April 14, 2025 • 26 mins
Tune in to our latest episode with Taranaki farmers Craig Lynskey and Kieran Bourke as they share their journey transitioning from spring to autumn calving and the strategic advantages of this approach. The team discuss how increasing mild winters and challenging summer droughts pushed them toward this strategic shift. "Our growth rates through summer are often in single digits, yet consistently 40-45 in most winters," Kieran explains, highlighting the fundamental mismatch between traditional calving patterns and weather conditions.
Craig and Kieran’s systems now capitalize on the autumn flush and strong winter growth, with cows reaching peak production precisely when high-quality feed becomes abundant. Both system 4 operations with feed pads and storage facilities. The results speak for themselves, with Kieran's Holstein herd averaging an impressive 650-670 kgMS/cow despite high stocking rates.
The team dig into the practical aspects of their transition, from staggered calving dates starting in early March to grazing management strategies that maintain higher residuals through winter. Their advice for farmers considering similar transitions is clear: ensure you have a suitable climate, proper infrastructure, and systems to maintain feed quality year-round. The winter milk premium is "just the cherry on top" – the real value lies in aligning production with your farm's natural growth patterns in a changing climate.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
G'day and welcome to Feed for Thought a regular
podcast from Pioneer coveringeverything from farm systems to
crops and products, and much,much more.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Welcome back to Feed for Thought, our second episode
from the caravan on the ruralroadie way.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, no, it's been a bit of fun.
It's a pretty tight space inhere, like I said, but we've got
a couple of guests in here thistime, so it's getting tighter
by the episode, to be fair.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
So a couple of pretty interesting guests we've got to
know over the years.
Mate Craig Linsky and KieranBurke Welcome boys.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Thanks for inviting us.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Now you guys know one another obviously really well,
so what we're hoping is thatthere'll be a good bit of
fact-checking along the way, somaking sure that no one's
getting too out of line with thefacts on farm Craig's been
known to stretch the truth.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'll be hooked up on that.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
How long have you guys known each other?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Primary school oh yeah, he was a couple of years
below me at primary school.
That was at Pyama years ago,but probably born and bred
within not far a kilometre away,really as the crow flies.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
We used to piss on each other's paddling pools.
He goes back that far.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
He sounds like a typical Taranaki story.
We're not related.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
No, you look quite different.
And how far away are youfarming?
So farming reasonably close.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh yeah, so crow flies a kilometre yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And running pretty similar systems.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Here we are.
Yeah, sort of Yep.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Can you tell us a bit about yours, Craig, before we
crack too far in?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah right, so I've been probably split carving for
the last 10 years.
Started out just, you know,we'd built a feed pad and
whatnot and thought let's milksome empties over.
And then someone said, hey, whydon't you run a bull?
For you know three weeks herefor bull.
So yeah, we done that, startedcarving a few in the autumn and
thought, gee, this is good, niceweather.
So that just revolved andrevolved over the years.
(02:00):
All of a sudden we're out tohalf and half three years at
that.
And then, um, we sort of got tothe point I thought it's sort
of got to be either or you know,I was getting- a bit full on um
, so we chose the autumn overthe spring.
Yeah, so you were carved 150last spring.
That was our last springcarvers, effectively um 500 to
carve.
Well, yeah, it wasn't gonna bethat.
(02:22):
But, uh, late november, a blockof land next door come up, 54
hectares.
So we sort of were lucky enoughto pull a few cords and get on
that pre-Christmas and buyanother 150 autumns.
So you're carving 150 autumnsthis autumn with still 150
springs getting carried over 500this autumn To be winter-mated.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
He's straight into fact-checking.
I'll say, yeah, 500 this autumnTo be winter-mated.
Sorry, sorry, he's straightinto fact-checking.
Yeah, yeah, Good work.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
I'll say yeah 500 this autumn, sorry, yeah, good
work B.
Thanks Berk, but yeah, so we'reinto that.
So yeah, and obviously amongstthe earlier days, yeah, within
the last 10 years, there's beena lot of pioneer trips and
probably you got to, yeah,probably push the limits a bit
with a bit more maize silage and, yeah, certainly a System 5
(03:06):
operation.
And yeah, that's where we'resitting there.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Berkey on the other side.
Yeah, so we were split carvingearlier on and we're in about
our ninth season of full autumn.
I say full autumn, we've gotabout 40 to carve in the spring,
but there's some pets andcontracts and chokehows and
whatnot, so we call ourselvesFull Autumn.
And prior to that we were splitcalving for maybe five years,
only a handful, maybe 80 to 100in the autumn.
(03:32):
I guess the big catalyst to gofrom spring to autumn was the
dry summers, basically like whatwe've had now.
What we're having now is notuncommon and we had these years
on years and we'd throw so muchfeed into the cows through the
summer at a big cost in the hopethat autumn would come, and
some years it did, some years itdidn't yeah so we just uh
(03:52):
decided to flip the cows rightover.
We didn't make them than a 20month lactation and yeah went to
the full autumn and um, justwhere we are on the coast.
Our growth rates through summerare often in the single digits,
yet consistently, in the winterwe're 40, 45 most winters.
Winters are getting kinder.
We've had a couple of wet ones,but out of the nine or 10,
(04:14):
we've had 80% there and beenpretty kind winters.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I came across a farmer, I don't know, six months
, 12 months ago, talking aboutthe whole transition or actually
calving in the autumn overcalving in the spring, and one
of the things he said one it wasabout the growth curve, but two
it was about the composition ofthe feed as well.
So he said, pretty reliably, getreasonable kind of quality feed
, reasonable protein through thelate, yeah, through that sort
(04:41):
of winter period and thenobviously you're going into the
spring when it really starts tohump, and he said the summer.
You know the quality of thatfeed's pretty poor.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So we can have a good peak in May on some good late
autumn grass, feed the heathenthrough winter, and then we go
again on the spring curve.
Yeah, whereas you flip thataround in the spring, you're
carving in July and you hit thespring growth, but then you hit
the summer poor quality feed andthey've actually dropped that
much by the time you get to theautumn growth again.
(05:12):
So I think we're doing more percare in autumn than we were in
spring.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
But systems have changed along the way as well.
I guess yeah, and for both ofyour infrastructure, I mean the
systems that you're running,feed pads, yep.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Yeah, feed pad, mixer wagon and maze, bunkers and
whatnot.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And that was already in place before you went down
this pathway.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Probably.
I put the feed pad in firstwhen we were still spring
carding and then obviously, astime went on, when we got more
and more into split yeah,certainly come in handy and
another bunker and whatnot andmixer the wagons.
