68 | nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Michael & Lindy Bennett Michael, Olivia, Lindy and Abby Bennett, ( Below ) Olivia helping rear the Calfs. High rainfall has posed a challenge In addition to being good performers, Jerseys’ have proven especially ideal for Michael and Lindy Bennett’s Te Awamutu property during the past season. It has been a difficult season due to the unseasonable weather, with 746mm of rain falling on the farm during summer alone. “We’ve got quite a wet farm, so they don’t tend to make so much damage when it gets wet,” Lindy says. The farm has a 40 a-side herringbone shed and peak milks 500 Jersey cows and fortunately, a feed pad. Having previously been in an equity partnership for eight years, Michael and Lindy are in their first season of ownership of their 80 hectare block, plus another 80 hectares is leased, a short distance from to Te Awamutu. Despite the weather, the performance of their herd has been noted by their LIC area manager who says it is in the top 5% in New Zealand for breeding worth. “We are happy with that; we had a pretty good empty rate too [less than 10%]; it’s meant that we could do a bit more culling, so we can be a bit more strategic in the cows we want to keep.” Genetically, improving the breeding worth has been a focus and the lowest BW cows have been crossed with Speckle Park. Last season Michael and Lindy were working with a nutritionist, as there was previously a problem with down cows, and the herd was Metrichecked regularly to see if there was any uterine infection. “All that work’s definitely paid off this season that’s for sure, and from what we’ve heard there’s been a lot of phantom pregnancies where the cows are put up for AB [artificial breeding] and they don’t cycle again after it; they’re not actually in-calf. There’s been a lot of that this season.” “It has been a challenging season and I guess we learnt very quickly to farm to the season as opposed to the calendar, so we fed maize right through mating; we didn’t knock off the maize when we usually did, we virtually fed it all out. “Usually, we stop feeding the maize so that we’ve got enough to feed in the summer if we need to.” Although there was plenty of grass, the quality was not great, and it was easy to overestimate the amount of dry matter, Lindy says. Russell Fredric “The grass was just going straight through them whereas usually once summer hits we don’t have to worry too much about fibre. The dry matters were a lot lower than what we usually get throughout the summer; we didn’t have enough sun. “Our calves, we usually don’t have any problem getting them to weight, but this year we had to pump the meal into them.” “It’s been such a strange season.” Apart from losing power for 14 hours, the farm was otherwise unaffected by Cyclone Gabrielle and their maize was fortunately all left standing. Although the quality of the grass was not great, the abundance of it has meant the farm’s palm kernel supply is untouched as is the grass silage. “We’re sitting pretty comfortably, but one thing with the wet weather, we’ve had a lot more mastitis cases and E.coli.” However, the great condition of their calves also drew a favourable comment from a veterinary friend. “We feel that we are set up well for the winter. It’s a nice feeling to have.” Where quality and service count For all your contracting requirements Phone 07 872 0000 .nz www.johnaustinltd.co 2023
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