Clover Hill Diaries - Join Me and Be the Change - Page 124 of 126 - #Strongwomen. "I write about the power of trying, because I want to be okay with failing. I write about generosity because I battle selfishness. I write about joy because I know sorrow. I write about faith because I almost lost mine, and I know what it is to be broken and in need of redemption. I write about gratitude because I am thankful

Wow what a cow

This is one amazing dairy cow. Her name is Murribrook Lieutenant Tina 2EX and she is a superb example of a Holstein dairy cow.

Tina is 16 years old and has had 12 calves and has just gone into the resting paddock waiting to have her thirteenth calf.

In her lifetime she has produced a whopping 153000 litres of milk. That means Tina provides 1500 Australians with milk each year

Up until recently Tina has always taken pride of place leading the cows to and from the dairy. She has this knack of knowing when milking is due and lines up at the paddock gate to notify the herd its times to walk back to the dairy.

Wise dairy farmers select and breed from cows who have a number of qualities that ensure healthy and contented cows.

These qualities include:

longevity
compact udders that allow cows to carry their milk comfortably
good “feet and legs” which help them to walk comfortably. This is very important on our farm as we milk three times daily and our cows walk a lot. For more info see previous post “ when too much walking is not a good thing “
Feed conversion efficiency. The aim here is to breed cows who can turn grass into milk as efficiently as possible. This has a number of advantages including reducing greenhouse gas emissions and all livestock owners know how important that is. Our cows have a feed conversion efficiency rating of 2.7 which is very high. This means they can turn 1kg of feed into 2.7 litres of milk which means not only high productivity but little eco footprints

There is lots of science to cow breeding and genes that deliver these qualities have all been identified through genomic mapping

A mature cow like Tina is a product of both her genes (15% genetics) and how she was raised (85% environmental influences)

Tina is a great example of this proven science. Tina is a direct descendent of a very famous imported cow called Walkerbrae Triple T Toni, Ex 24*. Toni was imported by Murray Sowter .

How gorgeous is she and how much does Tina look like her.

Murray was involved in the first live exports from Canada. See his website here http://www.murribrook.com/cow-families/toni.html

We are very pleased to have a number of Tina’s decedents in our herd such as Lightening Tina who is her granddaughter and just about to have a calf of her own

Lightening Tina – Tina’s granddaughter they are all peas in pod

These days Lieutenant Tina has a life of luxury. She lives in a paddock close to the dairy and doesn’t have to walk very far to access water and shade. She is just adorable and she has a special place in our hearts.

Read about Tina in the Illawarra Mercury here

Eileen stars at International Dairy Week

My family has been showing dairy cattle since the late 1800’s. In those day the premier breed was Ayrshires. Today the Ayrshire is listed as rare breed with Holsteins the predominant breed not only in Australia but also world wide

This is Honeycomb who belonged to my great great great Grandfather John Lindsay

She is an example of the best of the best Ayrshire of her era. According to www.illawarrasqld.com.au she carried the Champion Dairy Cow of the world title in the early eighteen nineties, she was also invincible in the show ring and winner of all the milk and butterfat awards. Honeycomb is also the cow that inspired Australia’s own breed of dairy cattle the Illawarras,

As point of interest note her very long teats – in those days this was a huge positive as cows were milked by hand. The introduction of milking machines has seen cows bred with a much shorter teats like in this picture of one of the show stars from our Holstein team

Tangalla Leduc Fond.

Another interesting aside on this is Fond holds the milk production record for her age in NSW and produces 50% more milk than Honeycomb who produced the most milk in one day in the world at that time. It doesn’t take much to see that Fond has a much more compact udder than Honeycomb which flies in the face of the animal activists who say dairy farmers are deliberately breeding cows with huge udders and forcing them to produce huge volumes of milk. This is rubbish. All good dairy farmers are doing the opposite. We are selecting and breeding cows with the genes to indeed produce large volumes of milk but in vessels (udders) that sit as snuggly and comfortably on the cow as they possibly can. Just like Fond

Off my soap box and onto the centrepiece of this story. We have regularly exhibited Holsteins at International Dairy Week (IDW) the premier stud cattle show in Australia. See previous story here “Gearing up for the Countdown”. We have only exhibited on and off since we began focusing on the milk business including moving to milking 3x daily in 2005 and less on breeding stud cattle.

