OAD arrives early in Southland
Some dairy farmers in Southland are already moving to once a day (OAD) milking because they don’t have sufficient good pasture on which to graze their stock.
Sam and his partner Belinda are about to become 50/50 sharemilkers on his parents’ farm near Eketahuna, northern Wairarapa, and will simultaneously switch to OAD.
Capes’ farm recently hosted an OAD forum attended by nearly 100 people from around the North Island. The weather was typical for this high rainfall area, but it eased sufficiently for participants to do a small farm walk and hear Capes explain his reason for going to OAD.
He says he’s been farming for five years and producing good results, but while he enjoys farming he’s had to work 24/7/365 to do it.
“To get everything running smoothly it’s been time consuming, a lot of effort and I have tried to overcome that by employing staff, but have been let down quite a bit. I’m a perfectionist and the job is more rewarding when things are done properly. It’s a personal thing and I haven’t had much luck with staff in the last couple of years. Going OAD should improve the work/life balance without relying on others as much.”
The farm presently runs 460 cross bred cows, but Capes plans to increase this to 500 when they go OAD, made possible by a run-off block. On TAD, milk solids production has been 202,000kg, but Capes expects this to slip to about 160,000kg at worst, though he is hoping to do 170,000kg. OAD will make the whole job easier for him personally and any staff he employs. He acknowledges there are downsides, but believes the positives will far outweigh the negatives, and while production may be down, profitability will still be good.
“The profitability will be helped by the fact that costs are down a bit. You are saving on shed running costs, imported feed, animal health and labour. While milk production is down I’ll have more heifers and cull cows to sell.”
Capes is not planning to change his farming system much with the switch; he will continue to feed grass silage and maize. He aims to get as much milk out of the cows as possible with OAD and feeding them well will be critical to achieving this.
The OAD conversion idea came to Capes during a lecture at Lincoln University while he worked on a diploma in farm management – specifically during a class analysis of the different farming systems for sheep and beef, goats, deer and dairy.
“The general consensus was that dairy farming was going to make you money but you wouldn’t have much of a life; but if you did something like sheep farming and had your weekends off you’d get a lifestyle. I thought ‘if you only had to milk those cows once daily you’d get a lifestyle’.
“I’d never heard of OAD milking but I googled it and the information that came back surprised me, as I could see potential to make a profit out of OAD milking. I’m lucky my parents agree with this point of view. I’ve also met with people who’ve been successful at OAD. That’s where the idea came from.”
It has been a hard and high-risk decision to make, but he is looking forward to less stress and more enjoyment from farming.
“If things don’t work out, it is easy enough to flick back to the TAD regime, although I’ll do my best to avoid it.” He and Belinda are looking forward to the new season with a new system, and hope it works for the sake of others in the industry who are thinking along the same lines.
