4 | DAIRY PEOPLE » Bruce Eade Bruce Eade utilising latest technology Bruce says he is extremely grateful about their decision to have a 5,100 square metre barn built in 2012. Russell Fredric Barely a few decades ago autonomous robots, massive barns and growing maize was the stuff of fantasy to southern dairy farmers, but today these a living reality at Fairleigh Farm. Fairleigh is a family business at Kelso, West Otago, owned and run by the Eade family, incorporating Fairleigh Ayrshire Stud. Just a few kilometres from the Southland border, it covers 370 hectares of which the home farm is 250 hectares and a dry stock block across the road 120 hectares. Bruce is married to Tanya and his parents Ken and Nancy are still actively involved in the farm which split-calves and peak milks 570 cows comprising Holstein Friesian, Ayrshire and Jersey through a 40 a-side herringbone shed, plus four milking robots. Given last year’s extremely adverse spring, Bruce says he is extremely grateful about their decision to have a 5,100 square metre barn built in 2012 and couldn’t imagine having to manage the cows and pastures through the relentless rain and cold without it. “It’s second nature to us and I could never go back to traditional winter cropping. We still have bulls and beef cattle on kale, but I couldn’t go and have the whole milking herd on kale. It felt like a six month winter last spring.” “You hate to see your fellow man struggling as well, but we didn’t win that barn in a lottery, we had to pay for it. We made the choice years ago to spend the money and this season it certainly paid dividends.” Also paying excellent dividends is the DeLaval milking robots installed in December 2023. “The robots was a big learning curve and obviously a change in system, but we probably couldn’t have time it any better with the terrible spring and the $10 payout. It’s worked out as good as it could in the end. “There are so many benefits to the cows; they’ve really jumped in production, there’s cows that are milking seven times in two days unassisted doing 50 litres a day and they just hold their peak for so much longer. “We have close to 300 cows inside on the robots. They’re not out in the weather, they might walk 300 metres a day, they’ve got all the feed they could ever ask for.” In addition to contributing to higher production, the overall system is also contributing to preserving pastures and grass, reducing labour, benefitting the cows’ health and creating greater peace of mind. “We couldn’t be happier really.” “Autumn’s been pretty good, we got our maize off no trouble and got some oats drilled in behind it so that’ll turn into spring feed coming out of the winter for the young stock.” It is Fairleigh’s second season with maize – a crop not usually grown so far south – sown over Agricultural Contractor FOR ALL YOUR FARM / FENCING NEEDS 021 468 954 MurrayEarthworks - Proudly supporting Bruce Eade Phone Jason - 0274 392 838 | A/H 03 207 2611 › Ploughing › Discing › Power Harrows › Roller Drill › Aerating › Baling › Direct Drilling › Individual Wrapping › Tube Wrapping › Mowing CLELAND CONTRACTING 2005 Ltd 30 hectares after a successful trial with 17 hectares the previous season. “We will do another 30, maybe 35 hectares this coming season. It averaged just over 20 tonne a hectare of dry matter at 32% so that was quite an increase from the last season. “We struggle down here with sunshine hours at the back [late season] end and we don’t have the same heat in April as Canterbury and the North Island. We’re pretty happy with it considering where we farm. We never thought we’d be growing eight to nine foot tall maize so near to Southland.”
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