| 19 nzdairy DAIRY AWARDS » Hamish & Emma Day Otago-Southland Share Farmer of the Year Award winners Emma and Hamish Day. Award reinforces decision to go farming Hugh de Lacy They gave themselves two years to nd if they were cut out for the dairy industry, and Emma and Hamish Day’s winning the OtagoSouthland Share Farmer of the Year Award this year emphatically proved it was. Hamish Day was a quali ed carpenter and Emma an insurance company worker raised on a dairy farm when they met in 2008. “Hamish got a taste for the dairy industry via my family, and in 2011 we decided to leave the hustle and bustle of the city to give farming a real ago for two years to see if we liked it,” Emma says. “We loved it and haven’t looked back.” The Days contract milk 700 cows for Peter and Maria Clinton on a 236ha mainly at farm at Mabel Bush near Invercargill, and they’ll be taking on a second contract next year that will double the herd to 1400 cows. This is the Days’ rst season with the Clintons, having previously contract-milked 700 cows for Waipango Dairies in Riverton for ve years. The dairy platform is 220ha, with the remaining 16ha planted in tulips and used as a way to regrass a portion of the farm every year. “We aim for the cows to be between F10 and F12 in breed with good-sized crossbreds weighing 500kg at maturity, and producing a minimum of 500kg/ms. “This season we should end up with an annual production of just over 366,000kg/ms, at an average of 522kg/ms per cow, which will be a farm record.” Working with Mark Bennett of the Livestock Improvement Company, the couple nd the bottom 10% of the herd using the Breeding Worth, Production Worth, health information and herd test data to identify the lowest producing and performing animals. Rather than breeding AB heifers from these cows, they mate them to a beef/marker bull and sell off the progeny. “Mark creates a mating plan for each individual animal which decides which will get a beef, Friesen or cross-breed straw,” Emma says. “We use LIC Forward Pack semen to speed up the genetic gain, which over the past ve years has grown 15.63kg/ms at 3.1kg/ms a year, compared to the national rate of 2.7kg/ms/pa. “This mating plan has increased our Breeding Worth by 25 points, compared to the national rate of only ten points a year.” Feed management is of course based round pasture production, but they also buy in 630t of supplement a year. Now permanently locked into dairying, the Days have established goals beginning with increasing production over the next couple of years to 1700kg/ ms/ha while taking on the second milking contract. For the mid-term they’ve bought two properties side by side in Wellington on which they’re going to build homes that, in ve years, will provide them with the equity needed to acquire their own 600-800-cow farm, something in which the sharemilker of the year award has hugely boosted their con dence. “We have some pretty big goals, and going through the competition programme highlighted the fact that they are really achievable,” Emma says. AWS Legal are proud to support Hamish and Emma Day Rural lawexperts Aaron Drake 032111370 aaron.drake@awslegal.co.nz VETSOUTH ARE PROUD TO SUPPORT HAMISH & EMMA DAY BALCLUTHA | GORE | WINTON | INVERCARGILL | LUMSDEN | OTAUTAU | CLYDEVALE | TAPANUI 0800 VETSOUTH | vetsouth.co.nz
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