So that was all sort of thereat the start, and then we sort
of started getting more intosplit carving and yeah, I think
we come home from all thosepioneer trips and um take home
message.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
One was paul moore crump creek.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, yeah yeah, take home message.
Is this an ian williams day?
Yeah, it sounds like it's quitea message.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah yeah, facilities just grow over time I, I guess
and you just keep heading on.
But certainly with wintermilking you need good facilities
.
That's number one.
The partial damage you could doby not being proactive enough
and getting them off buggersyour season, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Just going back a little bit to you.
You talked about your lactation, so what's the shape of your
production curve right now?
You talked about peaking kindof in May.
Does that stay largely prettyflat then?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
all the way through.
It's a lot more flatter than wewere in spring.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So we peak at around two and a half milk soils and we
sort of hold that through butit drops away a bit through
winter, but we're um certainly alot more flatter.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, doesn't bounce really back up though much in
the in the spring doesn't bounceback up, it just certainly
holds for longer.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Yeah what would you draw off at berkey like say,
yeah, january there, what?
What sort of solids?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
generally, we'd be still doing two in January.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And so you've obviously got maize in the
system.
What else is in there to beable to do that?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yes, I guess if we introduce our system a bit,
we're 420 cows calving in theautumn and another 30 or 40 in
the spring.
We're 105 effective hectares,115 total, obviously very highly
stocked up.
We put 20% of the farm intomaize every year.
We buy in some as well, sowe're about two tonne of maize
per cow.
Pk we're about 15 to 1,800.
(07:25):
A cow A cow, and that'sbalanced with soybean meal as
our predominant protein sourceand yeah, bits of other things
Molasses, straw, the straw.
Most of the year we earn forfibre through the mixer wagon,
yep Production.
Grass silage is not a lot.
We don't make any on farm.
We have a couple of littlerunoffs.
We bring a bit of annual grassin, but bug rule Production sort
(07:47):
of 650 to 670 average, wow yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's with about a quarter of the herd heifers,
okay, wow.
And what sort of cows are wetalking here?
Not jerseys?
I thought that was a commonthing in Te Aridiki.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
We're big Holsteins, American Holsteins, and put a
lot of emphasis in recent yearsinto growing them well right
from day one and measuring ourcolostrum and throwing
everything at them.
We got our heifers back 10th ofMay this year at 6 or 8 kilos
average, Wow and seven weeksbefore calving.
So yeah, pretty well grown.
(08:22):
And we can see now like they'rejust milking so well, Pretty
hungry.
Yeah, Three weeks away from ourfirst herd test, but it'll be
exciting.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, genetics big focus on genetics, outside of
just the fact that they're blackand white cows.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, I feed them.
My wife breeds them.
She's a passionate breeder,loves the overseas stuff.
She does all the AI.
So focusing on capacity, udder,overall udder strength and
confirmation and fertility.
Yeah, lost the BW Buzz 10 yearsago I guess Now he's ours for a
(08:55):
long time.
We're not there to sell it,we're there to make it produce
milk.
And, yeah, just chasing a cowthat can eat a lot and make a
lot of milk.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
So one of those was fertility.
How are you tracking there?
We often hear large, bigproducing cows aren't getting
being calved.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So we do nine weeks of AB in the winter All AB Got
the collars.
So we do nine weeks of AB inthe winter all AB We've got the
collars.
So we're running no bills.
We were 12% this last year,nine the year before and eight
the year before, so I think alot of that comes down to
feeding.
Yeah, how you feed them.
Yeah, it's a big myth that wehave overseas genetics and
fertility, but it's a myth.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, you've got to get that.
You're obviously piling a lotof feed up to those animals.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Just keep the energy levels up.
Craig, just coming back to youa little bit because you've
recently gone through this wholetransition cost thing to swing
from kind of spring to autumn.
What was that like?
Was it a significant cost totransition, to move out of one
and across the other?
When you think about productionand you know all the costs,
yeah well I guess we'd sort ofjust slowly moved over from
(10:01):
split.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
One thing we were noticing we were doing six weeks
spring, six weeks winter mating.
You know it was all good andwell saying you know we're
getting 80% in calf in six weeks, but that 20% I guess you could
say rolling over, carrying overthat was probably just starting
to cost us a little bit.
I'm probably lucky we had youngstock coming through the system
(10:22):
, you know.
So I guess when you're doing atransition from spring straight
to autumn you've still got towait for young stock to come
through.
We already have had that comethrough with, you know, with the
autumns.
But yeah, I guess that softenedthe blower.
But just gradually doing itprobably would never intend
tended on going to full autumn.
But it's just as that split goton and on and on, it was just
(10:44):
um, a natural transition,natural transition and you're
sort of same as what berkey'ssaying.
We are growing a fair bit ofgrass throughout the winter and
especially leaving some sort ofhigh residuals, milking
residuals through the winter.
It certainly springs back atyou.
But I noticed just in Taranakiand that I reckon our springs
are just it's just taken so long, you know just not firing up.
(11:04):
Yeah, it's very teasing, verystop start throughout that.
September, october, evenNovember can be hit and miss by
the time you really start to getsomewhere.
Boof, you know you took theseed head you know, yeah, that's
sort of what we're finding.
I reckon the springs weren't farenough, like they used to, and
yeah so Is that coming off theback of?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
you know, there's something that farmers say in
the Waikato a lot as well.
You know we're having more kindwinters and because we're not
having that kind of not dormantgrowth but certainly low growth
cooler months, and that kind ofnot dormant growth but certainly
low growth cooler months, andthen you normally got this kind
of bit of compensatory growthalmost like you do in the autumn
, the spring historically usedto really take off.
Is that kind of something?
Speaker 4 (11:45):
I guess you're right.
You used to have colder wintersand the spring would fire up.
But I suppose you were sort ofyeah, it's Experiencing a
similar thing yeah similar, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, it's changed.
Yeah, Going back to that seed.
Here, the autumn calving herdsare not feeding on that poor
quality grass untilthree-quarters of the way
through their lactation, yeah,whereas the spring calving herd
is calve at the peak and thenyou're into seed head, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
How do you get on now ?
And I guess we're going toprobably move on to this topic a
little bit at the moment.
But obviously Taranaki's beenin the headlines a bit recently
with, uh, with summer droughtand and and when they go long
and late.
Uh, because I think I made anote here about you know, when
you talk about autumn carving,how early are we talking here
and how much pressure does thatkind of late dry put on a system
(12:30):
like yours, or a year kind ofset to go?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
with feed and no problems we always know we're
going to have a six to eightweek dry period every year and
it could be from mid-Decemberthrough to April really, where
it sits.
