24 | The McCall’s are changing things up The McCall’s farm a flat 330ha self-contained farm near Tapanui in West Otago. Hugh de Lacy The main reason Georgie and Adam McCall fitted their 600-cow full-season once-a-day dairy herd with Allflex collars was to make heat detection easier, but the collars produced a significant and unexpected hike in milk production. Against a typical annual production of 230,000kg of milk solids, the McCalls’ mixed herd of Jerseys and crossbreds had by early February produced an extra 7% kg/ms for the season. The Mcalls farm a flat 330ha self-contained farm near Tapanui in West Otago, in partnership with Adam’s parents, Robyn and Lloyd McCall. Adam McCall attended an Allflex information session early last year in the hope that the collars could cut down the time he and Georgie were spending identifying cows in heat. “What we found was we had a really good milk production response from the rumination data from the collars,” Georgia says. “We didn’t know anything about rumination and milk production when we put the collars on the cows: we learnt about that later and were very pleased with it,” Georgie says. “What we were doing before we got the collars was obviously not letting the cows milk to their full potential, yet we thought we were doing an okay job.” The adjustable and water-proof one-kilogram collars go round the cow’s neck with a blue sensor on the left-hand side hard up against the oesophagus. The collars measure just two aspects of the cow’s behaviour, rumination and activity, which combined reveal if a cow is on heat or not. “The rumination measurements recorded by the collar essentially show how happy the cow is,” Georgie says. “We put the collars on in May last year and began following the rumination recordings in the spring, which led us to feed more silage in the first round in the early part of the season. “Normally we would feed grass and palm kernel after calving, but the ruminations just kept crashing when we did that, so we followed Allflex’s advice and used silage to keep the ruminations up over 400, and the cows just peaked a lot earlier and held up a lot longer. “You can see from the collars that if the rumiDAIRY » Adam and Georgie McCall “Normally we would feed grass and palm kernel after calving, but the ruminations just kept crashing when we did that, so we followed Allflex’s advice and used silage.” nations drop, production generally follows.” To say the McCalls were surprised by this would be an understatement. “It’s been massive because we weren’t expecting a production response,” Georgie says. “Putting the collars on was just a labour-saving thing for us: we wanted to free up our time at a busy time of the year, and heat detection was taking up to four hours a day. “Our idea was just to save half a labour unit, 22 Roxburgh Street, Heriot, 2 RD Tapanui Ph/Fax: (03) 204 2029 heriot@xtra.co.nz HARLIWICH CONTRACTING LTD HERIOT SERVICE CENTRE • Gorse & Broom Spraying • Boom Spraying • Pest Control 15a Hokonui Drive, Gore PO Box 172, Gore 9740 Phone: 03 208 9240 Email: admin@ocr.co.nz www.ocr.co.nz Pleased to support Adam & Georgie McCall Mike Millard | Nathan Heenan | Rose Johnston | Emma Hewitson | Sarah Collie and the production lift came as a complete surprise. “We see the collars allowing us to get our per-cow milk production up from 380kg to nearer 400kg.”The younger McCalls have been farming with Adam’s parents for around 15 years, and this is their eighth season milking They make most of the feed for milking and winter on the farm, buying in on average 150t of palm kernel and 100t of silage.
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