Knight family look at seasonal calving
REDUCING and understanding costs will be the focus of one new Western Victorian Focus Farm.
REDUCING and understanding costs will be the focus of one new Western Victorian Focus Farm.
For Barongarook West dairy farmers Simon Scott and Linda Knight they believe this should help increase their profitability.
Milking 360-400 cows in a spilt calving system, the Fonterra suppliers said their cost of production was “high”.
“One of the main reasons we are looking at seasonal (calving) is to reduce the cost of production and increase profitability,” Simon said.
“We are also going to look at our fertiliser application and increase pasture consumption, lower costs and make it a simpler system.
“It would be only one calving and one joining, at the moment it feels like we are running two farms on the one property. The other thing is we will definitely look at a feed pad, for the wet weather to help manage the wet soils.”
The farm, near Colac, has an annual rainfall of 750mm and a combination of “very wet” clay loam soils, sandy loam and sandy banks.
The herd is fed a high protein pellet during summer, up to 10 kilograms/day/cow, with total bail feed of two tonnes/cow/lactation. Their plan is to decrease to 1.5 tonnes/cow/lactation. The 360-head milking herd averaged 180,000 kilograms of milk solids this year.
Pasture consumption is 5-6 tonnes/hectare, but Simon said he wanted this to increase 20-25 per cent.
A few years ago Simon did a Feeding Pastures for Profit course, which he said helped him better manage homegrown feed, including hay and silage. The herd is milked off 190ha, including 15ha of leased land, and the total farm area is 260ha.
Simon and Linda understand the hurdles with possibly moving to seasonal calving, but said they were prepared to work on a breeding program to ensure cows fit into the new system. Currently they use LIC genetics and focus on breeding a uniform herd.
The couple think they might choose to calve in April and May, but aren’t set.
A true family business, Simon’s dad Lionel works full time on the farm. Simon and Linda, with children Lionel, 10, Leo, 10, Albert, 8, Bronte, 4 and Gwen, 2 said they had nothing to lose by becoming a Focus Farm.
The three Western Victorian Focus Farms will run for two years. The chosen farms will host field days and be supported by a group of farmers and consultants.