That varies a bit, but I guesswith autumn calving your cows
are dry for a bulk of thatperiod where we're short on feed
and on top of that their energyrequirements as a dry cow
(12:55):
through the summer are a lotless than that of a dry cow
through the summer, are a lotless than that of a dry cow
through the winter.
They don't have the energyrequirements for weather, for
rain, for cold, so you can getaway with feeding them a bit
less and they're generally in alot better condition as dry cows
in the summer than they are asdry cows in the winter.
Yeah Well, I guess in oursystems where we have a lot of
(13:15):
feed on hand we have a lot ofmaize on hand the dry period
doesn't affect us as a typicalsystem.
Two or three New Zealand dairyfarm and I actually find our
best seasons are seasons thatcome on the back of a good
summer dry, if we can deck thefarm over summer, carve onto
(13:38):
very little grass and feed theheck of them through March,
early April on supplements, andthen, when the rain comes, we
get beautiful quality autumngrass as our cows are going to
the peak and we'll have a greatApril, May, June.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So how do you get on at the moment?
I'm assuming, that you'refeeding a couple of kilos of
grass at the moment.
Yeah, bang on two, bang on two.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah, we've had a couple of rainfalls.
It is starting to green up, itis starting to turn.
But you're like myself, I'vegot 200 in there out of 500 and
um, there's grass silage on hand, there's soybean meal going in
and, yeah, you're sort ofgetting up to eight kilos of
maize and whatnot, tweaking in alittle wee bit of urea, just a
bit.
Yeah, things are going wellyeah yeah, but yeah, it's going
(14:22):
to turn fast.
It always does after a summerdraw like this.
Before you know it, it'll belush grass everywhere.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
It's just building that bridge, it's costly for a
month, but shit, it sets yourcows up very well for their
lactation.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I think that's a key thing.
I suppose isn't it Likelistening to you guys here the
confidence that when it doesturn, knowing what you're going
to get and you've got the feedand the infrastructure to really
make it hum.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
That's it.
You've got it all on hand.
When grass is not a big part ofyour diet, it's pretty
consistent, yeah, whereas whenyou're on the grass market, it's
pretty variable.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Is there like a waiting period, like when those
first rains do come?
Are you waiting for that kindof flush and what's your
decision there?
Because you probably want tolet them go as well?
Is there like that tendency, ordo you have a gauge that you
use?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I guess, probably holding them a little bit until
you can actually see it take off.
And then I think it's going toturn very fast and it's going to
be pretty well not hard to keepup on.
But all of a sudden we're goingto have a farm full of grass,
aren't we?
It's going to happen quick.
And farm full of grass, aren'twe Like, it's going to happen
quick.
And I reckon the winter's goingto be very friendly too.
Obviously, soil moisture's solow, so soil's warm, we'll get
rain and it'll be all good.
It'll be good.
Yeah, let's just get into it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Our first rain came a week ago.
We got 42 mils.
It's turned green.
It's not growing, but we'll begrowing a lot of grass.
We're getting some good heavyjews.
Now Temperatures are changing.
It's surprising what a good jewcan do, especially for young
grass.
We chopped May's early, lateFebruary.
(15:54):
We drilled straight behind withno rain in forecast and that's
two inches high, just on acouple of showers and some good
heavy jews Probably been on a50-day round or something as
well.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
so there's actually a little wee bit of leaf there to
soak up these Jews and whatnot.
It's going to bounce backpretty quick, that's a huge
bonus.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Been on a long round through the summer and we've had
everything on a sacrificepaddock, heifers, carvers,
everything Just on straw, piqueand grass, silage and a bit of
maize.
If you're going to leave somecover on your farm when it rains
, it just recovers so muchquicker, whereas your typical
spring calving farm they'restuck on their 20-day rounds,
they can't get off it andthey're like a golf course or
(16:34):
worse than, and their recoveryperiod is just going to be so
much longer.
And we can see that now lookingaround.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So that's an interesting point.
So, just talking through theseason, on grazing rotations,
how has that varied with the,with the shift from spring to
autumn calving?
I suspect you do a fewdifferent things, even like you
might have mentioned it earlier,with winter for example.
But given that you've got theinfrastructure and all that kind
of jazz, how do you managegrass a little bit differently?
Uh, through other seasons aswell?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
yeah, I suppose in the summer I've always, with
split calving, always had toprobably probably shut up three
or four or five paddocks andjust done a deferred grazing
type, set up and held thempretty tight on that and you
know we got good results therewith reseeding and whatnot on
those certain paddocks.
But Berkey might not be quiteso similar.
What would you?
How would you go through thedry for the dry period?
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I generally shut a few paddocks out as well,
but with being basically drythroughout the summer, we've
always got about 100 milking atthe lowest.
So lates and some heifers and afew spring carvers.
And heifers are calving lateFebruary, but the dry cows will
just follow behind.
Milkers and just a heap ofsupplements.
Going back to the round thing,we sort of stick on a 35 to
40-day from, say, april rightthrough winter.
(17:48):
It seems quite a short roundthrough winter on typical
standards, but we try and keepon a faster round, leaving a
higher residual with cows makingless mess on bigger area.
And then the response is justso much quicker Compared to your
typical spring calving cowthat's decking your farm over
winter down to 1200, the lag togetting it up to 2500 is so long
(18:09):
, whereas we're grazing down to1800.
We're sort of working from the1800 to 26, 2700 bracket in 40
days.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
How does that flow through when you get into the
spring or how do you manage that?
Because with the higher grazingresiduals, does that cause you
any grief at any stage, or isarea coming out?
It's bringing it out?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
So we're basically rolled into taking 20% of the
farm out for crop and that justtakes care of all your surplus.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Oh, mate, you should know that.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I was just giving you a chance to jump in with some
really smart comments.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
there You're due a couple.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, few, and far between.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I guess, with taking a good chunk of our farm out for
maize is when the cows are attheir lowest demand.
So when our cows are near atthe end of lactation, that 20
percent of the farm and maize isactually growing, growing.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
So many huge amount of feed for us.
Yeah, yeah, it fits perfectly.
Yeah, your autumn count and weplant really early.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
We try and be the first planted, the first
harvested, first to get grass in, because getting grass in early
is actually critical for winterfeed.
That's a huge part.
We basically put the same areasin maize every year and back
into annual and those annualsare rocket fuel for us in the
winter.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
So just a designated cropping block.
Is it a race to the contract,Craig, or are you the same?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
principles yeah, much the same.
I mean to be fair, I probablydo my own drilling and
cultivation, berkey's much thesame as well.
