The last time I wrote calving was the next big thing to happen. Well, it arrived early as usual, but went well. We ended up with 100% live births, that is a first, and only assisted one heifer who had a large calf. Milk fever has been prevalent around the district and quite bad, so […]
Quite the interesting season thus far isn’t it? Saturated soils and NIWA telling us we have had a mild dry winter. Well, I can tell you from here in Te Poi 10mm over night might have well been 100 as we were on the knife-edge in terms of resorting to OAD until it dried out […]
A bit to report back on seeing it has been so long since my last blog. The season ended on the 24th May with production slightly down on last year, less than 1%. The cows did 350 kg milksolids which I am happy with in this OAD world. Lance was always going to struggle to […]
Isn’t it ironic that one of my previous blog’s headlines says, “There’s more to life than the back end of a cow”. Then here’s me milking 900 cows TAD for my milking job right now. Funny how sometimes things work out. But I feel ten years younger with less stress, more sleep ins and more […]
It has been quite the roller-coaster this season, especially in the upper North Island. It was a pretty tough winter by all accounts, plenty of rain to be had. Shame it wasn’t shared around a bit more because, wow, did we cop it during the early part of calving. But that was 6 to 7 […]
It matters how you adapt and move on as things happen. I am adapting to not milking cows every day as I have done for the last 50 years, yeah, that ages me! Surprisingly I didn’t find it as difficult as I thought it would be. Suddenly I don’t know which paddocks the cows are […]
Woow what a start to the season this has been. The heifers returned home at an average liveweight of 484 kg and condition scored at a 5.5 and going into calving our cows were at a 5 average. This season’s start has really tested our management skills as farmers, not only financially, with a drop […]
Hi all. I hope you are having a good start to the season. I hear that grass is short and it is no different here. We have used all our baled silage and are now on to pit silage. Between that and palm kernel we are keeping the girls happy. Lance is now doing the […]
My mind has never been CLEARER! The biggest relief and weight off my shoulders. Last season was the nail in the coffin and a good time to bow out of full-time farming. I honestly did not have the mental capacity or energy to continue…… (that burnt-out feeling). Physically I still had it in me, but […]
Woow, what a season it has been. Rain, wind, sunshine, and for once we aren’t being driven back indoors due to the heat. The spring was a precursor to what I believe had to be the wettest start to the summer in a decade. Our own records show that this was the case, by the […]