Cowski
Member
- Location
- South West
Just looking at some details of the Dairy NZ industry award winners, they are running between 125-220 cows per labour unit mostly just under the 200 mark. Production per cow range of 280-565(!)kgMS.
What can we learn from them?
We run at about 105 or 125 if you take out a FT tractor driver doing fert, field work although yard work in winter. All replacements are reared on farm, we use contractors for raking, forage wagon, primary cultivations, most spraying, most slurry and dung spreading and drilling, the rest done in-house. Spring block calving with a mix of dilapidated buildings on 2 sites.
We have made some great progress in other areas of the business in the last 18months to drop our COP but labour is an area that I think we need to re-visit. I think 200+ cows/person is unrealistic but if we could get to 170 that would be a million litres/person which would be quite pleasing. The one proviso is that we are not looking to kill ourselves and contented staff are also a priority.
What can we learn from them?
We run at about 105 or 125 if you take out a FT tractor driver doing fert, field work although yard work in winter. All replacements are reared on farm, we use contractors for raking, forage wagon, primary cultivations, most spraying, most slurry and dung spreading and drilling, the rest done in-house. Spring block calving with a mix of dilapidated buildings on 2 sites.
We have made some great progress in other areas of the business in the last 18months to drop our COP but labour is an area that I think we need to re-visit. I think 200+ cows/person is unrealistic but if we could get to 170 that would be a million litres/person which would be quite pleasing. The one proviso is that we are not looking to kill ourselves and contented staff are also a priority.