A South Taranaki farmer believes that to have high producing cows, they must have been fully-fed and well-grown as young stock.

Stefan Buhler has once again topped the Nutritech Performance Awards run by Holstein Friesian NZ, making it three in a row.

He and partner Amanda Linders milk 260 cows on their 80 hectare, System 5, Manaia farm, Buelin Holsteins. They also have two (25ha and 30ha) runoffs.

Buhler believes that what happens in a calf’s early life carries through to its milking performance.

The herd has a reputation for record-breaking production.

The farm’s 2400-2500kg MS per hectare average is also a personal record.

They aim to produce 750kg milk solids per cow as a minimum, and usually average around 760-770kg. According to DairyNZ the 2020-21 national average is 398kg MS. Some cows regularly produce more than 1000kg MS.

Achieving such high milk production hasn’t happened overnight. Buhler has been on a quest throughout his farming life to discover the amount of production that can be achieved from the New Zealand dairy cow.

His love of farming began at an early age. One of six children, every day he and his three brothers would divide up the lounge floor into four little farms.

“The first person to set up the farms got the best one. The worst farm was the one in front of the television because you were always getting told to get out of the way. But that’s when my love of farming began,” he says.

“We brothers would always squabble over who would help dad feed the calves. Often dad just gave up and told us all to come. It was a real privilege to go through the ranks and get to the age where you could hold the lids of the old cream cans that dad used to feed the calves.

“The ultimate farm job was to be allowed to drive the tractor.”

He left school to work on his parents’ main farm for two years, then began 39% sharemilking on one of their small farms.

When he was 21 he was approached to be a 50:50 sharemilker on a 40ha Otakeho farm, milking 160 Jersey cows. They were beautiful cows and he ended up buying the herd and remained on that farm for six years.

He 50:50 sharemilked on a 65ha Auroa farm for a further five years before buying an 80ha Awatuna farm at the foot of Mount Taranaki. He put managers on that property and stayed milking on the Auroa farm.

“After five years sharemilking I knew it was time to move to the new farm. The land was harder up there and it was far wetter and colder. The Awatuna farm was the same size as my current one, but could only milk 220 cows whereas I can milk 280 here.

“I worked that farm for seven years and one day I said to myself ‘I don’t enjoy this anymore. I’m either going to give up farming, or instead of buying a bigger farm, I’ll buy a better one’.”

His parents owned two adjoining 40.5ha farms, with dairy heifers on one and 50:50 sharemilkers on the other. They wanted to move to town and asked him to make them an offer for both farms. He bought them at market value to run as a single dairy farm.

That summer he employed a worker to help milk on the Awatuna farm and with converting the two farms. This allowed him to continue working on the conversion and was a major factor in getting that farm converted on time.

He was fortunate to be able to begin the conversion during autumn and pulled out every fence, hedge except the boundaries, race and water pipe.

He could put the fences in during summer, but had to wait until the May 1 to start the remainder of the work. Halfway through he began to wonder why he was doing all the work and maybe should’ve just run heifers instead.

“I continually doubted myself. I’d already converted one farm so knew how hard it was, and here I was doing it again. But I always knew that when finished, everything would be exactly how I wanted it to be.

“It’s amazing what can be achieved when your contractors have the same vision as your and step up and go the extra mile.”

Neither of the farm’s two 14 a side herringbone sheds were suitable for the 280 cow herd on the combined farms, so a 44-bail rotary cowshed with ACR, in-shed feeding and a Protrack system was built, but delays meant that it wasn’t operational until December. He’s been tempted to use collars and understands their benefits, but is holding off at this stage.

“It was a headache milking through one small shed. I’d employed a worker and we milked a herd of 140 cows each. Each milking took three-and-a-half hours, which tired the cows and they often sat down in the yard. It was a very stressful time.”

The new farm was producing around 420kg MS per cow, which was similar to his previous Awatuna farm. Even with a new cowshed and in-shed feeding he could reach 460kg MS, but not the 500kg MS per cow he was aiming for. He couldn’t understand why he couldn’t achieve higher production, even though he was sure his cows were capable of doing it. A chance encounter changed his way of thinking.

“I bumped into an old boss who said that I wasn’t setting my sights high enough, and that if I aimed for 600kg MS, I would easily reach 500kg. He told me that any horse can run a race, but if you want it to win, you must give it the best feed.

