On-farm, it’s easy to focus on the day-to-day running of the business and neglect to take note of how the business is functioning as a whole.
For North Waikato farmer Ash Thomas the opportunity to take an umbrella view of the farm was few and far between.
Ash and his wife, Anya, own a 115ha- effective dairy farm in Pukekawa, where they milk 200 cows over the winter, and 200 cows in spring. The property is not your typical Waikato dairy farm. Rather than flat paddocks, the Thomas’ farm is steep and hilly.
“It’s not the best contour, but it’s productive. We’ve been farming it for around 24 years now. We got to the stage where we knew our milk quality wasn’t a big issue, but we knew we could be better,” Ash says.
“We’ve been doing what we could do from our end, involving our professionals, who we get chemicals, washes, and feed from, who we knew we could bounce ideas off when we saw them. As well as vets and the farmer discussion group. For the most part, our somatic cell counts have always sat around 120, but from time to time, these have crept up to around 150/160. I found out the Co-op offered a service, so I booked in a time to get someone in to take another look and throw some ideas around.”
Milk Quality Manager Paige McLaggan visited Ash and his staff on-farm during an afternoon milking. Paige was able to establish what their goals were around their somatic cell count, what current practices and areas they had focused on already in this space.
Paige is from a local dairy farm in the Waikato herself and understands the importance of identifying what is practical for the farm to change. She’s renowned by farmers for producing simple, easy-to-follow reports.
“The process was very friendly, productive and professional. The whole visit was only a couple of hours long. Paige just came in and left us to it with milking. She was able to quietly observe,” Ash says.
After milking, Paige discussed recommendations and ideas with the contract milker based on her findings. She then provided Ash and his staff with a report detailing the recommendations and ideas for improvement, that were discussed on the day of the visit.
“The report was awesome and easy to follow. As a farm owner, we have our monthly meetings with the farm staff and having a document that we could print off and share with the team was great. I’d say we’ve already ticked off 90% of the recommendations, and the rest will come with the improvements made to the feed pad next summer. Everyone is on the same page,” Ash says.
Some of the recommendations included changing the water source and container used for mixing teat spray to avoid contamination, revising teat spray mixing rates, and changing out the liners more often.
“It’s pretty much all those little things that you probably look at day to day, but if you can get an independent person to come in and provide fresh eyes, then hey, why wouldn’t you? You can throw the ideas around and sharpen up how you do things,” Ash says.
“I think a lot of farmers only think support is available when there is a problem, and there will be fingers pointed at them. It’s not the case at all. The Co-op has professionals at our disposal who are really objective. Their role isn’t to sell us a product, they’re there to help us improve our production and quality.”
