How Good's Dairy

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Mastitis microbiologist Natasha Maguire on subclinical cases, cell count, antibiotics and bought-in heifers, and why the answer starts with testing before you treat.

00:00 Coming up 00:28 How good's dairy? 00:47 Meet Natasha and how it all started 03:11 What is mastitis? 04:17 Finding subclinical mastitis: herd tests and RMT 04:58 What somatic cell count actually measures 06:33 Why test every case 07:56 What the bugs tell you about your farm 08:56 Benchmarking your herd's udder health 11:27 When the cell count spikes 12:47 Guessing is expensive: the teat spray trap 14:08 Can teat spray damage teats? 14:58 George's farm: where to start with bought-in cows 16:28 Fresh cow procedures and the first four days 18:05 What's really behind early-season mastitis 19:28 Next steps: just test 21:33 Antibiotics and selective dry cow 24:27 When there's nothing to treat 26:14 Prevention: buying in cows and heifers 28:08 Teat spraying done properly 31:16 Staph aureus: the big one 33:32 Culling, cell count and "it's not the farmer" 34:50 Don't wait, find out 35:52 Takeaways 36:43 Where to find Natasha

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Beef over dairy is the fastest-growing decision on a New Zealand dairy farm — and most of it gets made in about three seconds, standing behind a cow at mating.

George Dodson sits down with Ben Watson, co-founder of GENEZ and a dairy farmer of close to thirty years, to work out what putting beef over your dairy cows actually does to the bottom line. Conan's away this week, so producer Andy Rowe takes the second chair.

They get into why the beef decision drives genetic gain in your replacement heifers, how GENEZ picks a different sire for week one than week six, what calving ease really means next to birth weight, and why a 40kg calf can still come out easy.

Then the money. A bobby calf gets you thirty or forty dollars. Contracted beef calves are running one fifty to one eighty in the South Island — both sexes, the whole of spring. But Ben won't call it free money: every kilo of calf birth weight costs the cow around 0.67 of a milk solid, which is $6.70 a kilo on a $10 payout.

Also in this one: what a "marker" calf is and why it has to be obvious at three in the morning, the $118 difference in rearing cost between the slowest and fastest bull in the catalogue, and the 156kg weaner that turned up the week after Show Week.

GENEZ: @

Dairy's good — how good? Let's find out.

Chapters

00:00 INTRO

00:32 "Ben, how good's dairy?"

00:51 Conan's away — Andy fills in

01:23 Where GENEZ started

03:07 Why put beef over your dairy cows

04:21 Picking the right sire, week by week

06:14 Calving ease, birth weight and gestation

10:16 What the calf rearer actually wants

11:37 The $118 gap between two bulls

12:58 Why the smaller calf can win

15:10 "Who's dropped the ball here?"

16:23 Wearables, beef price and the perfect storm

18:01 What a marker is

20:05 Why you don't use Angus at AB

22:11 The bottom line — $30 bobby vs $180 beef calf

26:08 Contracts, scale and a 156kg weaner

28:10 What that beef calf costs the cow

30:52 Bridging the gap — markers, then SGL

32:34 Coming up — George's beef mating plan

33:20 Where to find GENEZ

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George is a season into milking his own cows, and he's already doing things his own way: a colostrum mob that never goes behind a wire, and a breeding rule with no science behind it at all.

From there it's the ideal cow for a wet, heavy farm, why Conan gets a bit miffed at being called a regenerative consultant, the three legs of the stool on compaction, why effluent ends up in the wrong paddock on most farms, a planting plan going in this autumn, and an honest word about what eleven-hour days do to a body.

George Dodson farms at Leeston, Canterbury. Conan Moynihan is an agribusiness coach and co-founder of Groundshift.

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Feed is the biggest controllable cost on most dairy farms, and the easiest place to quietly lose money. George Dodson and Conan Moynihan sit down with dairy nutritionist Shaun Balemi (myCOW) on feeding efficiency: fillers vs concentrates, early vs late lactation, palm kernel and protein, what rumination data is really telling you, and what nutrition does to in-calf rates. Plus why a hungry cow is a stressed cow — and an expensive one. George puts his own farm up for some free consulting.

More from Shaun: https://mycow.nz

CHAPTERS

00:00 A hungry cow is a stressed cow

00:32 How good's dairy?

01:11 Thirty years in, and what farmers taught him

03:08 Three big opportunities for New Zealand dairy

05:01 Drowning in data: which numbers actually matter

06:46 George on farm: stock sense vs the computer

10:06 Collars, rumination and reading the paddock

11:32 Feeding efficiency without breaking the bank

14:30 What counts as a starchy feed

15:23 Pasture-only vs a complete diet, and the digestion army

17:23 Fillers vs concentrates, and what NDF means

19:25 When early lactation becomes late lactation

20:07 Palm kernel, DDG and getting the protein right

22:53 Can you actually measure the payback?

25:08 Pasture harvested per hectare: the number that pays

27:29 Silage quality: New Zealand's blind spot

29:13 Nutrition and reproduction: consistency is the lever

31:53 Minerals, selenium, B12 and the transition window

35:06 Soil, nutrient density and where this is heading

36:58 Shaun's one piece of advice

39:46 Where to find Shaun and myCOW

41:02 Takeaways and wrap

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Calving is relentless. And the decisions that shape an animal's entire life get made in the middle of it, thirty seconds at a time.

Karen Fraser has reared calves through just about every version of this job — from converting a Hawke's Bay potato farm to 1,500 cows in the early 2000s, to running young stock on Rakaia Island and Woodstock Farms, to teaching people who'd never touched an animal how to rear calves properly. These days she's one half of The Calf Experts alongside ruminant nutritionist Stacey Cosnett, and a technical specialist at Farmlands.

She sat down with George and Conan on George's farm to go through calf rearing the way it actually happens at 5am, not the way it looks in a manual.

We get into the five Qs of colostrum — including the one nobody talks about, and why a frightened calf absorbs less of what you just fed it. Whether to tube a calf or teach it to drink, a question George and his dad have never agreed on. Why topping up a water bucket with a garden hose is quietly teaching your calves not to eat. Rumen development, and why you're really feeding two animals at once. Ad lib feeding, and why the step-down needs 21 days rather than 14.

And the question we finished on: what's good calf rearing actually worth in lifetime production?

00:00 How good's dairy?

00:47 Welcome — Karen Fraser

01:01 From potato growers to 1,500 cows

02:34 How The Calf Experts started

04:19 The five Qs of colostrum

06:56 Squeaky clean — and the Q nobody talks about

08:52 The first two feeds

09:34 Tube it, or teach it to drink?

12:06 Water: why a bucket is a problem

15:07 What skimming does to the grown cow

16:16 Rumen development — you're feeding two animals

18:54 Fibre, acetate and the 10% rule

20:13 Ad lib feeding, and the 21-day step-down

23:02 What George does on his farm

25:40 The best calf sheds Karen has seen

27:46 What's good calf rearing worth?

29:48 Takeaways

32:32 Where to find Karen

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