But yeah, we are probably inthe earlier as well, and no, you
get in there pretty nicely, sonot actually like chasing
overall yield.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
In that situation You're actually shortening up
your hybrid.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You gain a lot of yield in that winter grass If we
can have grass in the ground bythe start of March, 10th of
March, and we're grazing it bylate April.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So what are your expectations then for combined
yield, with what you're growingoff that area with maize, then
followed by annuals on adedicated cropping block?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, I guess if we can grow 22 tonne of maize and
then another six or so, eighttonne of annual.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So late 20s yeah.
Pretty good, it is pretty good.
Yeah, I'm sure there'll belisteners that will kick me if I
don't ask this question, butabout the timing of your autumn
carving, when is a big?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
range for autumns.
Yeah, I'm probably more aroundthat 12th, 15th of March.
Yeah, so that's drying offaround about 20th, 25th of
January.
That's at least the first lotanyway.
But we'll stagger dryoffsmainly yeah, yeah and whatnot,
because we'll probably alwayshave some empties.
That'll just.
I'll probably still try andkeep my shed going all year and
they probably will end up beinga small amount of springs as
(20:48):
well.
But yeah, 25th of january wouldbe starting to dry off to.
For 12th, 15th of march,carving yeah, yeah, and wrap it
up sort of um mid 20th of may, Isuppose.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah yeah, it's all pretty similar.
Our shed doesn't stop.
We're always milking, but we'resort of aiming for the 5th of
March for cows, heifers.
A week earlier we synchroniseall our heifers so we seeded
them all, put them all to AB.
70% of them calve in the firstweek, which is hectic at the
time, but it gives them moredays of milk, it gives them more
days to their first cycle andwe think we'll get a lot more
(21:21):
wind calf and stay in the systemlong term in calf.
And stay in the system longterm, do you when you?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
have seasons like this, summer-wise, do you feel
like this?
Is that's still about right interms of?
Because I've had, you know,farmers talk about autumn,
calving and go sometimes Marchstill feels like it can be in
the middle of summer, sort ofthing, you know, which turned a
bit recently, but do you thinkit's, does it feel about right?
Speaker 4 (21:41):
This one here has probably hung on a little bit
longer.
I guess it's probably nodifferent to a tough spring,
when you've got to hold cowstight and there's not much grass
available and utilisation's notflash at all.
But I reckon this summer hereprobably has held on a little
bit longer and yet is a littlebit more of a challenge.
But I'm just looking forward toa great autumn flush and a
great winter.
Mate, there's no right or wronganswer on calving dates.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
If you're talking about the summer dry, we could
reverse the clock right back.
So last winter we had aphenomenal winter.
It was dry.
I came out of winter with about100 tonne of maize silage still
in the pit extra that was fromextra grass growth, a lot better
utilisation.
And you go on to spring.
Really October, November, ourdrains ran for about three weeks
(22:24):
.
This spring They'd usually runfor three months.
So we knew this was coming andit was a case of when, not if.
And we were getting regularrain November, december, early
January.
But there was only enough rainto keep that grass growing and
we knew the second it stopped itwas going to curl over and it
curled over real quick.
So it wasn't a surprise.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, I guess you're fortunate.
You've got the options up yoursleeve and to fill the gaps,
it's just a matter of when andhow much you need to pull those
triggers.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And I suppose after seasons like we've just had,
there's always a bit of tensionfor challenge.
What kind of advice would yougive to someone if they were
going down that path of lookingat changing your system?
And, craig, you've been throughit, probably more recently.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, well, I just think that.
Well, we've just talked aboutit, the winters are getting
friendlier, it's more safer togo down this road.
I just think you definitelyneed a feed pad.
You're only a third of thediet's grass through the winter
milk, through that real June,july period, may, even August.
Even so, you need a lot oftucker.
(23:26):
Yeah, like you said, fluentsystem, just make sure you don't
go into half-cocked.
You've got to be set up andmake sure you've got the tucker.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
You've got to have the right climate too, the right
location.
You wouldn't want to go autumncarving halfway up to the
mountain, even though those guysare really dry this year.
It's the winters you've got tolook at and the winters you've
got to look at, and the wintershave got to be able to handle
the milking 100%.
You heard through and, likeCraig said, facilities are
important.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Very good.
Nothing from you Wade to finishout or round out.
You always seem to come up witha little gem or something.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, no, look, it's an interesting topic that's come
up a lot in the Waiakana, youknow.
You kind of see that almost Ikind of see this line through
the region where more farmersfurther south are considering
that autumn, autumn, spring kindof split.
So it is interesting to kind ofjust hear your thoughts about
kind of setting up orconsidering that the timing of
(24:20):
the autumn carving one I'malways intrigued by because you
know, when do you get that sortof timing right to try and pick
up the, I guess the autumn flushis one that kind of stands out
to me.
Uh, but like some good, somegood messages in there and in
terms of the planning and thesetup I think is fundamental
interesting.
I didn't hear from you guysabout sort of chasing premiums
or any of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
So I was just about to comment timing actually
probably coincides with peakmilk through the premium and
we're probably, to be fair,right at the earlier stage of it
.
Yeah, premiums from mid-May,all of June, half of July, so
that you want cows to be closeto peak through those months.
Yeah, and when we went back weactually made a list of things
(25:01):
and premium wasn't number one.
Number one was climate wasmeeting demand and supply.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Which is critical, I think, because that premium
might not always be there or itmight not always be to the same
extent.
So, you've got to be satisfiedthat you've done it for all the
right reasons, and that's justthe cherry on the top.
That's it for me, mate.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Oh well, thank you very much, lads, and thanks,
Wade, for joining us, but youguys have been a bloody good
listen from this side of thetable and hopefully for the
listeners out there too.
So thanks very much for joiningus on the Feed for Thought
podcast and jumping in thecaravan, because I know there's
a little bit of hesitation whenyou open the door.
It's a bit cosy.
But you guys have been bloodygood guests, so thanks for
(25:43):
coming on.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
No thanks for the invite, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Thank you.
Craig's happy to take phonecalls for any questions, yeah,
hey, look, their photos andnames will be up anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
So yeah, if you're looking for advice, hit one of
these blokes up plenty oflearnings, plenty of learnings.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
The other learning is probably.
Don't park this close to a mainroad as well for a podcast too
true but anyway.
But anyway, if you've likedthis podcast or any of our
others, please like andsubscribe and join in next time
where we'll be digging into someother farm systems.
Thanks gents, thanks Wade.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Cheers mate.
Thanks guys.