“It got me thinking how I could achieve that. I decided to build a feed pad and haven’t looked back since. We have quite tough summers and I needed to learn how to farm them too.”

His cows must be fully fed to achieve their high production, and the feedpad is an important component for that. It’s used every day to some degree, except to a lesser extent during summer when silage is fed out in the paddock.

He never goes above a 25 day round, even in late autumn because he uses the feed pad to manipulate feed quantities. It’s only increased when the cows are being dried off in small groups, or at the start of calving. When the spring grass is growing strongly the round drops to 18-20 days. Any surplus grass is harvested as baleage in front of the cows.

Topping plays a big part in his pasture management to ensure high quality pasture. He tops the paddocks in front of the cows from early September to the January 1. The main reason he tops is to make it easier for the cows to hoover up the grass.

If he sees a paddock with a surplus of grass he’ll mow it, often mowing up to four paddocks ahead of the cows, and gets the contractor in to bale three of those paddocks.

“A cow can eat far more grass if she doesn’t have to rip it up, and by topping I can get a lot more food into them. The analogy I use is; that two people have a wheelbarrow each, and one has to rip the grass up to fill it up and the other simply picks up the pre-mown grass. The person picking up the cut grass would do it much faster and be far less tired.

“It’s a really simple concept. A cow can only do a certain number of bites. So I can get more food into a cow, in a far shorter period of time, because she does fewer bites and doesn’t get tired. She also has more time for rumination.”

The runoffs play a major part in achieving his high MS production per hectare. Anything harvested from them is food that doesn’t have to be bought, and makes the farm more self-contained.

About 11ha of maize and 22-24ha of grass silage are harvested from the runoffs and approximately 9ha in front of the cows on the day the runoffs are harvested. A further 3ha of maize is harvested from the dairy farm.

“Silage is my summer milking feed for the dry period. Cows don’t milk well on just maize, they need protein. So we make good quality silage for them. We’re a System 5 farm but strive to grow as much as possible from the farm and runoff and are self-sufficient in grass and maize silage.”

Maize silage mixed with DDG, PKE and molasses is fed on the feed pad. Currently the in-shed feed is made up of 3.5kg per day of a 50/50 blend of DDG and soya meal.

Every farmer has a different way of doing things and Buhler always stresses that his method is what works for him, for his particular situation.

He emphasises the need to consistently feed high quality food to your cows every day, including summer, because if you inadvertently drop the ball you never recover that production. And having cows capable of achieving high production helps along with knowledge and good management.

Effluent is spread over all 26 paddocks, which reduces fertiliser use.

“In the years that we’ve been using the feed pad and bringing silage and maize home from the runoffs, we’ve put so much food through the cows that it’s given the farm a great deal of fertility.”

He prefers his cows to be 600kg. If he milked a smaller cow he would need to milk more cows, regardless of the breed, to achieve the same production. This would only increase his workload.

“The amount of milk solids a Friesian cow can produce is pretty incredible. I’m yet to see the limit of what breeding can give me, and I’m sure I haven’t reached the limit.”

The 25ha runoff is used to run the yearlings until November when the calves go there. The 30ha runoff is used for the yearlings from the November 1 before returning as in-calf heifers in mid-May, before 135 winter cows are moved on.

Calving begins on July 1 for the main herd and the heifers traditionally began calving on June 22 but the date has been brought back to the middle of July due to the last two springs being so wet. It’s been too tough calving that early, and he would rather milk longer towards the end of the season.

The farm has a 12-13 week calving season and the last cows calve around the first week of October. The last cows still come in and milk well and often come in early the following year. Last year one of his late cows calved in October and this year calved in August.

“I don’t get tired of calving. Late cows aren’t a problem because we have runoffs and don’t have late cows eating our precious spring grass at home. The late cows stay on the runoff until 10 days before calving, before coming back to the farm. The early cows come home three weeks before they’re due to calve.”

They need 65 replacement calves but more are raised if they’re from imported genetics or bought in animals, to assess the quality of those calves.

The calves are collected daily and fed colostrum for as long as it’s available. Milk powder is then fed through an automatic feeder. The feeder recognises each calf’s ear tag and only allows it to consume its correct daily milk allowance.

