Our Story

We converted our King Country sheep and beef farm to dairy in 1989. We milked 360 cows to begin with then brought the number up to 520 after purchasing a neighbouring property. Replacement animals were grazed on the steeper hill country.

By 1999, after successfully running a basic all grass system, we started to recognise that what we were doing was not going to be sustainable. Our system was relying on the increasing use of urea – up to 150 kg urea/Ha/Year from 50 kg urea/Ha/Year, but production wasn't increasing and we were facing major animal health issues, downer cows, Rotovirus, large numbers of lame cows, an increased reliance on CIDRs to get cows in calf, induction to try and maintain an acceptable calving spread and more. This "breakdown" in our system also led to a lack of net cash profit. It was also plain to see that our pastures were failing to persist and our soil had gone hard and compacted – we were going backwards. There were a number of changes in the farm environment that we knew were a result of our current farming practices, for example: The frogs and the White-faced Herons that used to breed on our farm had vanished completely.

We were no longer willing to stand back and do nothing.

After seeking advice from several highly regarded experts in agriculture, who gave us no satisfactory answers, the decision was made that we would have to think outside the square and control our own destiny.
After much research, we enlisted the services of Quantum Laboratories (now Qlabs), an independent company that introduced us not only to the Albrecht system but also to a coordinated soil-plant-animal nutrition programme.
This was an exciting time in our farming career as we observed a complete turnaround not only in our farming operation but also in the farm environment. Improvements were taking place every year, we couldn't wait for calving to start and the new season to unfold.
The list of changes below took place over a three-year period.

Cash flow turnaround of approximately $250 000 (milk pay out adjusted)

In fact, our farm was running so smoothly and efficiently that Donna gave up teaching and joined in the day to day running of the dairy farm. Donna and I were now running the farm – 520 cows, 120 calves, 115 rising 2 year olds, spreading all our own fertiliser, did all our own cropping and re-grassing, with one very capable full-time employee. His wife reared the calves.
After pressure from our bank manager we were persuaded into attending a Dexel 'Mark and Measure' course. We came away from that course with the second highest economic farm surplus (second only by a small margin to a couple with a very similar system to ours) cementing our position as well on the right side of sustainable farming practices.
It was most exciting to be able to take the kids tadpoling again and the white-faced herons were back in large numbers, successfully rearing chicks.