DairyTas Focus Farm: Wrong location turns out just right

A DAIRY farm in Tasmania’s North-West ticked all the boxes for a New Zealand couple except one, but their big move has been a success. KAROLIN MACGREGOR reports.

New home: Dairy farmers Dave and Jane Field with some of their herd at the Montagu farm they bought despite some reservations.

WHEN New Zealand dairy farmers Dave and Jane Field were looking for a property to expand their operation, it turned out the perfect farm was in Tasmania.

Mr Field first discovered the Montagu property while surfing the internet and then had to convince his wife they should head over to Tasmania’s North-West for a look.

After seeing the 860ha farm first hand, Mrs Field said it ticked all the boxes.

“We were looking for something that was a good size, flat with irrigation that had a good dairy shed on it and this had all that, it was just in the wrong place,” she said.

Despite her initial reservations, Mrs Field said Montagu now felt like home and the family had settled in well.

As well as being in a development phase on the property, the Fields have also agreed to make their operation the new DairyTas Focus Farm.

Mr Field said the program was not only a good way to meet new people in the industry but also a good learning opportunity.

“Hopefully by looking at what we’re doing people may be able to take something away that will help what they’re doing on their own farms,” Mr Field said.

“For us, it gives people the opportunity to come in and challenge us and question us why we do things a certain way.

“I think that’s really good, it will make us evaluate what we’re doing too.”

Before they purchased the farm it was milking about 800 cows.

Dave and Jane Field. Picture: Chris Kidd

Since then the Fields have added a little bit more land and increased the herd to 1400 cows.

Next season their plan is to milk 1500 cows in two herds.

However, one of the biggest changes the Fields have made since taking over the farm is to adopt a once-a-day milking system.

Mr Field said the size of the farm and the position of the dairy at one end was one of the main reasons they had decided to change.

From the furthest paddock the cows have to walk about 2.5km to the dairy and Mrs Field said in a twice-a-day system this was difficult.

The cows are now just milked in the morning and Mr Field said they had noticed some significant changes in the herd.

These include a major reduction in lameness issues and improvement in fertility across the herd.

While there is some reduction in overall production, Mrs Field said the once-a-day system gave them more flexibility in the operation.

However, she said having the right type of cows was essential.

Mr Field said the higher-producing cows, the ones that often struggled to gain weight or get back in calf easily, that actually performed better if milked once a day.

“The cows that were still a little bit fat or not good producers in the twice-a-day, they’re the ones that you don’t want in a once-a-day herd,” he said.

Average milk production across the herd is about 16 litres a day.

The Fields run the farm under what they call a low-input system with only about 1.2 tonnes of grain fed per cow per year.

However, Mr Field said a large percentage of this went to feeding the autumn-calving cows for winter production.

The cows are milked in a 70-bale rotary dairy, which also has cup removers and automatic drafting installed.

Ten of the bales in the dairy are also equipped with milk quality-monitoring and Mr Field said this allowed them to get a snapshot of herd performance and could also help identify cows with early signs of mastitis.

Another benefit of milking once a day is that it takes pressure off staff.

Mrs Field said they worked on a roster of 10 days on, four days off to give their workers flexibility.

Once the milking is completed staff have time for other jobs on the farm.

An initial Focus Farm field day has already been held on the property and more will follow.

Through the program the Fields will also provide fortnightly updates about what is happening across their property that will include general activities, pasture growth and what the cows are being fed.

The information will be available on the Tasmanian Dairy Focus Farm Facebook page.