When Paul Moloney bought the old DemoDAIRY farm near Terang in February 2018, he knew he was in for a challenge.
In 2015, the board of the former research and demonstration farm with high-profile highway frontage announced it wouldn’t operate as a milk production business from April 2016 and instead planned to lease the farm.
However, the lease plan didn’t work out, and in 2017 the board began the process of winding up the cooperative and removing cows after exhausting all options to remain open.
When Paul and his wife Christine bought the farm the next year for $4600 per acre through expression of interest, some people said he was mad.
There were times when he questioned if they were right.
“There were a lot of comments from outside people saying you’re mad and you always have a percentage of “shit, what have I done?”, Paul admits, but he has no regrets and is now happy with the progress that has been made and where the farm sits.
Paul remains based at his family farm closer to Terang and took on Liam Allan as a sharefarmer just a few months after making the investment.
They continue to work well as a team and are progressing towards a 50-50 split in the next couple of years.
Liam came in with 20 cows and now owns 180 of the 280-strong herd.
Liam also took some flak over his move, but held strong.
“A lot of people knew about the farm and knew that it had slipped back and when we started milk prices were low, there was no grass and no stored feed.
“There was a lot of negativity around dairy farming but after some good seasons and good prices, it’s different now,” Liam said.
“Our first milk cheques were about $4.80 that first spring, now we’re getting $9.50.
“Dairy farming has come a long way in six years,” Liam said.
The farm has also come a long way.
The first joint priority was “not to go broke”, Paul said.
Despite the naysayers, Paul believed in the investment and today says it is going well.
“We wanted to grow our business,” Paul said.
“I’d been driving past this place to my father’s out paddock for 40 years and always had an eye on it. I even fought fires here as a 17-year-old on Ash Wednesday.”
It connects over the Ayrford Rd with land Paul and his father bought in 1992 and that in turn connects with the original family farm just south of Terang, including the dry former lake bed.
Paul has plans for an underpass on the Ayrford Rd to further enhance the connections. The herds run separately, but there could be more sharing when the underpass is installed.
One of the major problems with the farm was the outdated 18-aside swingover dairy but with the departure of the cows, the paddocks had also lacked attention in the last year before the sale.
Paul spent $120,000 to make the old dairy functional, but it was a short-term fix and he always wanted to install a rotary dairy, similar to the home farm.
“We kept it going for four years until the new dairy started but then gutted it and filled it and left it as a shed for the cows to walk through,” he said.
Paul ordered the new 55-stall dairy in July 2021, but had trouble getting contractors on site and then when they started on the foundations, they hit rock and were held up again before an excavator was called in.
“I’ve got a 50 rotary at home but I’m restricted in area and I think the 55 is a bit more efficient,” he said.
“I wanted to match them so if something happens, the cows can go between if need be.”
The new dairy has been in use since November 2022.
Fixing the paddocks and growing more home-made feed was another priority.
“There were a lot of paddocks totally buggered,” Liam said.
“We’ve renovated 60-70 per cent of the farm with new grasses and crops. We put a lot of perennial grasses back and summer crops like turnips, rape.
“We’ve come a long way. We did about 300 rolls of silage after the first year but we’ve had it up to nearly 1000 since then.”
The water pumping system needed replacing and they’re still finding problems in the pipes.
Solar power was installed in 2020, and there’s a generator if needed.
An existing storage shed was converted to a calf shed, a new shed built for storage, and there are plans for another hay shed.
Eight water tanks were added to catch rain and bore water, fences were replaced and paddocks reconfigured.
They also had three fires to contend with, two of them sparked from old pumps.
“It hasn’t been boring,” Paul said.
“There’s always something happening.”
The herd at the DemoDAIRY farm is about 80 per cent Holsteins with Jersey numbers being reduced as they strive for a more even-sized herd based on medium-sized Holsteins with high solids, and some crossbreds.
“We bought cows from all directions when we started and now we’re trying to make it more even,” Liam said.
“When buying someone else’s cows they’re probably less fertile, but we’re pushing hard to get our fertility as high as we can.”
They are pleased with their 33 per cent replacement rate.
For the past three years they have used sexed semen on the heifers with good success, last year achieving 65 per cent, this year about 58.
“Out of 180 heifers we only had seven empty this year which was very pleasing,” Paul said.
In the first year, calving was stretched over 16 to 18 weeks. but it has been tightened to less than 10 weeks.
“Weather permitting, we could go harder with numbers, but Demo is a fairly wet place and around 280 is the sweet spot,” Liam said.
Both farms have very similar production, though Paul’s home farm is slightly ahead with solids thanks to his base Jersey herd.
The farm was previously home to the National Centre for Dairy Education Australia and has retained an educational link with Paul leasing some of the buildings to Rural Industries Skill Training.