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Weekly Farm Summary - 8 November 2023

Another busy week across the farm this week- calves weighed and another 68 weaned; R2's weighed and a few busy days at the start of mating. Our fodder beet crops have been sown and pre-emerge sprayed. With growth well above demand all farmlets have had paddocks mown for baleage and topping is occuring as required. This will help reset residuals in a few paddocks that were left untidy after the last grazing and hopefully set us up for good quality pasture next round.Third round pasture quality is...

Weekly Farm Summary 1 November 2023

Weekly summary 2 November 2023: And just like that we are into mating for the 2023-24 season. It has been a busy week on the farm making sure we have all our systems and processes in place to make sure mating goes as smoothly as possible. With 4 different participant codes and sexed, jersey, crossbred and beef semen that needs to be used equally across the herds good planning is critical for success. On the wintering preparation front our crop fertiliser is on farm and will be spread at the week...

Weekly Farm Summary 25 October 2023

It is definitely four seasons in one week (and sometimes one day!!!) in Southland at the moment! Fingers crossed for some more settled weather as we head into mating and baleage making.Our first group of calves were weaned after weighing, drenching and 7n1 vaccination last Friday. With another group close to weaning weight there will be another weigh and wean late next week.This week we used our Allflex collar data to identify non cycling cows for treatment prior to the start of mating. 80 anima...

Weekly Farm Summary - 18 October 2023

Calving has finally finished - 16 days earlier than last season thanks to the use of short gestation semen at the end of mating last year . The farm team are having a catch-up with their families tonight to celebrate this milestone for the season. It has been full steam ahead with groundwork over the last 10 days, preparing paddocks for regrassing and winter crops.Growth is above demand for the lower impact herds, so paddocks have been dropped for conservation this week. With 5 paddocks aerated ...

October 2023 Field Day Update

For those of you that were able to make the SDH Field Day last week, it was wonderful to catch up and thank you for being so engaged and asking such great questions....

Weekly Summary - 12 October 2023

Its been all go at the hub this week, from the field day, to herd testing, aerating, ripping, fixing the calf shed roof- the team have certainly not been bored!For those who didn’t make it to our field day we will get the notes up onto the website early next week. Thanks to those who joined the day to hear from our four great speakers.  With soil temperatures nearly at 12 degrees, its been no wonder that growth rates have lifted and the cows are struggling to hit residual in some paddocks...

Weekly Summary - 4th October 2023

This week we have started to see the impact of high first round pasture covers and the flood on pasture regrowth, with growth not lifting like we would normally see at this time of year. The rest of the first round N will be applied in the next week and additional supplementary feed will be offered to fill any gaps. Thankfully we have a good supply of silage in the stack so will not have to rely heavily on inshed feeding. We had good results from our shed inspection last week which is testa...

October Newsletter

Firstly, hello! I recently started as the new General Manager at the SDH in July and it’s been a big few months of learning about the Hub and the amazing research work on the working and fully operational farm....

Weekly Summary- 27th September 2023

Its been another topsy turvy week of weather for us this week which has had flow on effects with both pasture utilisation and milk production. The flooding over the weekend subsided quickly however we have been left with a lot of silt contaminated pastures that the cows aren’t too excited about eating, as well as a number of laneways and fence lines left a bit worse for wear. Thankfully the team from MDS Contracting have been on farm this week assisting in the tidy up.Under 20 cows now left to...

Weekly Summary - 20 September 2023

 4 seasons in a week sums up the last week well! From sunshine, to howling winds and crazy rain all in a matter of days, this week has had it all!Growth rates have continued to hold in the 40’s and there is still plenty of grass around as the end of the first round comes to a close in the next few days. All farmlets are requiring slightly different management this week as we navigate matching break sizes and area allocation with target intake. The green and blue wedges are starting to sho...

Weekly Summary - 13 September 2023

The end of calving is coming……. very slowly but surely this week, with a couple of days with 1 or 2 new calves on the ground. Having reached our heifer replacement number, we had the team from VetSouth in this week to disbud 180 calves while the farm team took the DNA samples. 40 are still to be done.Again this week we are fighting against high pasture covers at the top of the wedge and with good growth rates over the past week, the covers aren’t quite on the downward trend yet. Pasture qu...

October Field Day 2023 - SDH

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Weekly Summary - 6th September 2023

Grass and plenty of it around the farm this week. With soil temperatures hitting 10 degrees this week, growth continues to trend upwards. With the combination of this and the slower than predicted calving rates, APC is still challenging us and not reducing as quickly as we would like for this part of the season.  Balance date seems to have come early this year but then we are only in the first week of spring so things could still change!!?? Springers and dries will be used to tidy up behind...

