| 57 nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Bjerring Farms / Gary Tervit Like to keep things simple Gary has eyes on the prize Russell Fredric Virginia Wright Hamish Bjerring regards milking once-a-day as ‘sanity money’. He and his wife Susanne are in their sixth season sharemilking on Hamish’s parents farm in Golden Valley, Waihi, with a herd of 199 crossbreed cows on a platform of 81 hectares. Family is extremely important to the couple who have four children, aged 9,8,6 and 4. Hamish has four siblings and his parents Wayne and Christine who are semi-retired have 15 grandchildren. Hamish and Susanne like to keep things simple, running a low input system two operation, with Susanne helping with calf rearing. “We don’t concentrate too much on the breeding, but we always try and put the best bulls over the cows so it’s still a high BW (breeding worth) herd. It used to be in the top 5% but we’ve dropped back a little bit. The main thing is looking for capacity performance because we only milk them once a day they need to have volume. “We keep it pretty simple, the main thing is, just feed them well; a little bit of breeding [focus], but mainly feeding.” They bought their herd twelve years ago. For the past two seasons mating has been over seven weeks – three weeks artificial breeding, and four weeks to the bull with no artificial intervention, such as CIDRS or prostaglandin injections. “For the last two years we’ve had 10% empty rate which is absolutely fine for a shorter mating.” The six week in-calf rate is a very favourable 90% and half the herd is always calved by two weeks from the start of calving, a factor in the farm system that is important to Hamish. Gary Sunshine-Tervit is in his third season contract milking on two neighbouring farms for his parents, William and Sharon Tervit. Located in Pine Bush about 45 minutes east of Invercargill, across the road from each other and linked by an underpass, each farm is about 80 hectares milking around 180 Kiwi-X cows, one through a 30-a-side herringbone, and one through a 30-a-side rotary. William and Sharon worked their way up through contract milking to farm ownership over several years, buying the second of the two farms in 2021 having leased a similar-sized farm previously, and Gary plans to do the same. Gary started his own career in dairy farming in 2007. Before the move to Pine Bush he managed an 800-cow farm north of Winton for two years, winning the New Zealand Dairy Award for Farm Manager of the Year Otago and Southland in 2021, before switching to contract milking. He’s also an ambassador for rural mental health advocates Farmstrong. With the purchase of the second farm came the herringbone shed and a second farmhouse where Gary and his wife Danielle (her maiden name was Sunshine) live with their two daughters Pippa (9yrs) and Lucy (6yrs). This farm runs all the younger stock while the other side has all the mixed age cows so all the first-time mums (2024) along with the second calvers (2023) will be milked through the herringbone shed. While they’ve previously split the young stock out about three quarters of the way through calving, last season was the first where they did it from day one, and it already looks like paying off. “If you have the younger, smaller statured cows on their own and not getting bossed around by the older ones they’re happier and do a lot better condition-wise and milking-wise,” explains Gary. Last year with the split of the younger and older herds from day one the young ones were doing around 500kg’s milk solids a cow through the herringbone shed and the older ones around 520kgs through the rotary. “Genetics wise I think we’re top 1% for the South Island for BW (Breeding Worth) and PW (Production With farm ownership firmly in his sights Gary now plans to follow in his parents’ footsteps. “It’s something that I always look at to see if they’re calving well, if they’re mating well, how long it takes to get to halfway.” “Once the cows get through mating we alternate; we do two milkings each so essentially, we have a two on, two off roster. It’s quite a good lifestyle. We get the best of both worlds in spending time in the shed and getting the kids ready.” Last year’s total production was 74,000kgMS. “When we first shifted here, we had 245 cows. Our production’s gone up even though our cow number have gone down. The longer we’ve been doing once a day, I think the better the cows are getting; you get rid of some of the cows that aren’t performing as well.” Being system two, the feed is mostly grass, with turnips sown as a summer crop, and last season maize was planted for the first time, supplemented by 30 tonnes of palm kernel. Hamish says they would never go back to milking twice a day. “People ask me by not milking twice a day are we losing money, but at the same time we’re not having to run our cow shed twice, so there’s a little bit of power saving, we are saving money on cow’s health. “But there’s one thing that you can’t really put a value on, and I call it sanity money, because through calving now I’m still able to do fencing jobs, or helping in the community like school or church, where people that are on twice a day generally won’t be doing that because they’re busy doing all their morning jobs and they’ve got to repeat it in the afternoon. It’s a little bit more relaxed.” Hamish and Susanne have a YouTube channel that sums up their philosophy and lifestyle; Family, Farming and Fun. Bjerring Farms raiden@lynchandpartners.co.nz 0800 267 683 farm@corovets.co.nz | www.corovets.co.nz 10 Mueller St, Waihi 215 Aickin Road, Whangamata 1 Wharf Road, Tairua We provide awide range of services for your FarmAnimals • Animal Health Plans • Springtime Emergency Services • Ultrasound Pregnancy Testing • Mastitis Management & Prevention • Lameness Management & Prevention • Trace Element testing • Body Condition Scoring • Reproduction Programmes • Debudding & Dehorning • Vaccinations • Geldings mmca.co.nz We’ll help you build a smarter, better business. Chartered Accountants | Business Advisors We’re proud to support Gary Tervit. 21 Springford Street Worth) and we’d be easily within the top 5% nationally for Kiwi-X,” says Gary. While Gary now oversees the farms ‘operations as contract milker, William and Sharon are still involved and it’s their focus on genetic gains for more than 20 years that Gary credits for the milk production figures. This year one of their bulls is in LIC’s bull team and they have contract mating agreements with LIC and CRV, as they have had off and on for over 15 years, explains Gary. “This year for example they’ve selected 15 cows between them. They’ll mate them with a particular bull through AI looking for a bull for their bull team, and we get to keep the heifers which means very good genetic gains for us.” With farm ownership firmly in his sights Gary now plans to follow in his parents’ footsteps. The family farms are on the market with William and Sharon looking at retiring as of 1st June 2026. “Assuming it sells they’ll be taking a well-earned break and I’m looking at buying this year’s calves and hopefully the heifers and starting my own herd,” explains Gary. With this year’s crop of calves being cared for by Danielle and their eyes firmly set on either contract or share milking, the Sunshine-Tervits are hoping to find a farm somewhere in either Southland or Canterbury where Gary can lease his calves into the herd and get their journey started.
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