This year was a first for us and we took our one and only Jersey cow who we have nick named Princess Eileen

This is the flyer which our professional cow fitter at IDW Brad Gavenlock created for Shirlin ILB Eileen to tell visitors all about her. As you can see has previously starred at a number of high profile Jersey shows in NSW.

Eileen handled the 800km journey to IDW with no effort and apparently alighted the truck bright eyed and bushy tailed and scoffed down grains and hay that awaited her as she joined Brad’s team of stars

Eileen enjoying the luxury conditions show cows are afforded.

The big day arrives and Eileen enters the ring looking fantastic. What a great job Brad has done preparing her. By the way that is Brad leading her.

How excited were we when the judge pulled Eileen in 2nd

The judge eventually had a rethink and placed Eileen 6th but when you think this is the final line-up and there were 45 cows in Eileen’s class she did very well and we are very proud of her

Eileen proudly shows off her ribbon.

Maybe next year we will have a whole team of Jerseys. There is no denying they are just adorable to look at.

Custodians of the land

Clover Hill Dairies in partnership with a number of local stakeholders has been lucky enough to access Federal government Caring for our Country funding to deliver great environmental outcomes on both local dairy farms and hobby farms which are also providing significant benefits for the waterways of the wider catchment

When we started these activities on the farm five years ago we recognised we didn’t have the expertise required to do the job to the level of significance our landscape deserved so we sought expertise from Southern Rivers Catchment Management Authority and Landcare Illawarra to ensure best on farm and wider catchment environmental outcomes. We outsourced cow comfort expertise from our farm consultant Dr Neil Moss and Dairy Australia’s NSW NRM coordinator Jess Jennings

Then we got stuck into it and we were pretty pleased with the outcomes and ourselves. A couple of years down the track we found we had ongoing maintenance problems and we readily admit we were well and truly out of our depth.

Cows grazing along water ways do a great job of keeping the weeds under control but the negative is they pollute the waterways and the negatives definitely out way the positives

So when you fence the cows out of the waterways and riparian zones the challenge is then how do you control the nasty weeds. Again you get the experts in and this time its was the bush regenerators. If you then take the time and have two way conversations with these amazing people you learn so much and we now have a new appreciation for our native landscapes and the plants who inhabit them.

We have worked with a number of bush regenerators over the years but our favourite is Erin Lake who I wrote about here

Erin with the help of director Ann Burbrook and videographer Tay Plain of Clear Cut Productions is creating a series of short videos with which we aim to engage, enthuse, educate and empower both farmers and rural landholders who care about their land but don’t necessarily have the skills sets to ensure the best outcomes for the landscape and the native animals

Here are some pictorial highlights from the last two days of the film shoot on the farm

Director Ann and “talent” Erin co write the scripts

On set Day 1 and Tay checks out the lighting

and action

Ann multi-skills and Erin proves to be a natural. Watch out Richard Attenborough

Day 2. As far as locations go it doesn’t get much better than this

Learning the lines

was never so peaceful

Cant wait to see the outcome of this footage

New life

Its a wrap and now long process of editing and reviewing the footage begins

We hope the take home message from our videos will be

Whether you are a commercial farmer or a hobby farmer or just lucky enough to have your own little piece of rural heaven it is pivotal to remember we are just custodians of the land

The landscape and our waterways are our lifeblood, they feed us, they provide us with natural beauty and so much more, they are not a toy and we must treat them with respect

If you don’t have the skills to manage them to the level they deserve GET THE EXPERTS IN

Why I farm

I am often asked why I like being a farmer and to be honest it was never my lifelong dream to farm. I farm today because the people I most care about in the world farm and they are in it for the long haul.

I grew up on a farm and even though I enjoyed being hands on in the day to day running of the farm and the lifestyle that comes with it the idea of being a farmer was most definitely not on my list of top 10 professions.

I have been back on the farm for ten years now and I will be the first to admit farming is a highly rewarding profession for a multitude of reasons.

Today I will list just a few

Firstly farmers are an essential service, they feed people and whether people admit it or not everybody wants to be needed.