G'day and welcome to Feed for Thought a regular
podcast from Pioneer coveringeverything from farm systems to
crops and products, and much,much more.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
Welcome back to Feed for Thought, our second episode
from the caravan on the ruralroadie way.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
Yeah, no, it's been a bit of fun.
It's a pretty tight space inhere, like I said, but we've got
a couple of guests in here thistime, so it's getting tighter
by the episode, to be fair.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
So a couple of pretty interesting guests we've got to
know over the years.
Mate Craig Linsky and KieranBurke Welcome boys.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Thanks for inviting us.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Now you guys know one another obviously really well,
so what we're hoping is thatthere'll be a good bit of
fact-checking along the way, somaking sure that no one's
getting too out of line with thefacts on farm Craig's been
known to stretch the truth.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
I'll be hooked up on that.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
How long have you guys known each other?
Speaker 4 (00:59):
Primary school oh yeah, he was a couple of years
below me at primary school.
That was at Pyama years ago,but probably born and bred
within not far a kilometre away,really as the crow flies.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
We used to piss on each other's paddling pools.
He goes back that far.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
He sounds like a typical Taranaki story.
We're not related.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
No, you look quite different.
And how far away are youfarming?
So farming reasonably close.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Oh yeah, so crow flies a kilometre yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
And running pretty similar systems.
Speaker 4 (01:33):
Here we are.
Yeah, sort of Yep.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Can you tell us a bit about yours, Craig, before we
crack too far in?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Yeah right, so I've been probably split carving for
the last 10 years.
Started out just, you know,we'd built a feed pad and
whatnot and thought let's milksome empties over.
And then someone said, hey, whydon't you run a bull?
For you know three weeks herefor bull.
So yeah, we done that, startedcarving a few in the autumn and
thought, gee, this is good, niceweather.
So that just revolved andrevolved over the years.
(02:00):
All of a sudden we're out tohalf and half three years at
that.
And then, um, we sort of got tothe point I thought it's sort
of got to be either or you know,I was getting- a bit full on um
, so we chose the autumn overthe spring.
Yeah, so you were carved 150last spring.
That was our last springcarvers, effectively um 500 to
carve.
Well, yeah, it wasn't gonna bethat.
(02:22):
But, uh, late november, a blockof land next door come up, 54
hectares.
So we sort of were lucky enoughto pull a few cords and get on
that pre-Christmas and buyanother 150 autumns.
So you're carving 150 autumnsthis autumn with still 150
springs getting carried over 500this autumn To be winter-mated.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
He's straight into fact-checking.
I'll say, yeah, 500 this autumnTo be winter-mated.
Sorry, sorry, he's straightinto fact-checking.
Yeah, yeah, Good work.
Speaker 4 (02:45):
I'll say yeah 500 this autumn, sorry, yeah, good
work B.
Thanks Berk, but yeah, so we'reinto that.
So yeah, and obviously amongstthe earlier days, yeah, within
the last 10 years, there's beena lot of pioneer trips and
probably you got to, yeah,probably push the limits a bit
with a bit more maize silage and, yeah, certainly a System 5
(03:06):
operation.
And yeah, that's where we'resitting there.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Berkey on the other side.
Yeah, so we were split carvingearlier on and we're in about
our ninth season of full autumn.
I say full autumn, we've gotabout 40 to carve in the spring,
but there's some pets andcontracts and chokehows and
whatnot, so we call ourselvesFull Autumn.
And prior to that we were splitcalving for maybe five years,
only a handful, maybe 80 to 100in the autumn.
(03:32):
I guess the big catalyst to gofrom spring to autumn was the
dry summers, basically like whatwe've had now.
What we're having now is notuncommon and we had these years
on years and we'd throw so muchfeed into the cows through the
summer at a big cost in the hopethat autumn would come, and
some years it did, some years itdidn't yeah so we just uh
(03:52):
decided to flip the cows rightover.
We didn't make them than a 20month lactation and yeah went to
the full autumn and um, justwhere we are on the coast.
Our growth rates through summerare often in the single digits,
yet consistently, in the winterwe're 40, 45 most winters.
Winters are getting kinder.
We've had a couple of wet ones,but out of the nine or 10,
(04:14):
we've had 80% there and beenpretty kind winters.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
I came across a farmer, I don't know, six months
, 12 months ago, talking aboutthe whole transition or actually
calving in the autumn overcalving in the spring, and one
of the things he said one it wasabout the growth curve, but two
it was about the composition ofthe feed as well.
So he said, pretty reliably, getreasonable kind of quality feed
, reasonable protein through thelate, yeah, through that sort
(04:41):
of winter period and thenobviously you're going into the
spring when it really starts tohump, and he said the summer.
You know the quality of thatfeed's pretty poor.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So we can have a good peak in May on some good late
autumn grass, feed the heathenthrough winter, and then we go
again on the spring curve.
Yeah, whereas you flip thataround in the spring, you're
carving in July and you hit thespring growth, but then you hit
the summer poor quality feed andthey've actually dropped that
much by the time you get to theautumn growth again.
(05:12):
So I think we're doing more percare in autumn than we were in
spring.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
But systems have changed along the way as well.
I guess yeah, and for both ofyour infrastructure, I mean the
systems that you're running,feed pads, yep.
Speaker 4 (05:26):
Yeah, feed pad, mixer wagon and maze, bunkers and
whatnot.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
And that was already in place before you went down
this pathway.
Speaker 4 (05:35):
Probably.
I put the feed pad in firstwhen we were still spring
carding and then obviously, astime went on, when we got more
and more into split yeah,certainly come in handy and
another bunker and whatnot andmixer the wagons.
So that was all sort of thereat the start, and then we sort
of started getting more intosplit carving and yeah, I think
we come home from all thosepioneer trips and um take home
message.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
One was paul moore crump creek.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Yeah, yeah yeah, take home message.
Is this an ian williams day?
Yeah, it sounds like it's quitea message.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
Yeah yeah, facilities just grow over time I, I guess
and you just keep heading on.
But certainly with wintermilking you need good facilities
.
That's number one.
The partial damage you could doby not being proactive enough
and getting them off buggersyour season, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Just going back a little bit to you.
You talked about your lactation, so what's the shape of your
production curve right now?
You talked about peaking kindof in May.
Does that stay largely prettyflat then?
Speaker 2 (06:31):
all the way through.
It's a lot more flatter than wewere in spring.
Speaker 1 (06:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
So we peak at around two and a half milk soils and we
sort of hold that through butit drops away a bit through
winter, but we're um certainly alot more flatter.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
Yeah, doesn't bounce really back up though much in
the in the spring doesn't bounceback up, it just certainly
holds for longer.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
Yeah what would you draw off at berkey like say,
yeah, january there, what?
