12 | nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Aran & Sharleen Sealey Cow collars a business, lifestyle investment Russell Fredric For award-winning dairy farmers Aran and Sharleen Sealey, striking a balance between work and family lifestyle involves working smarter, not harder. Investing in Allflex cow collars late August is part of the equation that is helping them achieve benefits for their cows, themselves and their three children. The couple are in an equity partnership with Sharleen’s parents, Eric and Margaret Smeith and currently own 70% of the company’s shares. Aran also works as an artificial breeding technician. Aran and Sharleen with family (from left): Jayda 10, Haven 6 and Ashlyn 8. The farm milks 420 Jersey cows and covers 160ha, of which 134ha is the milking platform. With the collars providing accurate heat detection among other benefits, these and the economics made sense to Aran and Sharleen when it was explained by an Allflex representative who initially visited the farm solely to do an assessment for an automatic drafting gate. “We needed an extra labour unit to be the spotter and draft manually; we just wanted an automatic drafting gate where as soon as someone saw a cow on heat, we could put that straight in the system,” Sharleen says. “She mentioned the collars, and how much they cost and what they do, and after that it really got our brains going, and after crunching the numbers we just kept finding more benefits to us, to our system and the cows and we decided that it would pay for itself. The collars have proven especially helpful during mating. “Also, at the time when we looked into it, we had a worker off on a non-farm related injury and we weren’t sure when he was coming back, or how well he would be physically or whether he would return, so we decided to get an additional staff member.” With the collars, having employed an inexperience worker in July meant less pressure all round and less risk of mistakes, or of not recognising any animal health issues. The farm milks 420 Jersey cows and covers 160 hectares of which 134 hectares comprises the milking platform, plus a 25 hectare support block. It is based on a system three operation; from the end of March feed is supplemented with maize to carry stock over winter and the start of calving, while palm kernel provides a “gap filler”. The maize is grown on half of the support block in rotation with oats while the other half of the block grows lucerne. Each season the cows are transitioned to once-a-day milking late December/early January. “It was just so worth it, that time of year when we want to get out and enjoy the day with the kids and do stuff. It didn’t seem to put stress on the cows, it didn’t drop that much in production, it works for us.” Aran and Sharleen were the New Zealand Dairy Industry Awards 2021 Bay of Plenty Share Farmer of the Year winners and continue to benefit from their involvement, including the doors it opened to network with others and in goal setting. “Some discussions we had with other people just got you really thinking and motivated and we’ve got really good support networks through all of that. We would have really benefited from it if we had done it a lot sooner and gone up the ladder faster.” “In the last year we’ve just bought a house, it’s something we didn’t think would be possible at this stage. There are certain steps that we’ve made because of the awards that we probably wouldn’t have done otherwise because of the goal setting and that kind of thing.” Get in touch for your obligation free chat Address: 5 Richardson Street, Whakatāne | Postal: P O Box 304, Whakatāne 3158 Email: admin@arrowaccountants.co.nz Telephone: +64 7 308 7155 Arrow Accountants is an independent boutique chartered accountancy based in beautiful Whakatāne, New Zealand. We partner with our clients to help make their enterprise better, whether they are a Trust, small or medium sized business, or a multinational company. Arrow takes the headache out of accounting
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