The principals of Wallacedale Jerseys were recently named among the inaugural group of Jersey Australia Master Breeders.
Luke and Mel Wallace are no longer milking cows, since they installed two automatic milking systems — or robots — on their dairy farm.
And a third AMS will be installed sooner rather than later, Mel said.
The journey to installing AMS has taken a lot of reflection to accomplish.
The herd of 160-170 cows grazes 78 hectares of steep country at Poowong North, with 36ha of lease country to raise young stock.
Another 20ha of leased country is used for harvesting fodder and running dry cows and young stock.
Cereal hay is bought in and fed out on the feedpad for the milking herd.
Luke was the main milker on the farm, milking twice a day seven-days-a-week, working alongside an employee who arrived for the morning shift six days a week.
“I was physically hurting, working every day in the herringbone dairy,” Luke said.
“I was in pain in my wrists and elbows from the repetitive action of milking and in my ankles, knees and hips from standing on concrete.”
The decision to invest in Lely Astronaut A5 milking systems was influenced by convenience.
“We went with Lely because there’s a big service team at Warragul, which is just down the road,” Mel said.
They had a new shed built, with three bays, and installed two AMS, which were commissioned and working from November 7, 2022.
“We had so much concrete going down that we decided we may as well build a bigger shed and have three bays built, for installing a future third robot milker,” Mel said.
“That third robot is likely to go in sooner rather than later.
“With two robots, 160 cows is our maximum number and it puts a lot of pressure on the system.
“After calving down this spring, we’ll have 170 cows going through it.”
The computerised system means a cow won’t be admitted to the milking area if there is less than six hours since she was last milked, or five hours if she is fresh-in-milk.
“Even for milking 160 cows, they won’t have to stand on concrete for as long if we have three robots,” Mel said.
“And if one of the robots is offline for maintenance, the herd will still be able to go through the other two.
“We can also use the third one to focus on training heifers.”
Because Luke and Mel have used automatic calf feeders for a few years, they noticed it is easier to train heifers to enter the AMS bays.
“In the automatic calf feeder, they are used to being enclosed to feed, so they don’t seem to be afraid to go into the robot,” Mel said.
The first four days using the AMS were extra challenging because of the weather conditions. It was November 2022 and a lot of rain had fallen, and was still falling, at Poowong North.
“We had to go on foot to collect the cows and heifers and bring them up,” Mel said.
“They didn’t like walking through the mud, and we didn’t like walking them through the mud.”
But Lely provided extra staff to help train the cattle, which helped Mel and Luke.
Luke and Mel had also transitioned the cows by putting up Texas gates and grazeways, including putting hay on the feed pad, to encourage the cows to walk through the new shed after they exited the herringbone dairy.
They also walked the cows through and fed them within the robot bays twice a day for a week, before start-up day.
It also helps the cows were used to being called into the dairy, so reconfiguring the entry setup was only a small thing for them to alter their behaviour.
After only a few days of encouragement, the cows were happily milking themselves.
For Luke, continuing to work as a dairy farmer was about identifying where his interests and passion lay.
That is in genetics, and breeding good Jersey cows and bulls.
All heifers and cows at Wallacedale Jerseys are AI’d, with 30 per cent of joinings with sexed semen. Conventional Jersey semen is used for the remaining 65 per cent of the herd, and five per cent are joined with conventional beef semen.
Jersey bulls follow AI with the heifers.
“We use sexed semen in the younger cows,” Luke said.
“We try to balance production and type traits as much as possible.”
Currently, Wallacedale Jerseys has three bulls standing with Genetics Australia, with semen exported to South Africa and New Zealand, and interest from Canada and the United States.
Wallacedale Jersey genetics are in high demand in Australia.
The herd ticks phenotype, production, polled, and A2/A2 targets.
“We always use some of our own bulls and some bulls that are outcross to our herd,” Luke said.
“Everything we breed is A2/A2.
“When we genomically test our heifer calves, we also test for A2.
“In our 2021 reduction sale, we sold almost every female that was not A2.”
A number of their cows are homozygous polled.
“We’re certainly trying to introduce the poll gene into our herd as much as possible, without trying to sacrifice other traits.
“At least 60 per cent of the calves in the shed this season are polled,” Luke said.
He and Mel are also conscious of animal welfare issues. They see horned cattle as a likely future animal welfare issue, which is only one of the reasons they prefer to breed polled Jerseys.
They raise male calves because they sell a lot of herd bulls, especially locally.
Using the AMS has improved other animal welfare issues.
“The cows don’t get teat end damage because the system is running on low vacuum,” Luke said.
“As a teat finishes being milked, the cup falls off, so they don’t get the teat damage of a conventional milking practice.
“Every time a cow is milked, you get information about every quarter — including the temperature, the colour of the milk and cell count.
“Sensors in the rubber picks up a hard spot or clot sooner than a person will.
“The sooner you can pick it up, the sooner you can treat her.
“The robot reduces the cost of treatment, minimises the risk of cross-contamination because the cups are sterilised between each cow.
“It also minimises the effect on production.”
Luke’s welfare is also improved in the short time since the AMS were installed.
His pain levels have reduced and he is spending more time with his family.
“Because he milked every day, he wasn’t able to have breakfast with us,” Mel said.
“Now he has breakfast with the kids before they go to school.
“We’re also able to do things off the farm, like spend two days talking to people at the South Gippsland Dairy Expo.”
Their farm worker has switched from milking to other farm work.
Luke said he checks the whiteboard for what jobs needed to be done and goes about his day independently.
Luke is able to concentrate on maintenance tasks about the farm, and on the health and breeding of his Jersey cattle.
Mel continues to raise the calves.