What sort of solids?
Speaker 2 (06:55):
generally, we'd be still doing two in January.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
And so you've obviously got maize in the
system.
What else is in there to beable to do that?
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Yes, I guess if we introduce our system a bit,
we're 420 cows calving in theautumn and another 30 or 40 in
the spring.
We're 105 effective hectares,115 total, obviously very highly
stocked up.
We put 20% of the farm intomaize every year.
We buy in some as well, sowe're about two tonne of maize
per cow.
Pk we're about 15 to 1,800.
(07:25):
A cow A cow, and that'sbalanced with soybean meal as
our predominant protein sourceand yeah, bits of other things
Molasses, straw, the straw.
Most of the year we earn forfibre through the mixer wagon,
yep Production.
Grass silage is not a lot.
We don't make any on farm.
We have a couple of littlerunoffs.
We bring a bit of annual grassin, but bug rule Production sort
(07:47):
of 650 to 670 average, wow yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:53):
That's with about a quarter of the herd heifers,
okay, wow.
And what sort of cows are wetalking here?
Not jerseys?
I thought that was a commonthing in Te Aridiki.
Speaker 2 (08:02):
We're big Holsteins, American Holsteins, and put a
lot of emphasis in recent yearsinto growing them well right
from day one and measuring ourcolostrum and throwing
everything at them.
We got our heifers back 10th ofMay this year at 6 or 8 kilos
average, Wow and seven weeksbefore calving.
So yeah, pretty well grown.
(08:22):
And we can see now like they'rejust milking so well, Pretty
hungry.
Yeah, Three weeks away from ourfirst herd test, but it'll be
exciting.
Speaker 1 (08:29):
Yeah, genetics big focus on genetics, outside of
just the fact that they're blackand white cows.
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Yes, I feed them.
My wife breeds them.
She's a passionate breeder,loves the overseas stuff.
She does all the AI.
So focusing on capacity, udder,overall udder strength and
confirmation and fertility.
Yeah, lost the BW Buzz 10 yearsago I guess Now he's ours for a
(08:55):
long time.
We're not there to sell it,we're there to make it produce
milk.
And, yeah, just chasing a cowthat can eat a lot and make a
lot of milk.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
So one of those was fertility.
How are you tracking there?
We often hear large, bigproducing cows aren't getting
being calved.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
So we do nine weeks of AB in the winter All AB Got
the collars.
So we do nine weeks of AB inthe winter all AB We've got the
collars.
So we're running no bills.
We were 12% this last year,nine the year before and eight
the year before, so I think alot of that comes down to
feeding.
Yeah, how you feed them.
Yeah, it's a big myth that wehave overseas genetics and
fertility, but it's a myth.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Yeah, you've got to get that.
You're obviously piling a lotof feed up to those animals.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:40):
Just keep the energy levels up.
Craig, just coming back to youa little bit because you've
recently gone through this wholetransition cost thing to swing
from kind of spring to autumn.
What was that like?
Was it a significant cost totransition, to move out of one
and across the other?
When you think about productionand you know all the costs,
yeah well I guess we'd sort ofjust slowly moved over from
(10:01):
split.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
One thing we were noticing we were doing six weeks
spring, six weeks winter mating.
You know it was all good andwell saying you know we're
getting 80% in calf in six weeks, but that 20% I guess you could
say rolling over, carrying overthat was probably just starting
to cost us a little bit.
I'm probably lucky we had youngstock coming through the system
(10:22):
, you know.
So I guess when you're doing atransition from spring straight
to autumn you've still got towait for young stock to come
through.
We already have had that comethrough with, you know, with the
autumns.
But yeah, I guess that softenedthe blower.
But just gradually doing itprobably would never intend
tended on going to full autumn.
But it's just as that split goton and on and on, it was just
(10:44):
um, a natural transition,natural transition and you're
sort of same as what berkey'ssaying.
We are growing a fair bit ofgrass throughout the winter and
especially leaving some sort ofhigh residuals, milking
residuals through the winter.
It certainly springs back atyou.
But I noticed just in Taranakiand that I reckon our springs
are just it's just taken so long, you know just not firing up.
(11:04):
Yeah, it's very teasing, verystop start throughout that.
September, october, evenNovember can be hit and miss by
the time you really start to getsomewhere.
Boof, you know you took theseed head you know, yeah, that's
sort of what we're finding.
I reckon the springs weren't farenough, like they used to, and
yeah so Is that coming off theback of?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
you know, there's something that farmers say in
the Waikato a lot as well.
You know we're having more kindwinters and because we're not
having that kind of not dormantgrowth but certainly low growth
cooler months, and that kind ofnot dormant growth but certainly
low growth cooler months, andthen you normally got this kind
of bit of compensatory growthalmost like you do in the autumn
, the spring historically usedto really take off.
Is that kind of something?
Speaker 4 (11:45):
I guess you're right.
You used to have colder wintersand the spring would fire up.
But I suppose you were sort ofyeah, it's Experiencing a
similar thing yeah similar, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, it's changed.
Yeah, Going back to that seed.
Here, the autumn calving herdsare not feeding on that poor
quality grass untilthree-quarters of the way
through their lactation, yeah,whereas the spring calving herd
is calve at the peak and thenyou're into seed head, yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
How do you get on now ?
And I guess we're going toprobably move on to this topic a
little bit at the moment.
But obviously Taranaki's beenin the headlines a bit recently
with, uh, with summer droughtand and and when they go long
and late.
Uh, because I think I made anote here about you know, when
you talk about autumn carving,how early are we talking here
and how much pressure does thatkind of late dry put on a system
(12:30):
like yours, or a year kind ofset to go?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
with feed and no problems we always know we're
going to have a six to eightweek dry period every year and
it could be from mid-Decemberthrough to April really, where
it sits.
That varies a bit, but I guesswith autumn calving your cows
are dry for a bulk of thatperiod where we're short on feed
and on top of that their energyrequirements as a dry cow
(12:55):
through the summer are a lotless than that of a dry cow
through the summer, are a lotless than that of a dry cow
through the winter.
They don't have the energyrequirements for weather, for
rain, for cold, so you can getaway with feeding them a bit
less and they're generally in alot better condition as dry cows
in the summer than they are asdry cows in the winter.
Yeah Well, I guess in oursystems where we have a lot of
(13:15):
feed on hand we have a lot ofmaize on hand the dry period
doesn't affect us as a typicalsystem.
