Alastair Steel has a 190-cow mixed breed herd near Marlo, milking off 120 hectares of Snowy River flat country.
He has installed four Lely automated milking machines — commissioned in January, 2021 — after 15 years of using an old 28-bail rotary dairy.
“If I hadn’t gone to the robot milking machines, I would’ve got out of the dairy industry,” Alastair said.
“I wouldn’t have installed another rotary to replace the old one.
“I look for technology to help me be a better dairy farmer.”
Much as he enjoys working in the dairy industry, Alastair said he was not a fan of milking. When he and his wife Mandy Steel bought and moved onto the farm 17 years ago, the first innovation Alastair installed was automatic cup removers.
“Installing automatic cup removers immediately took one person out of the milking shed,” he said.
“That was me. I was the one who stopped working in the milking shed.”
He has been using four automated Holm & Laue calf feeders for the past 10 years, bought second hand.
Calves are fed in the shed for 70 days, with ad lib access to grain, fresh water and grazing in the paddock. Weaning begins at 50 days.
The total farm size is 283ha, but 162ha of that land has been inundated by heavy rain and floodwater for more than 18 months.
The grazing pressure has caused Alastair to continue to feed silage throughout the year to his herd. Normally he would only feed out during winter.
He is also trying to rebuild his milking herd after drought broke in 2020. He kept all his heifers over successive years and is still bringing them into the milking herd.
He said he would continue to keep all his heifers each year.
“Next year in May I’ll join about 70 heifers to Jersey bulls.
“I should have close to 300 milkers by autumn 2024.”
The capacity of his four-bay Lely system is 320 cows.
Only heifers are joined to bulls. The milking herd is in-calf through artificial insemination, using a mixture of New Zealand genetics.
The size of the bails in the original rotary shed dictated the size of the cows Alastair milks. It was also a factor in his thinking to buy the Lely Astronaut A5.
“The rotary was so small, I didn’t want a big animal,” he said.
“I like a medium-sized cow and I prefer to use semen from Jersey-Friesian crossbreds, imported from New Zealand.
“I like crossbred cattle. The milking herd is Jersey, Friesian and crossbred cows.
“At the start of September, they were producing 20 litres/cow/day. Three weeks later, the herd is producing 26 litres/cow/day, on grass, pasture silage and four to eight kilograms of grain, depending on milk production.
“One of my cows is doing 50kg/day of milk solids.
“It’s amazing how a bit of fresh pick in the paddock improves their production.
“At the moment, our protein level is higher than butterfat because of the amount of green grass.”
Alastair, who supplies his milk to Bega Cheese, follows organic principles in animal and pasture management.
“I can’t remember the last time I had to treat a cow for mastitis.”
The pasture — which used to be lucerne, clovers, rye-grass, chicory and plantain — was last over-sown more than four years ago. Clovers and rye-grass dominate the paddocks, with a naturally regenerating chicory.
Between 6ha and 20ha of maize is sown each year, harvested as cut silage.
Alastair applies gypsum at a rate of 250 to 300kg/ha. Calcium, sulphur and potassium are applied according to identified deficiencies indicated through regular soil tests. He has been a fan of applying calcium nitrate in liquid form, with deconstructed seaweed and fish.
The most recent soil tests identified molybdenum was lower since the drought.
“We bought the farm based on soil tests we did 17 years ago. Phosphorous levels were good and still are,” Alastair said.
“I look for worms and ladybirds and other beneficials in the soil. I feed the soil to encourage the biology.”
Alastair uses a mixture of molasses, seaweed and fish emulsion at a rate of five litres of concentrate mixed into effluent water — applied as a foliar application at 467 litres/ha. He will apply the foliar application at least twice a year, but expects to do it more often, particularly to fill a winter feed gap.
He recently purchased a Tow and Fert to improve foliar application and will broadcast plantain and rye-grass seeds mixed with the liquid fertiliser.
“It will be a change-maker for my system.”