Weekly Summary - 30 August 2023

Soil temperatures are on the rise and grass growth is strong. Cumulative rainfall season to date is 60 mm ahead of the same time last year. Calving at SDH continues to be slower than predicted which is compounding our average pasture cover challenges. With the cows now in their farmlet herds it is taking us up to 3 days to get through some of our high mass paddocks. Dries are being used to clean up where residuals are not being hit by the milkers. The temptation this week was to speed up our rot...

Weekly Summary- 23 August 2023

Hasnt it been great to see some this week . With nearly 60% of the herd calved we have had a few big days on the calving front - the biggest day seeing 29 calves arrive at the calf shed. All the herds have between 18 and 21% of their target 25% replacements already with another 2.5 weeks to get the remainder. Use of sexed semen for the first 2 weeks of mating last year has definitely helped with replacements on the ground early. Grass growth has continued to be strong so APC is still much higher...

Weekly Summary- 16th August

Twelve days into calving and we have 35% of the herd calved. Biggest single day today with 28 calves picked up this morning.Have kept a single milker herd to graze through some high mass paddocks but will split into baleage and fodder beet mobs on Friday and start twice a day milking on Saturday.First mob of calves are booked in for disbudding on the 30th August. Just working out options to get them outside earlier this year to reduce the pressure on the calf sheds and the risk (and cost) of rot...

Weekly Summary 9 August 2023

Today we separated milkers from colostrums and started collecting milk for our first pickup. This is two days later than last season, reflecting our delay to PSM last year. Cows are calving faster than estimated with 91 calved compared with 56 based on expected calving dates. The team are expecting some big days over the next week which we need as we are rapidly grazing through our springer paddocks!!Despite cold wet weather soil temperature is still sitting at 7.6 C and growth between 10 and 15...

Weekly Summary 2 August 2023

Now that we are back to weekly farm walks and calving has started we will be resuming weekly updates from the farm. Conditions for the farmwalk this week were not pleasant but the job got done thanks to our dedicated technical team .Our 2-day delay to planned start of calving last year has resulted in us only having 19 cows calved compared with 35 at the same time last year. However, we are expecting a big calf drop in the next week. Season to date we are ahead on rainfall compared with last yea...

Fortnightly Summary 27 July 2023

It is really starting to feel like spring 🍀 on the farm with 7 cows already in milk and 200 cows across three springer mobs. By next week we will be down to one mob of cows on fodder beet with the rest either in springer mobs or on baleage & grass. Body condition score is looking good with only 7 of the 735 animals on farm below BCS 5. The only major disappointment on the BCS front is that only up to 30% of the R3's are at BCS 5.5. Pasture growth has picked up over the last 2 we...

Fortnightly Summary 13th July 2023

And just like that, we are well and truely into the depths of winter! 🥶🥶Despite the cold and wet periods over the past 2 weeks, the cows continue to improve in BCS overall and are coming close to pre calving targets with a few weeks left until calves arrive. The team have also been out to weigh and bolus the R1s out at grazing and their weights are well in line with industry target for their age 🐄🐄Our crops continued to grow above and beyond any other year and are yielding between 28...

SDH June field day notes

It was great to see so many people at our Winter field day last week. The event doubled as a field trip for the SIDE Conference so we also welcomed attendees from outside the region. While the weather didnt allow a walk to the crop paddocks, a few hardy souls did brave the elements for a walk to the cowshed for a look around. For those who missed the event the handout is now available on the website. ...

June Field Day 2023 - Kale vs Fodder beet

Download our handout in the link below...

South Island Dairy Event (SIDE)

The South Island Diary Event (SIDE) is a two day conference for farmers, led by farmers.Visit the website HERE for more information ...

Weekly summary 24 May 2023

Weekly update 24 May 2023 (I know it is the 26th today but it has been a busy week so we are running a bit late summarising the data!!)What a phenominal autumn we are having for pasture growth!! We averaged 30 kg/DM/day for the last week - double what we had in the autumn feed budgets. While it would have been nice to milk on longer a number a things dictated our decision to dry off on the 25/26th as planned. The high APC has created some headaches, but we have a plan to get it down before all t...

Weekly Summary 17 May 2023

Weekly Update 17 May: With just over 1 week to go of the season, a number of things are keeping the team on their toes at the moment. The heifers are being utilised well on the platform and transitioning onto fodderbeet has started for them in the last few days. We are doing our best to get all milkers, dry cows and heifers eating the same level of fodderbeet before the end of next week to ensure the smoothest transition into winter possible. Checks are being undertaken on the water supply ...