Matt McDonald farms his family’s 74ha Waikato dairy unit at Gordonton, milking about 255 cows at peak, with an 8ha maize block that’s part of the system for wintering and keeping cows on track.

In this myCOW farmer interview, Matt shares the early setbacks that shaped him (including a Hodgkin’s lymphoma diagnosis at school), and how DairyNZ support and study helped build his approach to pasture and performance.

You’ll hear the practical tech and management tools he’s using as a one-man operation: Datamars collars for heat detection and day-to-day herd signals (rumination and feeding minutes), plus how he uses those numbers to keep diet consistency through spring and mating. Matt also talks AIMER for pasture planning when time is tight, and the agronomy changes (including lime and trace elements in fert mixes) that helped increase grass growth.

Mating results, data habits, and the simple recording systems he uses day to day are covered, too.

Key takeaways

• Build a system that works when you’re time-poor, not just when you’ve got help on hand

• Use wearables as an early warning system: watch rumination and feeding trends, then adjust before performance drops

• Keep rumination higher than feeding minutes as a simple gut check on ration consistency

• Separate heifers early enough before mating to reduce competition and settle the hierarchy

• Fix pasture growth at the cause: soil tests, lime, and trace elements can move the dial more than “just add urea”

• Better heat data can sharpen mating decisions and lift results, including identifying cows that haven’t cycled