NZ Dairy Winter 2021

82 | nz dairy DAIRY PEOPLE » John & Jill Bluett Fitness, planning make it easier to run Karen Phelps B eing well prepared means that John and Jill Bluett start getting ready for calving in mid winter. On a personal level, John starts upping his fitness, foregoing the farm bike for walking. Farm equipment is all serviced and a pre-calving shop means everything needed over calving – including food for the family – is all at hand so no trips to town are necessary. They regularly draft up the mobs so they end up with a springer mob and plan which paddocks they’ll use for calving. “This makes it easier to run the ‘marathon’ that calving is,” says John, noting a fitness app on his phone showed he can clock around 28,000 steps a day during calving. John and Jill are in an equity partnership with family on the 230ha effective unit at Te Pahu, Waikato. The farm was converted to A2 milk a couple of years ago to take advantage of the Fonterra premi- um and John and Jill worked with his son Nathan and his wife Ashlee, who own a farm nearby, to swop cows to get the right herd. This saw around 300 cows transfer between the units meaning John and Jill milk a herd of 670. Although producing A2 milk has been more intensive labour-wise, they think it has been worth the shift as they got a 17 cent premium last season. “A2 Milk Company comes to audit the farm an- nually and our records need to be up to date so at calving we need to keep weekly records. In October all the heifer calves get genetically tested and if they don’t make the grade they end up on Nathan and Ashlee’s farm so it works well,” explains John. To keep things fair John and Jill split the pre- mium with Nathan and Ashlee as they initially gave up all their A2 cows. They sold around 160 surplus cows across the two farms last season and they try www.pumpn.co.nz 40 Turongo St, Otorohanga 07 873 8673 www.pumpn.co.nz Mike: 021 94 2120 | Chris: 021 94 2121 Phone Office: 07 871 9565 agreymer@gmail.com | www.reymerag.co.nz 768 Pirongia Rd, RD 6, Te Awamutu 3876 REYMER AG to do this from Nathan’s herd and once again split any profits. The Bluetts have just finished investing in an effluent system to help improve their farm. A small pond and sump has been replaced with a seven million litre lined pond and 35m x 12m weeping wall along with a flood wash system for the feed pad. Technology has made the system safer and easier to use with an automatic switch off function if anything out of the ordinary is detected by the system. John says it’s given them a great deal of flex- ibility over when and where to spread along with assisted with environmental compliance. It will also help them to mitigate the summer dry as they plan to mainly spread in November giving the ground much needed moisture and nutrients over this period. The solids from the weeping wall will be put on their 40ha run off block where they grow 11ha of maize and run around 70 heifers and 10-15 carry- over cows and winter 60 late calvers. This season they are heading into winter with residuals of 2300 and cow condition scores of 4.9. They are targeting 250,000kgsMS at a cost of $3.70 per kilogram of milk solids. Now that they are in their 60s, John and Jill are looking towards retirement. Daughter Kathleen 32 is a dedicated ‘city girl’ but still loves to help out during busy times with cooking, cleaning and odd jobs. The family has a house in Hamilton where they spend a few days a week and John and Jill plan to increase labour units on the farm or perhaps provide Nathan and Ashlee with an opportunity to increase their own business in the future. Major earthworks under way at John and Jill Bluett’s 230ha dairy unit at Te Pahu. A small pond and sump has been replaced with a seven million litre lined pond. Qubik are proud to take care of the dairy shed requirements for John & Jill Bluett