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Denis Ryan and Aisling O’Neill are joint managers on a 900-cow farm in Tasmania. Denis is from Tipperary and Aisling is from Roscommon and the couple will be heading into their fifth year in Tasmania next May.
The farm they are managing is an original Van Diemen’s Land Company farm. This large corporate farm is now owned by a Chinese man, Mr Lou. Their farm is one of 25 farms and support blocks owned by the company in Tasmania.
Unlike most farms in Tasmania, and indeed in the company, Denis and Aisling’s farm is autumn calving. This system was chosen as their farm is one of the driest farms in the company so they burn up during summer.
There is no irrigation on the farm, the only irrigation is from the effluent pumps as soiled water ponds are emptied.
There are five people working on the farm including Denis and Aisling. Denis worked it out that the average hours worked per cow per year is 15.
The Jersey crossbred cows are fed about 1.5t/cow of meal in the year and produce about 460kg of milk solids per cow. The farm is stocked at 2.6 cows/ha.
The farm is near perfect in size and shape. It is perfectly rectangular with the 60-bail rotary in the centre. The herd of 900 cows is split in two, with one herd grazing one side of the rotary and the other grazing the other side.
Denis says there are two issues with the farm. The first is that there is a public road splitting the farm so someone needs to stand at the road or else put a wire up when the cows are crossing. To be fair, the road is not busy and is only leading to another farm.
The other issue is the size of the paddocks at 15 hectares each. Aisling says they are too big and a lot of time is spent putting up wires, particularly in springtime.
The roster on the farm is seven days on and one day off, followed by three days on and three days off. Two people are needed to milk the cows. One person gets up early (3am) to start bringing in one herd of cows, sets up the fence and starts milking at 4am.
The next person starts one hour later and brings in the second herd, set up the fence, bring in the once-a-day cows/lame cows and then takes over milking from the first person. Milking takes four hours.
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