As a young couple in their mid 20’s without any family farming background, 2018 Taranaki Share Farmer of the Year winners Owen Clegg and Hollie Wham had a simple formula for acquiring a 180 cow Friesian cross herd.
“Pretty much all we’ve done is saved, saved, saved,” Owen says. Owen and Hollie are in their second year 50:50 sharemilking for Murray and Edna Saxton on 74 hectares/56ha effective at Manutahi, near Hawera, Taranaki.
While it is a small herd by today’s measures, Owen see advantages in their modest start. “We see a lot of of big farmers out there with a lot of staff and they have a lot of issues.
“Although we have experience on big farms, while we are still quite young we want to develop ourselves more before we put ourselves under the pressure that big farms can give.”
After gaining bank approval, they went herd shopping with the help of a few livestock agents.
“We looked at about 10 herds and ended up finding one in the Waikato that we liked and bought them home.” They initially bought 134 mixed-age cows and 40 heifers.
The herd had a three digit LIC herd code which means it was reasonably long-established; newer herds have a four digit code.
“It was always a goal to buy a herd with good genetics, even if we had to wait another year.” Last season the herd produced 73,383kgMS, about 429kgMS per cow.
Because of this year’s extreme wet, plus the summer drought, total production for this season is expected to be about 69,000kgMS. Sixteen hour milking was introduced midDecember.
“In terms of production the cows never really dropped from twice a day. We made that decision early enough that it didn’t really affect the cows and they’ve come out of it in good condition for calving next season.”
“I think, as a management tool in the future, it’s something for us to definitely think about, with us being in drier country for the summer periods.” The farm runs a Dairy NZ system 3 operation and is supported by a 10ha run-off block at Patea on which grass silage and hay is grown.
Some maize will be grown there next season too, as well as on the milking platform. Palm kernel is purchased as required.
Owen and Hollie’s share of the farm’s working expenses last season was $1.57, a figure which they are happy with and which they aim to keep to as closely as possible, taking into account seasonal variations.
Owen runs the farm mostly sole charge, while Hollie works off-farm for a veterinarian clinic during dry cow and teat sealing season, as well as relief milking, calf rearing, working on a sheep and beef farm seasonally, and helping Owen when needed, especially during spring.
She has an agri-business diploma through Primary ITO, knowledge which is extremely useful in tracking and analysing their business data, in addition to helping focus on their goals.
“We’ve both got a picture of where we want to head. The ultimate goal is to own our own dairy farm.”
Hollie says competing in the Taranaki Share Farmer of the Year award was a big learning curve, but her tertiary study created greater confidence through the process.
“It would be the finance side of it that’s helped me the most, I would say.” She was “pretty bloody stoked” about the win.
She is not one to sit still and enjoys the variety of her work, while the additional knowledge she acquires along the way is useful on the couple’s own farm, as well as spreading risk from having two separate income streams.
‘All we’ve done is save, save, save’
