farmers are doing a lot of stuff themselves in terms of BCS and especially reproduction because we just don’t have the resources in science to take 1000 cows that might be needed to show a small difference in reproductive performance. Yet a small difference in reproductive performance that you might get from putting cows on OAD for part of the year is very important.”

OAD farmers haven’t lost sight of the need to be profitable, but Clark says going that way they are able to achieve a balance which includes lifestyle and to consider other aspects of their farming businesses. Often OAD helps improve managerial capability of a farm. 

The drought has highlighted some benefits of OAD, including flexibility, Clark says.

“Farmers have been much more innovative than some of us researchers. They are happy to use OAD in the first month of lactation which a lot of people thought was a complete no-no but they’ll do that because of labour issues. They’ll use it at mating time because they perceive an advantage and they’ll use it after Christmas because of the climate variability it enables them to handle it better.”

One early myth about OAD was that it would ‘destroy the cows’, but research proved otherwise, particularly with one cow.

“She came in at the start of the trial as a two-year-old. She gave 200kgMS which was pathetic. Next year she did 300kgMS, the following year 400kgMS and final year of the trial she did 500kgMS in a lactation. She had come in as a small cow and by the time we had finished she was well over 600kg and in those first two years she was putting the energy into her frame.”

The message from that is for people who are going into OAD, if they have young stock, especially Holstein Fresian, and they want them to do well, they must be well grown otherwise they will put energy into growing rather than into the vat.