Driscoll Dairies Ltd, Central Southland

Strategy

• Operate a farm business that has security, resilience and delivers a work life balance.
• Have a system that emphasises practicality, performance, and long-term sustainability, with clear evidence based reasoning behind each strategic decision.
• Have a good management team outside of the farm such as bankers/accountants and consultants and utilise their expertise.

Financial

• Prepare own budgets, review, update regularly so always aware of financial position and can take advantage of opportunities as they arise.
• Budgets are prepared on a realistic basis, in particular they are very conservative on cull cow sales which provides a buffer in the budget.
• Some short-term financial distortion is expected while systems transition.

Farm System

The farming system described is undergoing a period of structured development. Key focus areas include:

• Integration of the new 40 ha dry stock block with appropriate financial enterprise coding to keep it separate from the two dairy units.
• Disciplined pasture renewal programme
• Adoption of bale grazing to enhance stock health and environmental outcomes
• Strong replacement stock numbers supporting herd performance

Infrastructure

• 50 bale rotary (14 years old)
• Longest walk from the dairy shed to the most distant paddock is 1.5 km. 
• Well tiled flat farm.
• Good races, water supply infrastructure and supporting farm buildings.
• Milking platform is supported by an adjacent 37 ha support block that is owned, plus a 20 ha rolling hill lease a short distance away.   

 Farm system

• The farm operates a high feed input system with concentrates fed all year, with a stocking rate of 3.1-3.2 cows/ha.
• Some baleage from the support block is brought on to the milking area.
• Pasture utilisation is the priority, so the amount of in shed feeding varies depending on pasture availability. 
• Pasture harvested is about 13-13.5 t DM/ha. 2024-25 season with a very wet spring was only 12.5 tDM/ha.
• All cows are wintered off for up to 10 weeks.
• All young stock are grazed off from weaning, on support blocks or externally (dry stock block)
• Planned start of calving for MA cows is August 10th.
• Use a spring rotation planner to manage pasture and supplement allocation for the first grazing round, (about 20th September).
• Rotation length of 23-24 days is planned through until February then it is extended out through the autumn.
• Aim for a high daily per cow peak and plan to maintain that higher level for the majority of the season. 
• Daily per cow at the peak (late October 2025) was 2.4 kgMS/cow/day. Late December per cow was 1.96 kgMS/ha.
• Drying off is in late May, early June depending of weather, feed supply and cow condition.

• Farm pH ranges from 5.7 to 6.1, Olsen P ranges from 21 to 44.
• Fertiliser is applied as per soil test recommendations and is largely maintenance only. 
• The farm has 43% of the milking area under effluent irrigation. 
• Total N applied is budgeted for about 130 kg N/ha.
• Nitrogen applied is Ammo 31 in the early spring and N-Protect for the rest of the season. 

Supplements

• Milking cows are fed a very simple in-shed blend of crushed grain, PKE and DDG with minerals added. About 850-900 kgDM/cow per year is budgeted for.
• About 1200 bales of baleage (270 kgDM bales), are made, (mainly on the support block), or purchased and are used predominantly for wintering and for the colostrum cows.  About 120 kgDM/cow are retained for the milkers later in the season and at drying off.
• There is a no silage system on farm as baleage is easier to manage, store and feed out as there is no off paddock feeding infrastructure in place for silage.

Pasture renovation

• Adopt a 10–15% annual regrassing programme, following farm consultant advice, with 10% regrassed annually, plus an additional 5%, aiming for 30% renewal over two years.
• Regrassing includes a mix of permanent pastures, grass to grass renewal for non-permanent areas using some “diploid” pasture mixes depending on paddock history
• The strategy is aimed at improving long term consistency and performance.

Cropping & Wintering System

• On the 37 ha adjacent support block there is 12.5 ha of winter crop area with baleage for 280 MA cows for up to 10 weeks.
• The balance of the MA cows, (290), plus 130 in calf heifers will be wintered at the new dry stock block for up to 10 weeks.
• Cows will return to the milking platform in batches as the near calving and will be grazed on the 3-4 ha of fodder beet (with baleage). 
• In the spring, the winter crop area on the milking platform will be regrassed with permanent pasture plus an additional 20 ha will be regrassed, (grass to grass).
• Crop for the next seasons wintering will also be planted, 12-13 ha on the support block and 3-4 ha of fodder beet on the milking area.
• The cropping and regrassing programme means that in the last spring there is potentially 26-28 ha or 12-13% of the milking area out of the grazing rotation.  This helps to control the spring surpluses.

Animal health

• Proactive approach, so metabolic issues are not a problem.
• MgCl and basic minerals through dosatron all year with selenium in spring through to Christmas. 
• Farm specific anionic salts are supplied to springers with Mag sulphate and gypsum. 
• Milkers and colostrums get MgO and limeflour through dispenser via in shed feeding and PKE trailer. 
• The whole herd is treated with dry cow therapy.
• Average SCC is usually below 120,000. 2024-25 season with the wet spring, it was 161,000.

Breeding and replacements

• 675 Friesian cows, aim for 20-22% replacement rate into the herd each year.
• Manage variability in heifer calf numbers born by rearing all replacement calves and selling the surplus as in calf heifers. The business has the flexibility to be able to do this with the support land and dry stock block.
• All calves, (about 200 replacements and 100 bull calves), are reared on auto feeders using milk powder and fresh colostrum, plus meal.  Calf rearing costs are over $0.30/kgMS but the system is easy to operate and has a lower labour requirement, and calves achieve weaning weights earlier than traditional methods.
• Calves leave the farm at weaning.
• The mating period for the herd is 9-10 week - all AB, no synchrony used. 
• Semen used is Friesian or Jersey depending on the size of the cow.
•  Larger cows are bred back to Jersey to make sure cow size does not get too big. 
• All semen used for replacements is polled.
• Have cow manager which helps with heat detection and identifying which cows to scan, (those identified or suspected to be empty).
• Usually end up scanning about 10% of the herd. Do not mate any definite culls. 
• Empty rate for 2025-26, (based only on cows mated), is 8.7%. 
• Lease 14 Jersey bulls for the heifers. 
• Herd is herd tested four times per year.

• Home Farm has 3 FTE: Farm manager, one 2IC and 1 farm assistant.  A relief milking service is used to cover all staff time off.
• Big emphasis on recruitment and finding the right people.
• Have good day to day communications systems with the farm team via a WhatsApp group.
• Take time to mentor, challenge and support staff in terms of key farm system decisions to provide an environment that encourages growth in farming skills.
• Have a work culture that delivers very low staff turnover.