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At an Oamaru ceremony on Sunday, the Ray family in Clydevale was announced the winners of the heifer section and the Kemra Farm in Inch Clutha, the winning section of the calf section.
Kemra Farm’s co-owner Brendan Morrison said his family’s farm was the consecutive winner of the calves section.
“It was a surprise.”
The season was challenging, he said.
Milk production was on their way to a record until 200 mm of rain fell within 48 hours in early October last year.
“It was how the cows were reaching the peak and they didn’t reach the highest peak and we lost a lot of production.”
Milk production of the herd of 400 Holstein friesian cows was back last season.
About 205,000 kg of bush were produced last season, about 512 kgms per cow, which was a record for Kemra Farm.
He expects his flock to produce about 500 kgms per cow this season.
The calves who won the Otago and Southland competition last year were enrolled in the comet section of the competition and won the Tokomairiro, Taieri and South Otago A&P competition by 97 animals or less.
However, the Ray family won the sectional section in beauty by over 97 animals and promoted the final of Otago and Southland.
To produce upper calves, they must have access to the nutritious colostrum of “gold” of their mothers who contain “all present in it”.
“It starts when they are born,” said Morrison.
Any slower calves have been kept in their mother’s milk for a longer time to try to maintain the condition of the herd.
“We are not afraid to move mobs around.”
Having a cow in good condition before drying was important.
They reversed their cows into trailers, allowing them to control feed – a mixture of grass, hay and straw silage – to maintain their body condition.
“We see them every day and feed them accordingly. Those who need to gain weight receive a little more.”
The herd was usually milked twice a day and the frequency was recently exchanged for three times every two days in response to the more slowly walking cows to the milking shed.
“It’s a less walk for them to help protect their feet and their condition to dry.”
Five generations of the Morrison family have been cultivating the inch clutha since 1909.
Inch Clutha is a flat island, about 10 km long and 3 km wide, sitting in the delta between the north and southern branches of the Clutha River, downstream of Balclutha.
The Morrison family has three independent dairy farms on Farm, Haswell Farm and Kildinan island.
Richard Ray, a farmer of Dairy Dairy Richard Ray, said she was “satisfied” that her family won the teiling section of the competition.
The season was good, considering the spring “horrible”.
“Production is a little ahead of last season and we have a little food in front of us, which is good.”
About 490 Holstein pedigree friesian cows were milked twice a day to try to reach a production target of 265,000 kgms, or 540 kgms per cow.
“We should get there if the rest of the season is good … They are still milking very well and we will continue, while they fed on them.”
He has a third of the winning heifers and his parents Stephen and Judith Ray, have the rest.
The winning heifers were two nails, their parents’ stallion, Raymac Holsteins, and their stallion, Array Holsteins.
Richard is the president of the Otago Holstein Friesian branch.
As the herd had a good genetics, he responded when he received a quality feed, including barley and palm grain in the milking shed.
One way to produce beauty heifers was never to let any herd be hungry, he said.
“When they are calves, try leading them to dry food. It makes the engine work, the rumen and make sure they have a lot of food in front of them.”
Wrights Bush’s Merving Livingstone competition judge near Riverton said he and colleague Murray Skedgwell, from Papattara, near Tuatapere, traveled over 500 km examining about 15,000 otago and Southland heifers one day last week.
“It’s a great job,” said Livingstone.
The competition was near and the winning clutha cattle was “excellent,” he said.
shawn.mcavinue@alliedpress.co.nz
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