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Quality over quantity

With a breeding strategy that focuses on genetics and efficiency, Bill and Michelle Burgess of Te Poi are building a herd that’s raising the bar for performance.

Inside Dairy

5 min read

Farming under the Kaimai ranges, Bill and Michelle Burgess have a big love for Friesian cows that their children Sophie and Alex share.

Bill and Michelle Burgess had an eye-opening realisation when they produced the same with fewer cows.

They had reduced the herd by almost 14% in the 2014/15 season to save money on feed when the payout was low – and that was when “our cows really surprised us”, Michelle says.

“We’d expected we were going to lose production.”

But they didn’t, and it helped them fully understand the true power of genetics and efficiency – that having good quality cows, fed well, leads to good production and more isn’t necessarily better.

These days their cows produce 700kgMS, with an average liveweight of 550kg. By focusing on cost control, pasture management and strong herd performance, the Burgesses consistently rank in DairyBase’s top 20% for operating profit per hectare among farm owner-operators.

“We haven’t been chasing high production. We just think if we get all the animal health and nutrition right, the rest should fall into place,” Michelle says.

Farm facts

Location: Te Poi
Structure: Owner-operator
Effective area: 92ha
Herd size: 310 cows
System: 5
Production: 2,386kgMS/ha
Herd BW: 322/55
Herd PW: 327/71

She has been interested in genetics since she was young. Her parents, John and Maria Numan, were dairy farmers too and they had one of the first crossbreed bulls marketed by LIC – Numans Lord Nelson.

Michelle is on the external affairs committee for the New Zealand Holstein Friesian Association (NZHFA) and has been a member of the farmer advisory panel for NZ Animal Evaluation (NZAEL) for several years. She is also the founder of the Facebook group The NZ Dairy Genetics Network.

Their herd’s Breeding Worth (BW) sits in the top 10% for the country. Everything is DNA tested and parent verified and they register some cow families with the NZHFA.

They started with a crossbreed herd but they have been working towards a full F16 animal to match their goal of lower stocking rates with high per-cow efficiency.

They also find a Friesian herd gives them more options with their calves, especially as they are using more sexed semen on their top cows and beef semen on any cows they don’t want replacements from.

Bill and Michelle began building their herd in 2008 by buying 250 empty cows and sending them to grazing while contract milking for Peter and Tracey Thompson in Te Awamutu.

The empty cows got pregnant at grazing and the following season the couple began leasing a farm in Ruakura. They purchased more cows to reach 480 total.

“I’m pretty fussy so we bought good cows with good breeding, mostly from people retiring from farming,” Michelle says.

Michelle and Bill Burgess now mainly use imported genetics after introducing some in 2020, as shown with their in-calf R2 heifers.

After their first season, they increased cow numbers to 600 before increasing to over 700 two seasons later.

Since then, they have purchased their farm in Te Poi, near the Kaimai ranges, kept their top 320 cows and transitioned to autumn calving.

They changed to balance their lifestyle and to reduce stress dealing with pugging in winter and heat-stressed cows in summer.

Bill and Michelle aim for capacious, easy-care cows that don’t have many health troubles and have strong udders and good fertility. After challenges with udder longevity due to the high production, they looked to a wider gene pool.

“Even though we’d spent years nominating bulls with good udder traits, we were still finding a lot of cows were blowing their centre udder ligaments after two to four calvings, and their udders were no good after that,” Michelle says.

“So it was a big waste factor in our system. In 2020 we decided to try using some overseas Holstein genetics in our breeding programme.”

Burgess Alibi Pearl-ET S0F (BW 460/55, PW 578/56), one of the Burgesses’ pedigree cows photographed by CRV who have two of her full brothers.

They took a conservative approach initially, as Michelle was aware of the challenges of having overseas bulls recognised in the New Zealand genetic evaluation system. As they don’t typically have many daughters milking in NZ, there hasn’t been robust data to verify their breeding values (BVs) and accurately determine their BW.

She spent time learning to read international genetic data and translating it to NZ BVs and BW. However, NZAEL’s continuous improvements have led to better genetic information conversions for overseas bulls. Michelle has been impressed with the options available.

I’m very passionate. I can spend hours reading bull catalogues and playing with spreadsheets.

“The genetics companies now seem to be selecting bulls that are well suited to New Zealand farms. They’re moderately sized, not too big, efficient grazers and cope with our seasonal calving systems.”

Michelle enjoys exploring the range of bulls available to pick her team of four of five for the season.

“I’m very passionate. I can spend hours reading bull catalogues and playing with spreadsheets,” she laughs.

“Bill and I work together for any strategic decisions, but he leaves me to deal with the details when it comes to picking bulls.”

From a young age, Michelle Burgess has been passionate about dairy genetics, aiming for a moderately sized Friesian herd that’s efficient, healthy and long-lasting.

They lease a neighbouring support block to graze their youngstock, keeping up to 110 heifers each year. And they have a good market for surplus heifers and beef calves.

On the farm, pasture is their key focus. They keep a close eye on round lengths and residuals to ensure optimal use. The cows are on 24-hour grazing, going into a fresh paddock at night. After the morning milking, Michelle or their 2IC, Phillip Boshoff, checks the paddock to assess feed availability and coordinates with Bill to adjust the supplements as needed. They use the feedpad daily.

“Pasture comes first, and then, depending on pasture availability, we adjust what’s fed on the feedpad accordingly.”

“Early in our farming career, we would measure and analyse as much as possible, adjusting feed, changing stocking rates, drying off at different times, and as we’ve built our knowledge and skill.”

Towards the end of lactation and over the dry period when they don’t need as much grass, 20 hectares of the farm is planted in maize. They also grow 4.4ha of lucerne.

Bill spent years refining the herd’s diet, balancing cost and availability with the herd’s nutrient requirements. Now he has a simple process, using a base of maize with palm kernel expeller (PKE), molasses and, depending on the time of year, some soy hull, and lucerne in winter.

They also feed a couple of kilograms of dried distiller’s grains (DDG) through in-shed feeding, which helps cow flow.

“We use an automatic gate release so the herd come in before milking to the feedpad,” Bill says.

“They’ll have their feed then get milked and back to their paddock. It doesn’t take long to clean up afterwards too. We like to keep it simple,” Bill says.

“We never have any problems with body condition in our cows,” Michelle laughs.

Michelle doesn’t find any notable size differences between the cows with sires from overseas (blue tail paint) and the ones with New Zealand sires.

The love of cows seems to be flowing into their children Sophie and Alex, who are excited about Calf Club.

Bill and Michelle are proud of their herd and what they are achieving.

“I think it’s exciting times for the Friesian breed in New Zealand and look forward to seeing the evolution over the next wee while. Genetics is a continual process, always analysing the herd’s performance to see what’s working best.”

This article was originally published in Inside Dairy February-April 2025.

Page last updated:

28 Jan 2025


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