NZ Dairy Spring 2021

| 73 nz dairy Southland winters with aplomb “Last year we had snow in the first week of October and so the cows were full-time in the barn for a week.” DAIRY PEOPLE » Hamers Dairies: Wilco & Noortje Hamers The three-way cross calves (top). Foggy mornings are a common appearance in northern Southland (below). “During the winter months nothing get grazed on the farm and we don’t get a lot of growth over winter anyway. If the weather continues to play ball the cows should be fully outside by the 25 th of Sep- tember, once we have finished the first rotation of feeding grass on the paddocks and we won’t have to feed silage in the herd home any more. Last year we had snow in the first week of October and so the cows were full-time in the barn for a week because the paddocks were too soggy and wet.” Calving for the Hamers commences the first week of August and Wilco says after calving the cows will usually go outside for at least half a day, utilising the barn mainly to eat silage if the soil conditions are too wet. “At the moment we’re milking the cows once a day. The cows come in from the paddock in the morning, get milked and then go into the barn to get their ration of silage that they need and at about 1.00pm they go back outside again. We plan to go twice a day tomorrow with a mob. They will come in for the morning milking, go into the barn for their silage, then go outside for the afternoon milking be- fore coming back inside for their silage and heading out to the paddock. The cows like being in the barn especially when the weather is bad. They really like to come in the barn in the autumn but they’re always keen to get out again in the spring.” Wilco says while the barn is a high capital invest- ment and there is a bit of maintenance to be done there are many benefits. “Twice a day we scrape all the cubicles where the cows are laying to keep it clean and then we feed out the next day again. Scrapers are operating day and night taking the effluent outside the barn and then it gets pumped into the effluent pond and then sprayed into the paddocks during the summer time to make sure all the nutrients are being utilised on the farm.” A shorter gestation dairy beef bull adds a huge amount of value to your dairy operation, beefs up your bottom line and helps reduce/remove bobby calf numbers. Achieve more days in milk, easier calving and gain a highly sought-after dairy beef animal. With 1000’s of progeny already in New Zealand our Short Gestation Belgian Blue, is the #1 Dairy Beef Solution to tail off your dairy herd. Dairy Beef Solution Building Better Herds | 0800 220 232 | www.samen.co.nz