The old saying about making hay while the sun shines certainly applies to Jon Hooper’s farm at Panmure.Buoyed by good conditions and a decent price, Jon is not only making record amounts of hay, he has been investing in the future, making sure he’s doing the heavy lifting early in his dairying career.New dairy machines, feed mill, chiller and solar system are making the farm more efficient and saving on energy costs.Jon and his wife Kayla and their four young children have been on the farm for three years, and have leased it from his parents Michael and Geraldine for the past 18 months.The family farm at Nullawarre is run by Jon’s brother Nathan. Jon worked there for a while before his parents bought a second smaller farm at Garvoc. Jon and Kayla moved there about nine years ago but soon outgrew the site.They started with 200 cows at Garvoc but have since grown the herd to 500. They have also leased a neighbouring property, effectively doubling the 150-hectare home farm.The herd is about 80 per cent Friesian and 20 per cent Jersey crossbreds, but Jon is aiming to eliminate the crosses.“Since we’ve been here, I’m trying to go back to all Friesians to sell heifers for export,” he said.“It’s a little bit extra so we want to keep going. You might have to wait a few years for orders for crossbreds but the Friesians are in demand.”The farm is a mix of stony barriers and river flats around Mt Emu Creek.It’s good land; the stony country stays dry in the winter and the flats grow well past Christmas and Jon is confident he can grow the herd to a comfortable 550.This year he’s full of confidence.
“It has been an unbelievable year; the best season since I’ve been milking cows.“We always try to grow as much grass as we can; this year it stayed green all year and once it started raining it’s growing even more.”Production is matching last year’s record of about 540kg MS, with volumes continuing to increase with the influx of more Friesians.While building cow numbers, Jon reverted to split calving, though he has now returned to his usual autumn calvers, starting in March for 12 weeks.“I used split calving to build numbers, calving them down in September, but now that I’m getting good calves and good numbers, I’ve gone away from that,” he said.Last year he used sexed semen first time and has returned to the same system this year as he aims to breed enough Friesian heifers for replacements and to wean the crossbreds out.The in-calf rates were better than expected.
“We got about 60 per cent when they say 50 per cent is usually pretty good,” Jon said.
“It was our first year so we weighed them all and made sure they were big enough and we did everything by the book, plus it was a really good season with plenty of grass around and good feed all the way through.”While building numbers, Jon has invested in his dairy, starting with a 40kW solar system on the roof that has created significant energy savings, down 18 per cent on last year.The 50-unit rotary is nearly 20 years old and still going well, but Jon has made several recent upgrades to improve efficiency.New DMS machinery installed by Dave’s Dairy Service, who built the original dairy, will help to reduce the labour needed for milking.“I want to get back to having one in the dairy and the tension bars, teat-sprays and cup removers will allow that,” Jon said.
“We have two full-time workers and this will give us extra time to get up to speed with everything else. It will probably save an hour-and-a-half each milking so someone can go off and feed out or do other jobs.“It’s good to take a bit of stress out of the busy time. For a couple of months when the cows are calving, two workers are probably not enough.”The new feed mill installed by 360 Dairy Solutions will create cost savings.
“We were just feeding pellets and they’re a bit expensive so this will cut some costs. Instead of feeding 6kg of pellets we are now feeding 3kg of pellets and 3kg of crushed barley, saving us $100 a tonne.”A new chiller for the milk vat was installed about six months ago with variable speed that cuts down energy costs.“It’s all come at once but I’m trying to get it to where I want it now and get the benefits from it for the next 15 or 20 years, rather than wait until things are worn out,” Jon said.“There’s no better time to be in the dairy industry.
“Everything is good at the moment, so while you’re making money you should invest in things that will make your life easier and be more efficient.”The efficiencies help with Jon and Kayla’s family commitments with their children Stella, Evie, Pippa and Nellie aged from nine months to five years old.“I’m a diesel mechanic by trade but I came home to the farm because I wanted my kids to grow up the same way I did,” Jon said.