| 53 nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Joel and Anita Courtman Brady & Jack Courtman with the 1st calf of the season. Virginia Wright Although Joel and Anita Courtman’s hand was forced by previously low payouts, moving to once-a-day milking became both a no-brainer and a game-changer. The couple, who have four children, are 50/50 sharemilkers on a 180 hectare family dairy unit at Waiotira south west of Whangarei. Adjoining this is a 68 hectare block on which cows are wintered and some calves reared. Joel and Anita own a 56 hectare block nearby for grazing both rising two year-olds and calves once the R2’s are moved off. The original farm, owned by Anita’s grandparents Alec and Ruth Gunson, was subsequenty added to; the dairy unit is the home farm which peak milks about 470 kiwi cross cows . Joel and Anita bought half their herd ve seasons ago and purchased the balance this June. After breeding over this time they are happy with how the herd’s genetics have developed and the cow type they now have. “We’ve been breeding to get a herd that holds condition with a focus on days in milk, ” Joel says. While Joel values both BW and PW (breeding worth and production worth) PW is receiving a stronger focus. The dairy unit runs on a low input system two operation with eight hectares of maize grown and fed during late lactation and early spring. “We needed a cow that could produce milk on grass and grass silage, and not all the bells and whistles, and we are getting pretty close now.” The season just past is the fourth season of milking once-a-day. “We always had some on once-a-day that wouldn’t cycle and we did [OAD] over time; we looked at sustainability, and that’s on land, people and animals. The staff enjoy it, we enjoy it, the cows just go better, they get in calf a lot easier. “Before that we were spending a lot of money buying in feed. We purchased 360 tonne of palm kernel, 340 tonne of maize. It really opened our eyes when the payout dropped out.” Once-a-day milking working very well This pro t pinch led to Joel and Anita to changing the system to OAD milking. “We thought, with the payout dropping, if we keep spending what we did on feed we would be a hundred thousand dollars down so we thought we have to change the system. [Subsequently] in that low payout we were ne, if we didn’t we would have been in a lot of trouble.” The change of system resulted in cow numbers being reduced from about 545 and annual production of 190,000kgMS or an average of 348kgMS per cow from twice as much supplementary feed, to producing 150,000kgMS milking the 470 cows once-a-day, an average of 319kgMS per cow. This relatively small difference was a real eye opener in the fact that with OAD they were driving pro t rather than production, Joel says. An important factor in OAD milking is the number of days in milk. The farm’s calving start date is July 20 while, depending on the season, milking can go as late as June 1. The health of the herd is especially apparent in its remarkable not-in-calf-rate of an astonishing “We scanned 400 cows and we had eight empties. We’ve had that pretty consistently. Even when we were on twice a day it got to about 5 or 6%.” 38 Rewa Rewa Rd, Whangarei / Ph: 09 438 1319 adminn@piakogroup.co.nz / piako.co.nz / bryanttractors.co.nz PIAKO TRACTORS NORTHLAND LTD PROUD TO SUPPORT JOEL COURTMAN (Formerly Bryant Tractors) Sales / Service / Spares Tractors, Machinery & Spray Equipment Servicing from Helensville to the Cape. Westfalia and Milfos Parts and Servicing Gea.midnorth@gmail.com 021569661 Garry Wilson Proud Service Partner of gea.com Proudly supporting the mid-northern farming community since 1960 Your First Choice for Veterinary Care 2%, although it has a history of high fertility even outside of OAD. “We scanned 400 cows and we had eight empties. We’ve had that pretty consistently. Even when we were on twice a day it got to about 5 or 6%. We don’t mate the culls or anything we don’t want to breed from, they are run in a separate herd and are left empty.”
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