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Weekly Summary 21 February 2025

GeneralLatest pasture DM results: New grass 15.2%; Italians 13.6% and normal pastures 20%Final new grass paddock to be grazed this week when soil conditions allowHerd test completed, including screening of all cows >250000 SCC for staph aureus N applied and maintenance fertiliser applications have started 2% empties in the heifers and 1 freemartin identifiedHeifer liveweight gain has slowed in the last month so reassessing feeding levels with the grazier; average weight 390 kg (323-...

Weekly Summary 14 February 2025

IntroductionLatest pasture quality results: Crude protein ranged from 17.1 to 25.4% helping explain the swings in milk urea nitrogen we are seeing the vats; NDF from 44.1 to 51.8%, metabolisable energy from 10.8 to 12 MJME/kg DM and soluble sugars from 1.9 to 9.4.We are continuing to graze new grass paddocks, which will offer as a full feed between am and pm milkings rather than 1-2 hours immediately before the pm milking to get them grazed off faster. We're putting them onto paddocks full ...

Weekly Summary 7 February 2025

We increased supplementary feeding to Standard herds as pre-graze covers have dropped again and cow behaviour and residuals have indicated they have been tight for feed this week - target 3 kg DM/cow inshed, 2.6 kg DM/cow/day PKE in trailers and 1.8 kg DM/cow/day baleage. Our Future herd is being offered 2.3 kg DM/cow/day inshed feed.First new grass paddocks will be nipped off this week, and to reduce risk of nitrate issues cows we will graze half a paddock for 1-2 hours each day on the way to t...

Weekly Summary 31 January 2025

Started feeding baleage (2 kg DM/cow/day) and PKE (1.5 kg DM/cow/day) in trailers to standard herds to meet daily intake targets with reduced pasture growth rates and lower pre-graze covers; also receiving 3 kg DM inshed.Increased inshed feeding by 0.3 kg DM/cow/day to Future herd, average intake of 2.4 kg DM/cow/day and will top up with baleage as required. Started planting new grass paddocks ahead of first nip off grazing.Potential early culls have been identified and will be checked for ...

Weekly Summary 24 January 2025

Dropping in shed feed for mixed age cows 5.0 or greater and R2/R3's 5.5 or greater to 0.5 kg/day; feeding rates to stay the same for the remainder of the cows.No paddocks out for conservation this week as growth was below demand.Reduced target allocation to 19 kg DM/day based on milk production and ongoing challenges hitting residual.Started identifying low producing cows for potential culling as soon as first pregnancy scan is completed early Feb, including one cow to be culled immediately base...

Weekly Summary 17 January 2025

The normal HubWatch Weekly farm update will resume next week when the team is all back on board. In the meantime here are some insights from the farm during the hot weather. I hope everyone had a great break and took some time to recharge the batteries. The farm team (including myself) have enjoyed time out with the family through the holiday break. There was even some sun where the family and I camped!...

Weekly Summary 9 January 2025

Happy New Year. We hope the start to 2025 has been a good one for you all. Some more settled weather has allowed us to get baleage made on the milking platform and a stack of silage earmarked for summer feeding down. Thanks to the team at D Thompson Contracting Ltd. All our regrassing has been completed and now we are concentrating on oversowing paddocks damaged during spring. We are keeping a close eye out for pests in our swede crops and weeds in the new grass paddocks. Milk production is hold...

Christmas Newsletter

As 2024 draws to a close, I want to take a moment to reflect on what has been an incredibly productive year for the Southern Dairy Hub. It's been a year of growth, collaboration and exciting developments. We’ve had the privilege of working closely with many of you, continuing to test new practices and contribute to Southland's dairy sector with vital research.As General Manager, I’m constantly amazed at the work being done here – not only on our research farm but also in how it benefits lo...

Summer Newsletter

Kia ora and welcome to our summer newsletter! We’ve had a busy few months, navigating the challenges of September’s wet weather while making great progress on our exciting initiatives and trials. People are at the heart of our efforts, and I really want to express my gratitude to our dedicated team for their commitment and hard work, and to the wider community for your ongoing support.I’m excited to share some of our recent highlights and what we’re working towards as we head into s...

