Use this calculator to work out your productivity in kg MS per hour worked.

Composting is an effective way to dispose of dead stock while creating a useful product and minimising the potential for groundwater contamination. If managed well, composting can be low cost and relatively odour free.

Switching to full-season once-a-day (OAD) milking is a practice considered by many dairy farmers, especially in New Zealand.

Grass silage is pickled pasture, preserved through the conversion of its sugars into lactic acid by bacteria. This process extends the shelf life of the pasture beyond what it would have if exposed to open air.

Disbudding is the process of removing a calf's horns between one to six weeks old. This prevents injuries to both the farm team and other animals.

Irrigation systems require suitable application depth, rate, and return periods to meet soil, plant, and climate needs. This page encourages evaluating your system against its design specifications to find potential improvements.

Understand the power of setting clear, meaningful goals for your dairy farm business and personal life. It starts with finding your focus areas, like health or pasture management, where you want to concentrate your efforts.

Lucerne is a perennial legume with a deep taproot, allowing it to tolerate moisture stress more than most pasture species. In NZ, most cultivars are winter dormant, but some newer ones grow earlier in spring and later in autumn.

Backing gates are tools used in the dairy yard to improve cow flow into the dairy, leading to more efficient milking. Moving the gate little and often takes up space in the yard, while still providing cows enough room is important.

Learn about teat preparation and spraying basics and how washing keeps milk quality high, prevents damage, and reduces mastitis. Discover handy tips like strategic washing, proper drying, and avoiding bulk washing.

Paddocks damaged by pugging and wet weather can be managed with simple strategies but more extensive damage may require pasture renewal.

Bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) is a widespread disease impacting around 80% of New Zealand's dairy and beef herds, causing losses in reproduction, increased disease, and reduced growth and milk production.

Succession planning is the process of transferring farm assets, knowledge, and skills to the next generation.

Establishing a successful sharemilking or contract milking relationship requires thorough due diligence. Understand your own situation, including goals, values, financial standing, and farming practices.

Renewing pasture is crucial for maintaining healthy dairy farms, and there are four primary methods to consider: cultivation, spray-drilling, undersowing, and oversowing.

Managing high-quality pasture during feed surplus periods is a crucial skill in pasture management. This page explains that pasture surplus often develops in spring, which if unmanaged, can lead to low-quality pasture affecting milk production.

The nature and scale of many dairy farming businesses is changing and there are many self-employed business opportunities available for individuals and partnerships.

Keeping your milking system clean and safe is an essential part of maintaining your farm successfully. The cleanliness of the milking system and the dairy is critical, so understanding your systems and the processes to cleaning is very important.

Flexible milking is a term for milking practices that fall between the traditional once-a-day (OAD) or twice-a-day (TAD) milking.