Calves at a dairy farm in Darfield in early spring. Photo: RNZ/Monique Steele
Strong gusts and rain tear down the Southern Alps at the turn of springtime, lashing Darfield's Emerald Acres dairy farm on the notoriously flat Canterbury plains.
Farm co-owner Dan Schat escaped winds gusting up to 87 km/h and rain with an indoor paperwork day, while his new season calves found repose in their hay-filled cow shed with milk on tap.
Based in the Selwyn District between Darfield and Sheffield, bordering the Waimakariri River, he says they farm to the conditions as best they can.
"If you can imagine a big gap in the mountains where the winds can get through, we're right in that gap. We sit in the wind path of the [Waimakariri] Gorge, so it's basically where we'll cop any big wind, as it is out there a little bit today."
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From the calves produced this new milk season, the females will be reared as replacements, while the boys will be raised for breeding contracts with breeding firms LIC (Livestock Improvement Corporation) or CRV, Schat said.
Schat usually runs about 380 mostly Holstein-Friesians, a few Jerseys and cross-breeds across 103-hectares of the family farm he shares with wife Amanda and their two daughters.
He says it's not been the best start to calving this year due to the cold.
"Calving, like every calving season, I think a few wins and a few losses," he tells Country Life.
"It's just been cold this year. A week of frosts last week has certainly made it challenging for the grass to want to get up and grow.
"So we're sort of running a bit behind last season at the moment, but we've hopefully been setting the cows up well enough."
Synlait A2 dairy farmer Dan Schat at his Emerald Acres dairy farm in Darfield with new season calves. Photo: RNZ/Monique Steele
The farm utilises Allflex collars, a type of wearable technology designed for livestock, to monitor the cattle's ruminations.
"[It's] doing everything that you can do to try and get the cows set up right, so that when the flush of grass and the temperature does come, the cows will just take off.
"So keeping them full now and minimising their body condition loss is the key. But yeah, every year is different and you've just got to roll with the punches to be fair."
Milk from Schat's farm, all A2, is supplied to Dunsandel-based processor Synlait, where it its turned into infant formula for the Chinese market.
A2 milk lacks the A1 type of protein commonly found in other milks, which makes it more easily digestible. It comes with an added premium for Schat.
"It's worth having that little bit of extra value for us."
Young bobby calves at a Darfield dairy farm drinking from a robotic milker. Photo: RNZ/Monique Steele
He also got a premium last season being part of Synlait's Lead with Pride programme, which incentivises farmers to meet high standards around the environment, animal health and welfare, milk quality and social responsibility.
Schat says farmers like himself are working very hard on initiatives to improve the environmental impacts of farming.
"Farming quite often cops it a wee bit sometimes for having the environmental impacts," he says.
"But a lot of us - and I'll include ourselves in that - we're actually trying really hard to do a better job of things. We're using better fertiliser practices, better effluent practices.
"Sure, we can all learn and try and do it better, not doubting that. But I think if the average New Zealander knew the efforts farmers were putting in to protect the waterways, do better with the soil health .... I think they'd be happily surprised."
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