Secondly farming today is a very risky business and I like the mental intensity, the constant review process, the drive to get up each day and do it better. The fulfilling challenge of balancing productivity, people, animals and the planet

Thirdly inspirational people farm. Feeding, clothing and housing the world now and in the next 50 years is going to require an extraordinary effort. This means we need extraordinary people to take up the challenge. When I work with inspirational people, they light my fire, feed my soul and challenge me to continue to strive to make a unique contribution to agriculture and the community.

and then there is this

the satisfaction you get when you have managed to farm in a way that balances the needs of the rainforest and the animals who live there

with farm productivity that allows you to supply 50,000 Australians daily with milk whilst at the same time ensuring your cows cow remain happy and healthy.

the buzz you get when next gen share the passion and commitment

the fascination of watching generations of cows tread the same path each time they walk into the paddock

the amusement you get when the cow who detours to the water trough

then charges down the paddock like a teenager to ensure she doesn’t miss out on the sweetest grass

and the special relationships you develop with the people and the animals in your team

the satisfaction of working with next gen

Why I farm

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to turn this

into this

then this

and today

Picasso Corner a triumph for community partnerships, biodiversity and the farm

and then the raw reality of watching the circle of life each day. When the chickens you nurtured from eggs are killed and eaten by a goshawk (thanks to twitter verse for identifying my nasty bird) and wake up next morning and remember the chickens got three weeks of a great life they wouldn’t have had without you interfering with nature. Even if in the end it was nature who decided they would play a different role in the food chain .

I love to farm because its real, there is a true sense of place and time. There is an purity and an innocence that comes with a respect of the land that feeds us that living and working in the city will never deliver

Clover returns–she just keeps coming back

Back in December I told you the story of Clover the python and her near death experience and her relocation to places quite far away

Well we recently had a visit from a Russian farmer delegation and whilst visiting the dairy they spotted something in the big Figtree that had them quite fascinated

Well blow me down if it wasn’t our good friend Clover

The dairy is only 100 metres from my house and I will keep my fingers crossed Clover decides to make the dairy her new home.

Russian latte–opening the farmgate has many advantages

We have been opening our farm gate to international delegations for over ten years.

There is no denying hosting visitors to your farm is a lot of work. It can also be very rewarding and enlightening

I grew up a country town in NSW. I met the first person who couldn’t speak English when I was ten. I was fascinated by the new girl at our school who was Italian and didn’t speak one word of English. How brave was she. We didn’t mean to but I am pretty sure we all made her feel like an alien.

I learnt French at school so was very comfortable travelling to France when I went overseas but I must admit sadly I have favoured visits to overseas countries where the majority of people speak English.

So hosting delegations of farmers who speak no English is quite an eye opening learning experience. Whilst they always come with a translator invariably the translator knows little about farming.

Dimitry the translator knew little about farming but he made up for that with lots of personality and good humour

The farmers always take lots of notes

take hundred of pictures

not only video cameras but and Ipads as well

and ask a lot of questions

and like all farmers love big pieces of machinery

and love to share their farming stories and this weeks visitors from Russia were no different.

Our consultant Dr Neil Moss was on hand to explain the technical details

Come to think of it I don’t think I have meet a Russian before and these farmers where so Russian. Why was I so flabbergasted when the bottles of vodka were bought out for morning team

There was vodka for the Russian Lattes

Straight vodka and vodka on the rocks

Russian and Aussie icons go down well together

This Russian delegation was from the Volgograd (formerly Stalingrad) region and they were very proud of their heritage presenting me with a replica of the famous Motherland Calls statue.

The history of this statue is fascinating. Briefly in 1967, the Soviet Union dedicated a towering monument to one of its great World War II triumphs. The Motherland Calls stands 170 ft., hoisting a sword to the sky that measures another 108 ft. 200 steps lead to the base of the statue to commemorate the 200 day battle of Stalingrad where the Red Army broke a German siege, only to surround and defeat the invading army. Motherland is not fixed to her base, though, and seeping groundwater has caused the plinth to lean nearly eight inches.

I also received a bottle of Russia’s finest and I have since had a few Cosmopolitans to remind me of our new Russian friends

салют

Two way conversations are the key

As anyone who knows me will tell you I have very strong opinions about the way forward for sustainable agriculture.

Today my post reflects on the importance of both talking and listening.

