Peter Young consolidated his assets this year, when he bought the last piece of the family farm from his parents.

Now he’s looking forward to a future in dairy as a sole owner.

Peter’s dairy farm at Buffalo, in South Gippsland, has a mixed herd of Swedish Red, Jersey and Friesian cattle. Herd numbers peak at 320, in a split-calving system.

AI enables him to join Swedish Red to Swedish Red, Jersey to Jersey and Friesian to Friesian, and he uses this as a tool to track milk production.

“Joining the cows by AI and type with type enables me to assess milk production against cow families,” he said.

Peter also has a small herd of Highland bulls. For the past three years he has used the Highland bulls for joining to his heifers.

“I was using Angus, but I get smaller calves from the Highland bulls, and there’s a keen market for the calves among small landholders around here,” he said.

“The first year I put Highland bulls in with the heifers, only three of them were empty. They have a very good conception rate.

“The woman who breeds the bulls produces quiet cattle, which suits me too, because my cows are quiet.”

He also uses the Highland bulls as mop-up bulls for the spring-calving cows but carries autumn-calving cows through if they scan empty after AI.

The milking platform is 115ha, with two turnout blocks of 46ha and 40ha respectively, with 10ha of bush that is fenced and protected.

The farm is in a very high rainfall district, close to 900mm, and soil type is shallow dark topsoil over white clay on a mix of flat and undulating country.

“So the soil retains a lot of water and makes the farm waterlogged. There are no dry paddocks when it’s raining,” Peter said.

Peter spent 11 years working for his parents, including completing a dairy apprenticeship. He also undertook a financial skills course and a dairy farm management course, both of which he recommends.

During that time he began leasing paddocks and investing in assets by building his milking herd numbers and buying machinery.

He began buying the farm with the purchase of one title financed by a bank loan and leasing some of the farm from his parents, followed by vendor terms for more of the property — that included the milking infrastructure, which enabled him to begin improving it. At the start of this financial year, he took on ownership of the entire farm.

He employs two permanent part-time milkers and one permanent full-time milker.

In the past year, Peter has invested in a new concrete pad around the dairy shed. It includes a pregnancy testing area, which will soon be undercover. He has also invested in a non-slip concrete walking and standing area for the cows.

Three years ago, fed up with dealing with successive power outages, he invested in a second-hand generator that hooks up to his tractor and keeps the dairy working.

“It’s off a rotary dairy and I can run it for 14 hours a day to ensure the dairy is still working,” Peter said.

“It also powers the milk vat, chiller, electric fences and water pumps, and one of the houses.

“There are very few dairies on this line now, so it always seems a fault is a low priority for repair.”

Peter has had to use it for up to a week at a time, because local storms have brought the power grid system to a standstill.

Milking numbers are down to 260 cows, from a peak of 320. Peak production is 450kg MS/cow, but is down to 300kg MS/cow because of wet weather conditions.

When the 20-swingover herringbone dairy with automatic cup removers was installed, the old dairy was deconstructed but the roof, walls and floor were retained. This area now provides an undercover area for the cows to gather while they wait to be milked.

A wet winter and spring last year, followed by a dry autumn and wet winter this year, have seen Peter feed out more hay and silage than usual, because the wet weather conditions have reduced grass cover in the paddocks.

“I normally feed from April, but I’ve been feeding silage since before Christmas last year.”

Having fed out the hay harvested in 2020 and the silage harvested in 2021, he is chasing hay for his cows.

Grazing rotation has been affected by this year’s wet and cold conditions. Optimally it is 30 days grazing rotation, but Peter has had to push it out to 60 days this and last year.

“I’ve needed to keep the cattle moving because the ground is so boggy,” he said.

“They go onto fresh grass every time they’re milked.”

Peter uses the effluent slurry to provide a high fertility input to push pasture growth along. Every six months he mixes Bio-K into the effluent pond using an agitator and, after the bacterial processes are completed, he uses a Muckrunner to spread the slurry.

He also mixes Watchet-Gro with gibberellic acid and it’s applied to his pastures six monthly, via a boom.

These applications replace what was a traditional high input system.

“The effluent replaces urea,” Peter said.

“This is naturally acidic soil, and I do a soil test every year to help prescribe the application of both mixes.

“I also apply lime every year, where it’s needed to get the pH right.”