Bruce Manintveld was raised on a dairy farm, but encouraged by his parents to seek a career outside the industry.
He started working in an off-farm role, but after a few years, Bruce decided to pursue his passion.
He gained a role as a dairy farm manager, then progressed, with his wife, Fiona Baker, to sharefarming.
“We got a good start in the industry, and the people we were sharefarming for were fantastic,” Fiona said.
When he was 30 years old, Bruce and Fiona purchased their own dairy farm, of 365 acres of undulating to steep country at Mirboo North. The dairy shed was a 28-a-side herringbone.
Bruce devised a system using the firefighting unit to pump airlocks out. He also installed new two-inch pipe around the farm.
“He came up with this system, but the dairy would thieve the water first, so when the cows got back to the paddock, the dairy would still be using the water, and the trough would run dry,” Fiona said.
“So then he put in a separate line to the dairy, and that seemed to fix the problem.”
Fiona said she thought Bruce [before he died] had agreed to install a header tank at the dam, to also improve the system.
Meanwhile, they also expanded their farm, first by leasing additional country, before finding an appropriate block.
“I think in the third year we were able to lease the next door farm which was 140 acres,” Fiona said.
“We farmed with that block for some years, and when it went on the market, we had a crack at buying it.”
The farm sold four days after it went on the market, and Fiona and Bruce continued to lease the property, from the new owner.
A few years ago, another neighbouring farm of 85 acres came on the market, at a time when it was timely for Fiona and Bruce to purchase it.
The two farms are dryland, and the now-total 450 acres was purchased and paid off well before Bruce turned 50.
“Our goal was to pay off the home farm in 10 years, and he did it in just shy of eight years,” Fiona said.
“He paid off the second farm in a year.”
Bruce’s focus was to grow most of the feed, and his pasture plan was to harvest 85 per cent of the farm’s fodder needs each year.
A contractor was used to harvest hay and silage.
“Bruce could grow grass in his sleep,” Fiona said.
“He was a big believer in using fertiliser, to keep the fertility high, so the grass had potential, and then using a lot of urea to push that extra growth.
“Anyone can grow feed in spring, but to get the production and the amount of grass we needed to support the number of cows we wanted to milk, Bruce had to physically be able to grow grass in summer, autumn and winter.
“We tried to do at least 85 per cent of home-grown feed.
“I think only twice we’ve had to buy in hay. One was, like, the first year we were here and somewhere in the middle of 20 years when it went really dry and we had to buy in a bit of hay.
“Otherwise, we only bought in grain. We tried to keep under a tonne of grain per cow per year.
“Bruce was always balancing growing grass with producing milk for a profit.
“Growing grass was a large component of earning the biggest amount of money in our pocket at the end of the day.”
The milking herd was predominantly Jersey.
“We were up to 355 milkers when Bruce died last year,” Fiona said.
“He was looking to put someone on for three or four days a week, so he decided to run more cows – increasing production to pay that person’s wage.
“We usually kept about 85 heifer calves each year, so that was 160-170 young stock running on the place.
“He was really pushing the place to support that number of cattle.”
The farm was also part of the Dairy Farm Monitor Project in Gippsland.
A collaboration between Agriculture Victoria and Dairy Australia, the Dairy Farm Monitor Project, in its 20th year in 2025, provides industry and government with farm-level data from the three dairy regions in Victoria.
That data is used to inform targeted strategy and decision-making.
“Our herd produced 750 kg/cow/year,” Fiona said.
“I reckon the cows averaged around 22-23 litres/day across the year.
“We tried as much as possible to run a grass-based system.
“If it looked like the autumn break was late, we’d dry off cows early. We calve in July, and normally start drying off in May, so we’d just dry them off a month or two earlier than normal. Give them a bigger break from milk production.
“And we spring-calved, trying to match production and animal health to the feed on offer in our region.”
If the season continued tight, Bruce would start to cull from the older cows, looking at their production figures and any health problems he had on record.
“But he didn’t like to sell cows if he could help it,” Fiona said.
“If cows were empty and they were drying themselves off, he’d sell them. But if they were milking through, he’d milk them through.
“But if they did skip another calving, he’d turf them out.
“But there were also times he knew he held on to cows for longer than he should have.”
Unfortunately, Bruce passed away, aged 50 years old, on February 13, 2024, during a storm at Mirboo North. He was bringing the cows to the dairy when he was killed.
Fiona has since sold the milking herd and replacement heifers and has struck a deal for selling the farm that involves a four-year lease-to-buy arrangement.
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