Sadly Australia is complacent about the challenges to food security. There is a lack of appreciation by society in general of the interdependence of environment, agriculture, food and health.

However if we are to progress and fuel the mushrooming food needs of the cities while meeting the community’s expectations for environmental sustainability and animal well being, then both rural and urban communities must have greater mutual empathy and respect.

This I believe is the real challenge facing farmers in the immediate future – how do we fix it?

As I see it we can do one of two things

We (farmers) can sit back and lament that we are victims or we can actively acknowledge that farmers are business people selling a product and successful businesses recognise marketing is the strategic part of doing business.

Marketing doesn’t mean every farmer needs to write a blog, join Twitter or Facebook it simply means being customer focused. This means you have to understand your customer and their values and your business has to BE the image you want your customer to see.

Every sector of the food system whether that be farmers, manufactures, branded food companies, supermarkets or restaurants is under ever increasing pressure to demonstrate they are operating in a way that is consistent with stakeholder values and expectations. Farmers cannot expect to be exempted from this scrutiny just because we grow the food.

Businesses are built on relationships. This means we (farmers) have to get out there in our communities and start having two way conversations with our customers

Excitingly I know that once farmers embrace the concept they will discover like me that it can be very rewarding talking to your customers. They are interested and they do care.

There are so many ways farmers can share their stories. This one is very quirky and I just love it. Check it out you will too

Cobargo Dairy Farmer Stephanie Tarlinton shares her story via YouTube

Heads up on the research

Our second farm ‘Lemon Grove Research Farm’ PL was leased in 2008 to grow and diversify our enterprise.

In complete contrast to the home farm whose terrain would challenge the fittest mountain goat Lemon Grove’s 68ha of alluvial river flats provides gentle leisurely access to beautiful pastures for our pregnant milking cows

The lush flats at Lemon Grove Research Farm which is adjacent to the Jamberoo township

Despite receiving 33% less rainfall than Clover Hill (and the occasional flood!), we have managed to increase stocking rate on Lemon Grove by 150% to graze 5 cows per hectare. This has allowed us to achieve a 350% increase in milk production from that farm in the last three years.

Thank God this only happens every 50 years ( touch wood)

This has been achieved through a combination of improved feeding in the dairy and via our small opportunity feed pad, improved fertility in our pastures and innovative and exciting agronomic strategies that provide us with a more even supply of high quality pastures all year round

Michael standing in our lush first foray into the world of perennial pastures in Jamberoo

This leads us to our first and exciting research innovation which is to investigate the role and performance of perennial non-grass based pastures in coastal dairy farms

We were looking for ways to reduce our reliance on high nitrogen fertiliser inputs due to both its potential environmental impact and exposure to price volatility. We have watched urea ride the price roller coaster over the last five year due to its close linkage to oil price and we only see the upward trend continuing

Traditional coastal grass based pastures (summer kikuyu/paspalum; winter ryegrass) are highly dependent on nitrogen inputs, generally suffer from poor quality and manageability in summer, require re-sowing each year and are limited by root depth in being able to access moisture and soil nutrient and hence are prone to short term moisture stress. There is also a significant lag (production gap) between rye grass senescing in spring and summer grasses growing well; and between sowing and production of new winter pastures in the autumn

Past efforts to grow perennial ryegrass have ben foiled by insect pests and summer grass weed infestation and dare I say inappropriate management practices .

We have been working with Dr Neil Moss from SBScibus for 10 years

We have been refining these pastures in the Jamberoo environment with our consultant Dr Neil Moss over the last 3 years and on our current trial site we have planted a mixture of pasture based on perennial legumes and herbs

The trial site is located in paddock 6 with the control site in paddock 5

Over the next 3 years we will share our success and failures (hopefully failures will be few and far between)

This trial is supported by funding from

Gearing up to the countdown

Our little Princess Eileen is off on a big adventure to International Dairy Week the largest annual dairy cattle show and sale in the Southern Hemisphere.

Eileen says watch out world I am on my way.

Held in Tatura, Victoria, IDW as it is best known is indisputably the most prestigious event in the dairy industry, showcasing the best quality dairy cattle to over 4,000 visitors from every state in Australia and over 20 countries internationally. Australia’s dairy men and women bring their top stud animals to compete in a display of over 1,000 dairy cattle from over 6 dairy breeds.

