Size and scale reaps rewards at Yarram

Bigger is proving better for the Staley family dairy farms at Yarram. Here’s why.

Irrigation is key on the Staley family dairy farm at Yarram. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

Drive, passion and a love of dairy farming are fundamental components of the Staley family business but economies of scale, irrigation water and peak-performing pastures are what makes it prosper.

In an area where the average dairy herd is about 200 cows, the Staleys punch well above their weight milking 900 Holsteins on their property at Yarram and 750 at Toora.

The Yarram farm herd is expected to expand even further in coming months with Justin and Stacee Staley aiming to milk 1000 cows by February next year, having bought a neighbouring property last year.

The family business has grown exponentially since Justin’s parents, Neville and Michelle Staley, first bought the foundation 48ha property on the edge of town at Yarram in 1990, milking 120 cows.

More than 30 years on, the business is run across five farms encompassing 1755ha, has two milking herds totalling 1650 cows, and produces 12.5 million litres of milk annually.

Justin and Stacee Staley on their dairy farm at Yarram. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

SPREADING THE RISK

The business consists of two main milking farms – 486ha at Yarram, overseen by Justin and Stacee, and 365ha at Toora, 25 minutes away, managed by Justin’s brother, Clint.

There are three other farms geographically spread to maximise rainfall benefits, including 194ha near Yarram Aerodrome, 166ha 5km west of the Yarram farm, and 567ha one hour away at Walkerville, which is used to turn out young stock and make silage.

Nineteen staff are on the books, including seven full time at each milking farm and a manager on the dryland property at Walkerville.

Justin, who has been working with his parents on the farm since 1996 when he was 16, now manages the overall business following the death of his father four years ago, and mentors his younger brother, who came back to the farm 10 years ago.

WATER ON POINT

Both main milking properties have river frontage – the Tara River at Yarram and Franklin River at Toora – providing good quality soils rising to sandy loam country.

Justin and Stacee have winter and summer irrigation licenses at Yarram as well as two underground bores. They have six pivots and 200 lateral bike shift sprinklers.

Depending on environmental flows, they have access to 280 megalitres in winter and 142ML in summer, topping up their annual average rainfall of 711mm. In comparison, Toora’s rainfall is 1066mm.

“Irrigation is pivotal to the farm,” Justin said.

“The bike shift runs eight hours overnight and the pivots run two to three times a week depending on the conditions.”

Pastures are perennial based and in the past the Staleys have used a fertiliser blend but switched to liquid fertilisers over winter with good results.

A mix of NPKS fertiliser is applied seven times a year at Yarram and 250-300kg of two or three-in-one is applied on turnout blocks. Urea is also applied at various times depending on moisture levels.

They grew 70ha of maize for the first time at Yarram last summer, chopped and stored it on the farm and have fed it out to springers and the dairy herds for winter and early spring feed.

Silage is grown on the Walkerville property where they can produce 10,000 bale equivalents – either rounds or pit silage – to cover the needs of both main farms.

GENETICS ON SHOW

As a hobby, Justin and Stacee started Aylesbury Holstein Stud eight years ago and a third of their milking herd is now registered.

They have shown cattle at International Dairy Week and Winter Fair at Bendigo in the past and use the high quality genetics as a means of increasing production in their commercial operation.

The milking herd is 70 per cent spring calving and 30 per cent autumn so they don’t have as many fresh cows going through the middle of winter.

Heifers are kept separate on a turnout block and joined using timed artificial insemination in two batches over two days before mop-up bulls are used for 10 weeks.

Last year they joined 500 15-month-old heifers to sexed semen or Wagyu bulls. Cows, which wear collars, are AI’d for 12 weeks from November to January and again in April-May.

“I don’t join cows to sexed semen, just heifers. I don’t seem to find the conception rates as good in the cows because they are working too hard trying to make milk,” Justin said.

They sell between 80 and 200 Wagyu calves, 12 to 14 months, 200kg, to feedlots each year.

Justin & Stace Staley in their rotary dairy at Yarram. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

GROWING GOALS

Both dairies have new 70- and 50-unit rotary units to accommodate the Holstein herds.

Justin and Stacee’s herd averaged 8500 litres per cow over 300-day lactation and 600kg of milk solids this year. Their bulk milk cell counts average 160,000 to 180,000.

Cows are currently supplemented with 6.5 to 7kg of either barley or wheat per day and 1.5kg of a canola blend as well as 1kg of cracked maize during the joining period.

They built a feed pad last year and hope to build another 100-megalitre irrigation dam to complement their current 200ML capacity.

The Staleys, who have supplied Saputo for the past three years, say costs have risen dramatically in the past few years – rates, power and insurance have all increased by a third.

Justin said milking more cows and having scale in the business helped reduce the impact of rising costs to an extent.

“Milk prices over the last couple of years have helped,” he said.

“We also don’t rely on outside contractors; we do most of it ourselves and have all our own equipment.”

Despite the rising costs and dry seasonal conditions, Justin has high hopes for the future.

“I am confident of the dairy industry because I myself see it shrinking a little bit,” he said.

As for whether Staley Farms will grow even bigger in size and scale – it is never off the cards.

“I don’t put a full stop on anything,” Justin said.