Field Day At Cobden Dairy Farm

Press, Volume C, Issue 29674, 18 November 1961, Page 6

Field Day At Cobden Dairy Farm

TOWN milk producers in x the Greymouth district attended their first field day this week on the 156-acre property of Mr M. J. Minehan at Cobden, on the outskirts of the borough. Here Mr Minehan runs a herd of mainly Ayrshires including 50 milking cows, 12 yearling heifers and 15 calves, and in the most recent production season 43 cows produced 29.000 gallons. He told visitors that over the last 15 years his production had trebled though in this period he has dispensed with a feeding shed and covering of his cattle. The objective of his breeding policy, he said, was to keep daughters from cows that produced at last 800 gallons of milk and 4001 b of fat. His property, which includes about 25 acres of bush and both rolling and flat terrain. is subdivided into about 20 paddocks for a three weekly rotation. Six to eight acres are given over to growing swedes or choumoellier and from roots in August this ground goes into greenfeed and back into grass in February or March.

In addition to the cattle Mr Minehan runs 70 or 80 ewes on his farm using them to clean up paddocks and he also turns off 150 porkers a year using waste cuts from the export venison industry as pig feed. A small potato crop may also be grown. The day began on country that was once dredge tailings which have become grassed over from years of use as an area for feeding stock on. Here visitors inspected the 150 ton silage pit where Mr Minehan has used a terrace to good advantage. It forms one side of the pit. Lorries filled by a forage harvester tip their loads over the side. The other side of the pit is in five timbered sections which can be removed to allow self feeding. The pit itself has a concrete slab base. Mr J. J. F. Hughes. Dairy Board consulting officer of Nelson, said that waste of silage would have been reduced if building paper had been used as a lining for the timber and he suggested that there would be a further saving if the %it was roofed uvith polythene plastic film

with sawdust on the top and soil around it. Mr J. M. Lockhart, farm advisory officer of the' Department of Agriculture at Greymouth, said that on the Coast overdrilling of greenfeed had not been very ■ successful for the reason that competition from grasses was too great, but he added that it had completely changed the character of a clover dominant pasture on this farm and had given a lot of extra feed and at the same time had played a bloat preventing role. On the field in question overdrilling was done on April 21 with 101 b of short rotation ryegrass and 1 cwt. of nitrolime and 201 b of short rotation and 2 cwt of nitrolime. Growth was just as good where the sod rolled back over the seed as where the cut was left open Drainage practice on the property was outlined by Mr J. Scott, farm drainage officer of the Denartment of Agriculture in Christchurch, who said that on a fairly tight sticky clay sub-soil Mr Minehan had used surface drainage on the contours and before ploughing a paddock he had used a sub soiler at 5 or 6ft intervals. Mr Minehan said that 101 b of perennial ryegrass. 201 b of short rotation, 61b of timothy. 2 to 31b of white clover and 41b of cowgrass bad been sown to the acre in the autumn of 1959 in a paddock still wet in places, and in the two winters since it had been stocked wtih calves which had done a good job of consolidation.

A drain being opened up by a dragline to allow a further area of country to be reclaimed in a similar manner was being dug for sKghtly under £4 a chain. Mr Scott said. Mr Hughes urged on those attending the field day that it was important to give special attention to feeding, of dry cattle in the last fotir weeks before calving if best results were to be secured in the succeeding lactation, and to do this be suggested that they should then be run with the milkers. It was also important said to watch

feeding in the first eight to 10 weeks of the lactation as it could effect the whole lactation. Mr M. G. Hollard. senior lecturer in the animal husbandry department at Canterbury Agricultural College, said that there were strains of other breeds that were higher producers than the Friesian, but there was plenty of information to show that the black and whites were easily the highest average producers and presumably the earners of the highest net profit. He also advocated artificial breeding as quicker than any farmer’s improvement scheme to produce results. The artificial breeding centre, he said, had Friesian bulls of outstanding inherent merit as milk producers, which were unlikely to lower solids not fat. and A.I. in this district, at least, had a fairly satisfactory conception rate and was not as expensive as buying in a bull. Though young replacement stock used up a staggering amount of feed before they came into milk, he said that raising of replacements was worthwhile in comparison with buying in in the production of genetically superior and disease-free cattle. Mr Lockhart said that soil fertility was an overriding factor both in relation to the quantity and quality of teed available and the spread of growth. He said he was doubtful of the need for supplementary feed in the summer but provision of winter feed was essential. He rated as number one winter teed choumoellier with farmers growing an increasing area of this as they went round their new paddocks a second time. On other home-grown winter feeds cattle had to use up some of their body reserves. Swedes came next, being the most reliable crop but not as good as choumoellier as a food, though twice as good as turnips. Greenfeed or greenfeed cereals should only be grown as a last resort as their yield of dry matter per acre was far less. Autumn saved pasture was the cheapest feed and for this he recommended short rotation rye- «"* >