This year for the first time Clover Hill Dairies will be exhibiting in the Jersey section represented by the gorgeous Eileen. You first met Princess Eileen at Christmas when she donned her Rudolph crown

Well since then she has been washed and blowed dried and washed and brushed and fed and led and generally pampered daily

So what does one look for in a show cow. Well this is what you look for and as you can see the stud cattle world has a language all of its own.

The animal needs to be long, stretchy, and of good size for her age and breed.
It should have sharp, clean withers; a straight, strong back; a long, level, wide rump; and feet and legs with correct set.
It should have a good spring of rib and be deep in the chest and rear flank.

This picture of Eileen taken by professional cow photographer Dean Malcolm shows off all of Eileen’s best assets

This picture taken by me shows how her udder measures up ( there is a lot of udder talk in the dairy industry )

rear udder should be high and wide with a well defined ligament throughout
fore udder should be snuggly attached to the body wall with four teats hanging straight to the ground

Months of preparation goes into preparing show cows. They have to be well fed. The nutritional needs of your show animal are of major importance and should include high quality hay and grains.

Now Eileen is quite tiny compared to our Holsteins but like all true princesses she knows how to get her own way and no-one but no-one beats Eileen to the best hay in the hay rack.

Eileen in the dairy scoffing down her grains whilst she gets milked just before leaving on the truck for IDW

Emma says “I will miss her whilst she is away”

Show cows have to be brushed at least once a day and have their feet pedicured. Eileen’s feet are looked after by the team of vets from Sydney University. The cows have to be clipped which improves the animal’s style and overall appearance.

Just as weight lifters strike a pose that demonstrates their taut muscles and fashion models know which profile to present a cow needs to be led and posed so as to show off her best assets The cow should be lead at a comfortable pace with the animal’s head held high enough for impressive style, attractive carriage, and graceful walk.

Come Wednesday evening next we will see if all the hard work has paid off. What ever happens Eileen will always be our little princess and doesn’t she know it

When humans interfere with nature

As part of my Christmas at the Dairy post I mentioned we made the choice of interfering with nature by choosing to artificially hatch out a clutch of eggs two of our chooks decided they were no longer going to sit on after the first four chickens were born

New life – Four healthy chickens and 17 eggs still to hatch out ( Hen on the left is a Peking and hen on the right is a Silky)

Broody chooks will not only sit on their own eggs but also tend to gather other chooks eggs over the next 21 days. So when the original clutch of eggs hatch the chooks have to make the decision to look after the live ones or continue to sit on the remaining eggs until they hatch and hope the live ones can look after themselves.

Not surprisingly they chose life over potential life – sounds pragmatic to me

However humans have the capacity to help them do both and being big softies Michael and I chose this option.

Chicken eggs in incubator

Its pretty simple to do and very rewarding bringing new chickens into the world

Once they hatch they stay 24 hours in the incubator and then we move them to their next home

We use a plastic container like this and cover the bottom with pine shavings or in this case rice hulls

We supply them with fresh water and chick starter

and a light to keep them warm

Then we have to make the big decision as to when is the best time to give them back to their mums

By this time you are getting pretty attached and you tend to keep putting it off and putting it off

So by now the 2nd batch ( they are still hatching) are almost two weeks old and it was now or never

So we decided to put the first 5 out on dusk just as mothers and the chickens they were looking after had gone to bed.

We were very excited as you can see we managed to tuck “our” chickens under their mums with their brothers and sisters (B&S)

But it was a different thing next morning. The mums and B&S went off and did their own thing and left “our” chickens to their own devices.

But we are so proud of our offspring. They are resilient little champions. They have embraced the “chook palace” like they were born there.

Our cows are just fascinated by chooks

They have figured out how to get fed

and watered

They have gone on some big adventures

Climbed a rock face

In the meantime they are are not being completely ignored by their mothers and B&S who have walked by many times.

and are now staying very close by

With the silky chook keeping a very close eye on their activities. Tomorrow is another day and I wouldn’t be surprised if this silky chook has new family

In the meantime another chicken has hatched in the incubator !!!!!!

The humans should get their act together and collect the eggs more regularly and we wouldn’t need to play mums to other animal’s children would we??