This week I visited Camelot Dairies and met Frances Beeston, the young woman behind this operation. Frances is farming in a share milking partnership with her family who own several dairy holdings in the Canterbury region. But this is no conventional New Zealand dairy farm; Camelot Dairies is the largest robotic grazing dairy farm in the world.

Frances milks 650 pedigree Holsteins and purebred Brown Swiss cows on a 260ha block through nine Lely Astronauts milking robots. Last year, the cows averaged 10,000 litres at 650kgMS, however, this is over 380 day lactation. Many of the cows are peaking at 65 litres/day and Frances aims to produce 700kgMS/cow this year.

To maintain consistent numbers for the robots, Frances calves four times a year. She does all her own AI with the help of one of her assistants. She purchases semen from Semex and World Wide Sires, choosing bulls for milk production and protein, feet and legs, teat placement and confirmation. She does not select bulls for fertility as she gets 72% in calf to first service due to the lengthened lactation.

Pylons

The farm was purchased in 2011 and this is its third season in operation. Due to pylons running down the centre of the farm, the land had a lower valuation, but the pylons also had their disadvantages. The dairy shed had to be located over 250m away in the bottom corner of the farm, forcing cows to travel up to 6km a day.

The farm is located near Mayfield in the shadows of the mountains and is susceptible to wintery and windy conditions all year round. Like most New Zealand systems, the cows are kept outside all year round but the family also has a share on a 1,000 cow indoor system.

Grazing

The farm is semi self-contained and last year it grew 23 ton of grass/ha and 25t fodder beet/ha. The grazing system on the farm is A,B,C,D. The gate changes every six hours to encourage more milkings per cow and the feed passage gate changes every 12 hours.

The cows get 50% grass and 50% TMR on average during the summer months. The TMR is made up of grass silage, maize silage, chopped beet, canola, carrot andsunflower seeds, depending on what is seasonally available. The cows are also fed canola, maize meal and a barley pellet in the robot which is adjusted to suit each cows needs depending on the stage of lactation. Frances does not grow her own maize due to the frost and windy conditions causing severe crop damage.

Vaccination

Due to disruption in cow flow through the robots, pour-on and vaccination can be quite difficult and Frances feeds garlic to prevent worms. Vaccinations occur over a few days as Frances finds there is minimum disruption when cows are drafted out in smaller lots. She has also requested that her TB test, which is carried out once every three years, be carried out over each quarter while cows are dried off to prevent disruptions.

Frances places great emphasis on feeding the cows to maximise potential and this was clear from the superb condition the cows were in. She was recently visited by a Canadian nutritionist who assists her in creating a diet to suit each cow’s individual needs.

Passion

Frances is very passionate about her cows and expects the same from her staff. She employs four full-time staff who are mainly from Europe as they have a greater knowledge and understanding of the cow type and also the type of system which she is running.

It is clear that Frances puts a lot of thought into every detail, including the herd’s name ‘Blumoon Holsteins’, representing the rarity and unique aspects of the herd and the system that Frances operates in Camelot Dairies.

*Aisling Claffey is a Dairy Business student at University College Dublin. Her study trip to New Zealand was supported by a grant from the Agricultural Trust, publishers of the Irish Farmers Journal. You can read an article previously written about her experience working on a New Zealand dairy farm here.