Weekly Farm Summary 15 November 2024

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Weekly Farm Summary 6 November 2024

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Weekly Farm Summary 31 October 2024

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Weekly Farm Summary 25 October 2024

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Weekly Farm Summary 10 October 2024

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Weekly Farm Summary 4 October 2024

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Weekly Farm Summary: On hold

Weekly notes are temporarily on hold while we review the notes. If you have suggestions for what you'd like included in the notes, or their frequency, please email admin@southerndairyhub.co.nz...

GM Andrea Dixon chats to Andy about the upcoming field day

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Early-spring Newsletter

Kia ora and welcome to our early-spring newsletter! We've had a busy and productive few months, and I'm excited to share some of our key highlights and upcoming initiatives with you. The farm team has had a busy winter delivering the DairyNZ Farm System wintering trials. An early glimpse of our progress is available in the notes from our recent field day (www.southerndairyhub.co.nz/field-days).Last week, we removed the ICE Cubes (accelerometers that measure cow behaviour, including ste...

Media Release: Southern Dairy Hub simplifying their operating and governance model

Simon Flood, SDH Chair, said “the Hub is celebrating its sixth anniversary in June, and it’s an opportune time to take the Hub to the next level. This is a natural evolution, where the original structure, established six years ago, was ready for improvement to provide better management of the business”.The new structure, which comes into effect on 1 June 2024, has the operations of the Hub and ownership of all Hub assets under one entity and one Board (previously two entities and two Board...

Weekly Farm Summary 15 May 2024

Well all good things must come to an end and the time is near for us calling a day on the 2023_24 season. While overall it has been a good season for us, this autumn is bringing its fair share of challenges - sodden ground conditions, increased lameness and average growth rates have made this autumn quite different to the last two. With heifers now back on the milking platform after teat sealing on Thursday our challenge is to manage the feed supply to ensure we don't go below our 1 June APC for...

Dry-off newsletter

Things are busy on farm as we set up for our farm system trial (more details in the newsletter), dry cows off that are light in condition and trying to manage body conditions score to ensure cows are target at calving, not to mention all the things that need to be done in preparation for winter.The weather has turned, with a drop in ground temperature by 10 degrees and we only grew 23 kgDM/ha this week, compared to 40 kgDM/ha last week! Because of this and paddock conditions, we have moved all h...

Weekly Farm Summary 30 April 2024

This week we made the decision to move all herds to OAD milking based on current milk production, BCS, ground conditions and lameness and to make sure the farm team have the time to ensure everything is set up for wintering. Our second group of cows were dried off and the early dries are now being ad lib fed on pasture to promote BCS gain. The latest pasture quality results are in and the DM has ranged between 14 and 18%, ME from 11.1 to 12.3 and crude protein from 22.1 to 28.5%. The LI pastures...

Weekly Farm Summary 17 April 2024

Key decisions this week have focused on setting the cows and the farm up for next season. Cows confirmed with Johnes (initial milk screening followed by a confirmation blood test) and Staph have all been culled and the last discretionary culls confirmed for each herd. The first group of 20 cows were dried off this week. The rotation length has been pushed out by reducing the area grazed per day however with paddocks being dropped out of the round for wintering and springers the proportion of eff...

Weekly Farm Summary 3 April 2024

And just like that it is April and autumn is well and truely upon us with cooler nights and shorter days. Our focus is now well and truly on setting up for next season and as such we made the decision this week for the Std FB herd to go to OAD milking based on BCS gain required before 1 June, increasing incidence of lameness and the feed budget indicating up to 6 kg DM supplement/cow/day would be required to achieve our dry off average pasture cover. We are continuing to aerate 2022 spring new g...

Weekly Farm Summary 20 March 2024

After a busy week on farm last week with our autumn field day and motor bike training and a trip to Victoria Australia for Dawn to present at a farmer event, we are back to normality this week. Growth has dropped below demand for the first time in several months, so average pasture cover has dropped for all farmlets. The first group of culls will be heading off farm in the next week with low producing empties going to the works and sound, young, high producing empties being sold in milk. We have...