“I prefer to feed fewer litres to the calves but make higher concentrated milk. I’ve tried feeding whole milk through the feeder but had too many blockages.”

The calves are weaned at 100-120kg. Buhler says weaning is a critical period in an animal’s life. His philosophy is that the calf has to be ready for weaning, the weather has to be right, and the grass must be growing. If the calves are weaned too early and there’s not enough grass, the calves quickly go backwards.

He loves seeing new stock coming into the herd and attending sales.

“Amanda is supportive of that because she knows it’s what makes me tick.” he says.

“I’m the handbrake,” Amanda jokes.

“But I know that buying cows is Stefan’s passion. He calls it his very expensive hobby.”

He has a passion for breeding and calf rearing and enjoys being in control of each animal from birth until the day it leaves the farm.

He isn’t averse to buying cows if it has the right look and production.

“You don’t get it right every time, but I’ve bought some really good cows. I’ve paid good money for some, but I don’t mind paying for something good. But the cow that comes must be better than the one that’s going out.”

They started their stud, Buelin Holsteins, about six years ago and they have bulls with LIC and CRV. But he is not driven by that, he’s driven by production and type.

“I prefer a cow that comes in to be milked and my first thought be ‘Wow; what a cow’ so that puts a lot of emphasis on breeding the right cow.

“I like my cows to come in as mature animals because I want them milking from day one, rather than them spending the next few years trying to grow. To achieve that you need the right genetics, because you can’t grow a strong cow from frail genetics.”

This year AI started on the October 10 using nominated bulls and run for five weeks before short gestation bulls (AI) are used. Jersey bulls are put over the heifers. The in-calf rate is 89-90%.

He’s now finding it difficult to find New Zealand cows with his preferred udder type. Consequently he’s been using some overseas genetics and has been wowed by their udders. Their udders tend to hold together far better when doing big production.

“I’m demanding more from the NZ cow. She’s a strong cow except for udder support, so I’m using some genetics from Holland and USA.”

When selecting a bull, he first looks at their protein BV and fat BV to ascertain what they’re capable of producing before he looks at their BW.

He believes the incoming emission regulations are going to force farmers into milking fewer cows, but do more production.

“Udder conformation will then be even more important.

He favours a capacious cow and one factor he loves about the NZ cow is that she is capacious. But she is now being bred to be too small for his needs. He prefers a 600kg cow because a 500kg cow doing such high production doesn’t last long in the herd.

They have staff, one of who has worked on the farm for 15 years and the other is his young nephew. Buhler believes his youthfulness has brought a new lease of life to the property. Amanda has been a fulltime kindergarten teacher with Kindergarten Taranaki since 2007 but helps out when needed.

“Stefan loves going to the cows, but loves going to his yearlings even more. There are plenty of pets among them that rush up to us and nearly bowl me over. The calves aren’t his pets of course, but he never regards any of his animals as ‘just commodities’ either,” Amanda says.

‘Farming is an awesome life. I love the cows and enjoy occasionally cupping the cows and doing the farm jobs. Hosing down the yard is my favourite job though. If I sense Stefan needs some moral support I might say ‘Do you want some help?’ as he goes to the runoff.”

“I often don’t need the help, but the company is important. Sometimes that’s all that’s needed,” Buhler says.

Looking ahead, his greatest concern is government emission tax regulations and he’s still trying to determine how to remain a profitable farmer. He’s surmised that the solution will probably be to milk less cows.

“My future over the next few years will probably be to drop cow numbers, buy in less dry food and work with what I can grow. I think all farmers are unsure of how the regulations are going to affect them.”

But the challenges are why they are farming. No two days are the same and as challenging as it can be, it’s a job they have a passion for.

It’s been an interesting life and he wouldn’t change anything about it. He always tells younger farmers that farming is still a good life.

Buhler has been milking cows for 41 years and is now wondering how much longer he can continue. He knows that he can’t sustain his current workload and will need to alleviate some of the pressure.

“It’s the cows that keep me farming. The thought of not milking my cows is strange. It’s a difficult decision, but I think that in the next few years the time will come to sell my herd.

“I think that in the short-term things may be tough for farming, but long term it will be very rewarding because farmers will be doing less work. There’ll be fewer cows, and farmers will be getting paid more for milk solids. The farmers who hang in will be well-rewarded.”