Farms trying out 18- and 24-month cycles are encouraged by the results.
The unstoppable milking performance of one of Basil Foy’s top cows was a prompt for him to consider the options to extend his whole herd’s lactation four years ago, making a big departure from the usual annual calving-mating cycle.
Basil and his wife Chrissy have farmed near Tokoroa for 28 years and are now entering their third 18-month extended lactation period with their 280-head herd.
The latest cycle has their herd now dried off, due to calve in March, then due to be mated later this year for a spring 2026 calving.
“We have Friesian cows that were doing 2.4kgMS a day and simply could not get back in calf a few weeks later, there was too much stress on them,” said Basil.
Production over the first three years of the new lactation period is up 40,000kgMS against the previous three conventional seasons, while empty rates are down from around 23% to 9%.
Having the cows hit their peak demand post-calving over winter does require some careful management.
“But once spring arrives, they have found opening up feed supplies sees them exceed 2kgMS per cow per day quite easily.
“And we have gone from using around 140 CIDRs to get them cycling to only five or six hormone (progesterone) treatments this year.
“When it comes to mating, they have already had seven or eight cycles and are less stressed. I would be consistently getting about 20 a day coming on heat.”
The couple said their contract milker finds the position more relaxing and enjoyable than a conventional June-June cycle. The improved in-calf rate also means they now have far more choice over which cows to keep and which to cull.
Robinson said reducing the stress point of mating so soon after calving is a key appeal of the approach, both for staff and for cows.
He said Chrissie and Basil’s move to 18-month lactation has enabled them to overcome the biggest spring hurdle they had regularly faced and capitalise on their ability to feed the herd well through later spring-summer.
Meantime further north in Gordonton, another farm Robinson is a trustee of has opted for a 24-month extended lactation. The herd is owned by Caleb Higham, Ben Fisher and Emma Gardiner, and is farmed on a property owned by Hukanui Charitable Trust.
The 230-head herd kicks off this coming season, with half the herd mated to calve this spring, and half to calve next spring. It means this spring’s calvers are not mated again until October 2026.
Gardiner said the decision to run a 24-month system comes in part from a desire to limit the stress on the farm manager, taking the peak out of calving season’s pressure.
“It also enables Ben, Caleb and myself to split our time 80/20 between our day jobs and the farm.”
Drafting out what are effectively two sub-herds from the main herd was a tricky task, requiring them to ensure they had a good mix of cows by age, PW and BW.
Given her professional field of genetics, Gardiner said one of her main concerns was the risk that those cows not mated next spring lose ground in genetic gain, effectively separating from their conventionally calved and mated peers.
“It could be we get to see a lactation persistency index become part of our evaluation system to allow for this,” she said.
She also anticipates there will be some cows that prove particularly suited to the extended system. She acknowledged DairyNZ’s help in setting their system up.
As dairy farmers try to optimise stronger payouts against lowered herd operating costs, Robinson said extended lactation could prove a better option than once-a-day milking, which can lead to significant production declines.
“If you can keep feeding cows 20kg plus dry matter right through, you have a good case to continue and not risk leaving valuable income behind.”
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