16 | Wintering barns make life ‘heaps easier’ Composting barns have proved a gamechanger on the Isla Bank farm. Inset: Steve and Andrea Dobson with farm manager Glen Andrew. Karen Phelps Heading into their third winter using Redpath composting barns, Western Southland farmers Andrea and Steve Dobson have had some key learnings. The first season they continued to grow all feed on their dairy platform including whole crop barley put into silage. But doing costings they found it was actually cheaper to buy in silage rather than grow the barley on the milking platform, says Steve. “When you take into account costs such as cultivation, seed, sprays and having paddocks out of milk production it didn’t make sense to keep growing all the feed on farm. So this year we bought 40% of our grass off the neighbour,” he says. They have also discovered weather plays a part in the composting of the matter on the floor of the barn. It worked perfectly in a warmer dryer winter in their first year but last season at times got a bit damp. This has led them to trial post peelings instead of sawdust in one pen and in another pen wood chip along the feed strip. They are also splitting the herd into smaller groups to target age groups and condition scores – four mobs in the winter instead of two. The couple, who purchased their 188ha/166ha effective dairy farm in Isla Bank in 2008, initially built a Redpath composting barn big enough for 250 cows. Wintering a herd of around 420 it also gave them the option of housing the whole herd for short periods of time in adverse weather. They have since built a second smaller barn on a 47ha runoff located 3km away, where they put their R1s and R2s including about 80 in-calf heifers and 90 calves. The late calvers are out on crop then get put in the barn later. They say wintering barns have been a game changer in a number of key areas including soil preservation, nutrient retention, stock wellbeing, staff working conditions, time management and reducing stocking rates to name but a few. DAIRY » Steve and Andrea Dobson There is always a lot of interest from locals in what they are doing and the Dobsons hosted a DairyNZ Field Day on the farm last year. “Basically the wintering barns have just made life heaps easier,” says Steve. Alongside this they have changed their fertiliser and pasture renewal programmes guided by Agrifert consultant Horrie Burgess. In particular they are using more diverse deeper rooting pasture species along with seaweed and fish liquid fertilisers to stimulate more life in the soils. This has been assisted by using the compost out of the barn on the barley paddocks they plant for winter crop thereby recycling the nutrients back onto the land. “We are noticing improvement in the soil and without even putting a spade in the ground you can AROS CONTRACTING LTD ~Silage Specialists~ call Tony & Janette Carmichael 03 224 6357 or 027 457 2037 Proud to support Steve and Andrea Dobson For a friendly, quality service 21 Springford Street see the worm casts on the surface. Pastures are getting thicker and clover is becoming dominant,” says Steve. After achieving record production last season from the lowest number of cows they’ve ever milked - 195,000 kgsMS from 410 cows up from 180,000 kgsMS the previous year with similar cow numbers – they are on track for 200,000 kgsMS this season.
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