Two or three New Zealand dairyfarm and I actually find our
best seasons are seasons thatcome on the back of a good
summer dry, if we can deck thefarm over summer, carve onto
(13:38):
very little grass and feed theheck of them through March,
early April on supplements, andthen, when the rain comes, we
get beautiful quality autumngrass as our cows are going to
the peak and we'll have a greatApril, May, June.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
So how do you get on at the moment?
I'm assuming, that you'refeeding a couple of kilos of
grass at the moment.
Yeah, bang on two, bang on two.
Speaker 4 (14:01):
Yeah, we've had a couple of rainfalls.
It is starting to green up, itis starting to turn.
But you're like myself, I'vegot 200 in there out of 500 and
um, there's grass silage on hand, there's soybean meal going in
and, yeah, you're sort ofgetting up to eight kilos of
maize and whatnot, tweaking in alittle wee bit of urea, just a
bit.
Yeah, things are going wellyeah yeah, but yeah, it's going
(14:22):
to turn fast.
It always does after a summerdraw like this.
Before you know it, it'll belush grass everywhere.
Speaker 2 (14:28):
It's just building that bridge, it's costly for a
month, but shit, it sets yourcows up very well for their
lactation.
Speaker 1 (14:35):
I think that's a key thing.
I suppose isn't it Likelistening to you guys here the
confidence that when it doesturn, knowing what you're going
to get and you've got the feedand the infrastructure to really
make it hum.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
That's it.
You've got it all on hand.
When grass is not a big part ofyour diet, it's pretty
consistent, yeah, whereas whenyou're on the grass market, it's
pretty variable.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
Is there like a waiting period, like when those
first rains do come?
Are you waiting for that kindof flush and what's your
decision there?
Because you probably want tolet them go as well?
Is there like that tendency, ordo you have a gauge that you
use?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
I guess, probably holding them a little bit until
you can actually see it take off.
And then I think it's going toturn very fast and it's going to
be pretty well not hard to keepup on.
But all of a sudden we're goingto have a farm full of grass,
aren't we?
It's going to happen quick.
And farm full of grass, aren'twe Like, it's going to happen
quick.
And I reckon the winter's goingto be very friendly too.
Obviously, soil moisture's solow, so soil's warm, we'll get
rain and it'll be all good.
It'll be good.
Yeah, let's just get into it.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
Our first rain came a week ago.
We got 42 mils.
It's turned green.
It's not growing, but we'll begrowing a lot of grass.
We're getting some good heavyjews.
Now Temperatures are changing.
It's surprising what a good jewcan do, especially for young
grass.
We chopped May's early, lateFebruary.
(15:54):
We drilled straight behind withno rain in forecast and that's
two inches high, just on acouple of showers and some good
heavy jews Probably been on a50-day round or something as
well.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
so there's actually a little wee bit of leaf there to
soak up these Jews and whatnot.
It's going to bounce backpretty quick, that's a huge
bonus.
Speaker 2 (16:12):
Been on a long round through the summer and we've had
everything on a sacrificepaddock, heifers, carvers,
everything Just on straw, piqueand grass, silage and a bit of
maize.
If you're going to leave somecover on your farm when it rains
, it just recovers so muchquicker, whereas your typical
spring calving farm they'restuck on their 20-day rounds,
they can't get off it andthey're like a golf course or
(16:34):
worse than, and their recoveryperiod is just going to be so
much longer.
And we can see that now lookingaround.
Speaker 1 (16:41):
So that's an interesting point.
So, just talking through theseason, on grazing rotations,
how has that varied with the,with the shift from spring to
autumn calving?
I suspect you do a fewdifferent things, even like you
might have mentioned it earlier,with winter for example.
But given that you've got theinfrastructure and all that kind
of jazz, how do you managegrass a little bit differently?
Uh, through other seasons aswell?
Speaker 4 (17:03):
yeah, I suppose in the summer I've always, with
split calving, always had toprobably probably shut up three
or four or five paddocks andjust done a deferred grazing
type, set up and held thempretty tight on that and you
know we got good results therewith reseeding and whatnot on
those certain paddocks.
But Berkey might not be quiteso similar.
What would you?
How would you go through thedry for the dry period?
Speaker 2 (17:25):
Yeah, I generally shut a few paddocks out as well,
but with being basically drythroughout the summer, we've
always got about 100 milking atthe lowest.
So lates and some heifers and afew spring carvers.
And heifers are calving lateFebruary, but the dry cows will
just follow behind.
Milkers and just a heap ofsupplements.
Going back to the round thing,we sort of stick on a 35 to
40-day from, say, april rightthrough winter.
(17:48):
It seems quite a short roundthrough winter on typical
standards, but we try and keepon a faster round, leaving a
higher residual with cows makingless mess on bigger area.
And then the response is justso much quicker Compared to your
typical spring calving cowthat's decking your farm over
winter down to 1200, the lag togetting it up to 2500 is so long
(18:09):
, whereas we're grazing down to1800.
We're sort of working from the1800 to 26, 2700 bracket in 40
days.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
How does that flow through when you get into the
spring or how do you manage that?
Because with the higher grazingresiduals, does that cause you
any grief at any stage, or isarea coming out?
It's bringing it out?
Speaker 2 (18:31):
So we're basically rolled into taking 20% of the
farm out for crop and that justtakes care of all your surplus.
Speaker 3 (18:36):
Oh, mate, you should know that.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I was just giving you a chance to jump in with some
really smart comments.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
there You're due a couple.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, few, and far between.
Speaker 2 (18:48):
I guess, with taking a good chunk of our farm out for
maize is when the cows are attheir lowest demand.
So when our cows are near atthe end of lactation, that 20
percent of the farm and maize isactually growing, growing.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
So many huge amount of feed for us.
Yeah, yeah, it fits perfectly.
Yeah, your autumn count and weplant really early.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
We try and be the first planted, the first
harvested, first to get grass in, because getting grass in early
is actually critical for winterfeed.
That's a huge part.
We basically put the same areasin maize every year and back
into annual and those annualsare rocket fuel for us in the
winter.
Speaker 3 (19:26):
So just a designated cropping block.
Is it a race to the contract,Craig, or are you the same?
Speaker 4 (19:31):
principles yeah, much the same.
I mean to be fair, I probablydo my own drilling and
cultivation, berkey's much thesame as well.
But yeah, we are probably inthe earlier as well, and no, you
get in there pretty nicely, sonot actually like chasing
overall yield.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
In that situation You're actually shortening up
your hybrid.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
You gain a lot of yield in that winter grass If we
can have grass in the ground bythe start of March, 10th of
March, and we're grazing it bylate April.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
So what are your expectations then for combined
yield, with what you're growingoff that area with maize, then
followed by annuals on adedicated cropping block?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, I guess if we can grow 22 tonne of maize and
then another six or so, eighttonne of annual.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
So late 20s yeah.
