Positive Farmers Conference

Conference delivers key messages fordairy farmers

New Zealand dairy farmers, Donald and Maree Anderson, were for me the best and most interesting performers at the Positive Farmers Conference. Firstly, their story is exceptional. They manage five farms, with a total of 1,600 cows over 505 hectares on the North Island of New Zealand, at Taranaki.

Their farm is undulating and difficult, with only 20% of paddocks they can mow. It mostly contains lahars (small mountains of lava) on which they grow grass.

On each farm, they have variable order sharemilkers (workers who get between 18% and 25% of the milk cheque) and who complete the daily work on the farm.

Donald oversees all of the farms and calls in regularly to the farms to talk to staff and organise budgets, etc. The content of their presentation was brilliant.

They explained how they consistently achieve exceptional fertility performance, recording single digit not in-calf rates every year for all farms under their management (Table 1). They showed us the data for each herd they own for the last 10 years. Yes, we had covered this previously in the Irish Farmers Journal, but to hear their story again, and hear them explain the different aspects of their business, was exceptional.

They showed us fertility performance results for their four farms since 2002/3 (the last 10 years: how many farmers reading this have their data for the last 10 years?) The amazing statistic is that the percentage of empty cows varies from 2% to 11.8% with the average close to 5% not in calf each year.

Now, there are a couple of important points. They don't use any fertility drugs. Their vet bill is about €13/cow (one third of Irish costs). They rarely call the vet. Over the same period, they have increased the number cows under their control from 580 to 1,089 cows. Probably the most important point is that they don't do any of the daily work themselves; on all of their farms, they have staff who are highly trained and highly motivated.

At the conference, Donald explained how, every year before the start of breeding, he gathers all of his staff on one of the farms. They go to the field with the cows and he gets them to shout out the 14 signs of oestrous. Think of it now - can you write down 14 signs yourself? He uses the lesson to refocus staff and emphasise the importance of three weeks of AI breeding.

The take-home message from Donald is that he keeps replacements from the first three weeks of breeding only. He emphasises that he is breeding replacements that will be easy to rear and inherently strong in fertility.

TOP FERTILITY

During his paper, Donald listed the 13 aspects that deliver top fertility. Here are the key comments from his speech.

Evaluation systems - ''In my opinion, fertility is not weighted heavily enough in New Zealand (BW) and we add one BW point/year of age, recognising the fact that a cow stays in our herd if she goes in calf in the right timeframe.''

Semen used - ''We do not want Dutch or American Holstein genetics; their traits are completely wrong for us.''

Feeding principles -''From three weeks before calving to the end of mating, no cow should be fed less than the day before. This means allocating more grass every day and feed budgeting and monitoring.''

Condition score - ''We aim for a body condition score of three at drying off and breeding. No major changes from this.''

Minerals - ''Know your herd status. For us, we need to feed magnesium three weeks before calving to the end of mating and we need selenium. We avoid potash between calving and mating.''

Replacement rate - ''On average, we have 15% heifers entering the herd each year. The difference in profit of a 15% replacement rate versus 25% are huge. It costs us $1,500 (€850) to get an animals from birth to the herd.''

No medical intervention - ''No inducing, no CIDRs and no vet checks. If a cow needs help on our farm, she is bred to Hereford because we don't want to breed a replacement from her.''

Lameness - ''Do everything to avoid and have staff well trained to attend to problems.''

Good AI facilities - ''Must be safe, clean and tidy and always have someone to help AI man.''

Bull power - ''We put in one bull per 30 cows not in calf; we only use Jersey bulls.''

Record keeping - ''No pre-empting; we tail paint and keep clear records of every day.''

Mating period - ''Threeweeks of AI followed by nine weeks of bulls.''

The people - ''We train to ensure they have a full understanding of mating signs and a full understanding of the link between feed and mating.''