| 57 nzdairy The judges were impressed with Daniel’s practical skills on farm. A cow shed was built about two years ago, complete with a brand-new 30-aside herringbone. DAIRY PEOPLE » Riverside Farms “That was a big focus for me coming back onto the home farm, culling some of the undesirable traits out of the herd. It’s been a long process but it’s really satisfying with the results we are seeing from that now and being able to lift production.” Change really pays off for Daniel Warren Daniel Warren won the Dairy Manager of the Year Runner Up Award for the Taranaki Region at the 2024 NZ Dairy Industry Awards and is proud of the accomplishment, after making the move from building in the late 2010’s. The judges were impressed with Daniel’s practical skills on farm, especially since he’s been at it less than a decade. Daniel made the switch from building about six years ago, a move he hasn’t regretted - as it’s given him and his family a better lifestyle and allowed him to spend more time with his kids. Farming not far south-west of New Plymouth, he says the cows are looking healthy with a good empty rate (6 per cent) in a self contained unit. Daniel does his own AB, in a system with no bulls and Waikato collars. “When we first went AB, our empty rate was about 19 per cent - so that’s been a massive improvement over the last five to six years really,” Daniel explains. “That was a big focus for me coming back onto the home farm, culling some of the undesirable traits out of the herd. “It’s been a long process but it’s really satisfying with the results we are seeing from that now and being able to lift production.” When he first made the switch to dairy farming, a friend of his was on a 600 cow farm and Daniel went and did a season for him. This allowed him to learn the ins-and-outs of milking and running a dairy successful operation. When Daniel came back to the home farm, they brought another 56ha and got rid of the bulls. Milking twice a day from an 18-aside, the yard was just too small. Having that extra land has allowed them to look after the cows better and helped them to improve and refine the operation overall. A cow shed was built about two years ago, complete with a brand-new 30-aside herringbone. The whole block he farms on is 200ha, 160ha effective, and Daniel milks off about 130ha. “We have two blocks over the road. It’s an old river bed of a stony river, so that’s really good in the winter but in the summer it dries out and it’s pretty rocky over there and very hard to fence. When it’s wet, you can put the cows over there and they don’t make any mud so there are positives and negatives.” Over on the ‘home side’, there is about 25 kilometers of riparian plantations that’s fenced off, so there are a lot of trees and bird life and a big centre ridge which is high up; you can see the whole coast from the top. The farm is also blessed with plenty of sheltered paddocks – so the land is quite varied. “It allows us to rotate and alternate where our animals are and they respond really well to that.” Current herd size is 310 head of Friesian cows. Daniel’s father has always run Friesians, so Daniel Maize and Grass Silage Hay and Haylage Bulk Cartage and Quarry Metal Groundwork and Cropping On Farm Jobs 3 ton and 16 ton Diggers Proudly Supporting Riverside Farms and the Warren family. Randall Johnston isn’t keen to make any changes to the genetics they are using. With the praise from NZ Dairy Industry Awards judges and the season shaping up well mid-winter, Daniel is confident of further gains on farm in 2024 and beyond.
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