Pretty good, it is pretty good.
Yeah, I'm sure there'll belisteners that will kick me if I
don't ask this question, butabout the timing of your autumn
carving, when is a big?
Speaker 4 (20:27):
range for autumns.
Yeah, I'm probably more aroundthat 12th, 15th of March.
Yeah, so that's drying offaround about 20th, 25th of
January.
That's at least the first lotanyway.
But we'll stagger dryoffsmainly yeah, yeah and whatnot,
because we'll probably alwayshave some empties.
That'll just.
I'll probably still try andkeep my shed going all year and
they probably will end up beinga small amount of springs as
(20:48):
well.
But yeah, 25th of january wouldbe starting to dry off to.
For 12th, 15th of march,carving yeah, yeah, and wrap it
up sort of um mid 20th of may, Isuppose.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Yeah yeah, it's all pretty similar.
Our shed doesn't stop.
We're always milking, but we'resort of aiming for the 5th of
March for cows, heifers.
A week earlier we synchroniseall our heifers so we seeded
them all, put them all to AB.
70% of them calve in the firstweek, which is hectic at the
time, but it gives them moredays of milk, it gives them more
days to their first cycle andwe think we'll get a lot more
(21:21):
wind calf and stay in the systemlong term in calf.
And stay in the system longterm, do you when you?
Speaker 1 (21:24):
have seasons like this, summer-wise, do you feel
like this?
Is that's still about right interms of?
Because I've had, you know,farmers talk about autumn,
calving and go sometimes Marchstill feels like it can be in
the middle of summer, sort ofthing, you know, which turned a
bit recently, but do you thinkit's, does it feel about right?
Speaker 4 (21:41):
This one here has probably hung on a little bit
longer.
I guess it's probably nodifferent to a tough spring,
when you've got to hold cowstight and there's not much grass
available and utilisation's notflash at all.
But I reckon this summer hereprobably has held on a little
bit longer and yet is a littlebit more of a challenge.
But I'm just looking forward toa great autumn flush and a
great winter.
Mate, there's no right or wronganswer on calving dates.
Speaker 2 (22:04):
If you're talking about the summer dry, we could
reverse the clock right back.
So last winter we had aphenomenal winter.
It was dry.
I came out of winter with about100 tonne of maize silage still
in the pit extra that was fromextra grass growth, a lot better
utilisation.
And you go on to spring.
Really October, November, ourdrains ran for about three weeks
(22:24):
.
This spring They'd usually runfor three months.
So we knew this was coming andit was a case of when, not if.
And we were getting regularrain November, december, early
January.
But there was only enough rainto keep that grass growing and
we knew the second it stopped itwas going to curl over and it
curled over real quick.
So it wasn't a surprise.
Speaker 1 (22:44):
Yeah, I guess you're fortunate.
You've got the options up yoursleeve and to fill the gaps,
it's just a matter of when andhow much you need to pull those
triggers.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
And I suppose after seasons like we've just had,
there's always a bit of tensionfor challenge.
What kind of advice would yougive to someone if they were
going down that path of lookingat changing your system?
And, craig, you've been throughit, probably more recently.
Speaker 4 (23:05):
Yeah, well, I just think that.
Well, we've just talked aboutit, the winters are getting
friendlier, it's more safer togo down this road.
I just think you definitelyneed a feed pad.
You're only a third of thediet's grass through the winter
milk, through that real June,july period, may, even August.
Even so, you need a lot oftucker.
(23:26):
Yeah, like you said, fluentsystem, just make sure you don't
go into half-cocked.
You've got to be set up andmake sure you've got the tucker.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
You've got to have the right climate too, the right
location.
You wouldn't want to go autumncarving halfway up to the
mountain, even though those guysare really dry this year.
It's the winters you've got tolook at and the winters you've
got to look at, and the wintershave got to be able to handle
the milking 100%.
You heard through and, likeCraig said, facilities are
important.
Speaker 3 (23:51):
Very good.
Nothing from you Wade to finishout or round out.
You always seem to come up witha little gem or something.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, no, look, it's an interesting topic that's come
up a lot in the Waiakana, youknow.
You kind of see that almost Ikind of see this line through
the region where more farmersfurther south are considering
that autumn, autumn, spring kindof split.
So it is interesting to kind ofjust hear your thoughts about
kind of setting up orconsidering that the timing of
(24:20):
the autumn carving one I'malways intrigued by because you
know, when do you get that sortof timing right to try and pick
up the, I guess the autumn flushis one that kind of stands out
to me.
Uh, but like some good, somegood messages in there and in
terms of the planning and thesetup I think is fundamental
interesting.
I didn't hear from you guysabout sort of chasing premiums
or any of that sort of stuff.
Speaker 2 (24:40):
So I was just about to comment timing actually
probably coincides with peakmilk through the premium and
we're probably, to be fair,right at the earlier stage of it
.
Yeah, premiums from mid-May,all of June, half of July, so
that you want cows to be closeto peak through those months.
Yeah, and when we went back weactually made a list of things
(25:01):
and premium wasn't number one.
Number one was climate wasmeeting demand and supply.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
Which is critical, I think, because that premium
might not always be there or itmight not always be to the same
extent.
So, you've got to be satisfiedthat you've done it for all the
right reasons, and that's justthe cherry on the top.
That's it for me, mate.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Oh well, thank you very much, lads, and thanks,
Wade, for joining us, but youguys have been a bloody good
listen from this side of thetable and hopefully for the
listeners out there too.
So thanks very much for joiningus on the Feed for Thought
podcast and jumping in thecaravan, because I know there's
a little bit of hesitation whenyou open the door.
It's a bit cosy.
But you guys have been bloodygood guests, so thanks for
(25:43):
coming on.
Speaker 4 (25:43):
No thanks for the invite, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (25:46):
Thank you.
Craig's happy to take phonecalls for any questions, yeah,
hey, look, their photos andnames will be up anyway.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
So yeah, if you're looking for advice, hit one of
these blokes up plenty oflearnings, plenty of learnings.
Speaker 3 (25:56):
The other learning is probably.
Don't park this close to a mainroad as well for a podcast too
true but anyway.
But anyway, if you've likedthis podcast or any of our
others, please like andsubscribe and join in next time
where we'll be digging into someother farm systems.
Thanks gents, thanks Wade.
Speaker 2 (26:12):
Cheers mate.
Thanks guys.
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