SMASH has been set up to help dairy farmers, particularly those with smaller operations, to run successful businesses. We mainly achieve this by running events throughout New Zealand. These give farmers the opportunity to gain knowledge and skills which will stand them in good stead back on their own farms.
We also want to foster a supportive farming community – we are all in it together! SMASH is run by a group of New Zealand dairy farmers with a passion for the industry and for helping to build a strong and sustainable future for dairy farming. Read more
Josh Wheeler from QCONZ spoke at our field day in Taranaki the other day. He has created some handy posters. The first one, on managing
Looking out my lounge window this morning I can hardly see the farm for the trees. I am not unhappy about that. Climate change has certainly brought more heat and wind to the farm. The shade has already benefitted the cows, but I do admit that the trees have suffered from the wind. Even the […]
Calving is definitely NOT the busiest time of the year, it’s more the last 20 cows still left to calve who still need dusting and 100% of your attention, that annoying colostrum and penicillin mob you still have to bring to the shed, setting up fences all over the farm, managing pasture, feeding calves outside, […]
Spring has sprung and not before time. Calving has been over for a week, 3/9/21, as I write this. Bringing calving forward five days has given me a good head start on last season but has put pressure on feed available. Growth rates of 11 kg DM/ha through late winter, July / August contrasted with […]
It hasn’t been long since the last update but we have just had a farm consultant visit so we thought we would make this available. Calving was slow to start with but is going well – only just over 100 to calve in the spring so we are feeling very relaxed, most of the time. […]
It’s been a long time between updates for us and lots has happened. At the being of 2020 we decided that we would put the farms on the market, so we moved back onto the farm in June 2020 (after having managers for 6 years) to run it ourselves again (with the help of our […]
Before you know it, it’s calving time for us spring calving systems. We finished the 2020/2021 season strongly producing 138,498 kg MS from 65 ha, and achieving our goal of doing over 2,000 kg MS/ha. It took a lot of determination, and a good pay out, to help us get there. We continued to milk […]
With the girls producing just 0.74 kg milksolids I have decided to finish up for the season. Dry off date is the 4th May. So, in the end they didn’t milk much longer than last year, and I only gained a couple of percent in total production. Still, with the pay out well up and […]
With 31 days left till June, we are still milking TAD. With all the supplements we have fed over the summer, the little bits of rain, and sticking to our round length of 45 days since the calves left the farm, we have increased pasture cover to 2,400+ kg DM/ha. If this warm weather continues, […]
In my last blog I was talking about getting a third cut of silage. Well, the weather was good, so I started filling the second pit. I then managed a fourth cut, which I baled as it was off half the saved area. I saved the rest as standing silage and am just grazing the […]
Thank you and your committee for your great work re SMASH events. We have gained several life changing ideas from these events.
At SMASH events we met like-minded people doing similar things.
It gave us confidence to know that there are people out there doing the same thing we are doing.
The positive vibe and the feeling of community amongst the farmers here was a highlight.
Can't sleep as am too excited after events!
This was a brilliant day. Refreshing, informative, varied and motivating.
“We have kind of gone off discussion groups because they tend to just look after our little district. Discussion groups are mainly people checking up on what the neighbours are doing whereas SMASH events are different, we get a lot more from them. I wholeheartedly loved it. It is good getting out of the area too.”
The strong working partnership of smaller herd farmers Matt and Sarah-Jane Yates has been a cornerstone to the success of their farming business. Matt started his career drystock farming on the family block, but its sale enabled him to buy his own property.
Key supporter:
Other supporters:
Would you like to hear about events in your region? Join our mailing list to be the first in the know!
