Ten years ago, Mat and Renee Whitehead set out on a path to farm ownership, and today they have a string of new investments to show for it.
From a fun logo for Whitehead Farms, designed by Renee, to a recently installed shelter, the Timboon farm has been transformed over the decade.
Mat is fourth-generation on the farm. His great-grandparents settled in 1956, milking 28 cows on a 212 hectare lot, about one-third of the current milking platform. Today they milk close to 800.
Mat bought the original land off his grandparents while his parents John and Leanne had a separate farm next door.
They merged in 2013 and that’s where the transformation started, firstly with a central 60-stall rotary dairy and then with new dams, irrigation pivots, solar panels, concrete feed pad and most recently a shelter.
They even changed their calving system.
The farm was a Focus Farm in 2013-14 and one of the goals was succession planning which came to fruition about 18 months ago when Mat and Renee bought the business from John and Leanne.
They plan to work the farm for the next 20 years and hope another generation continues with their young children showing interest.
“They already have big dreams about what they can do,” Renee said.
Renee grew up on a dairy farm, but had worked in hospitality for 20 years and vowed not to return to farming, but the succession planning included a focus on lifestyle.
“I said I’d never be a dairy farmer again, but when we discussed being on the farm, we made an effort to get a lifestyle-work balance,” she said.
“We had to grow herd numbers and go from a family farm to a farm with staff to make that possible,” Mat said.
Whitehead Farms now employs five people. In 2013, Mat had 300 cows and his parents 250, and it has progressively grown since the merger.
They try to factor in a holiday every year, though that has been tough due to staff turnover since the pandemic.
The rotary dairy “with all the bells and whistles” has helped to make the enterprise more productive and streamlined the milking process.
They introduced collars three years ago, making milking easier and creating health benefits.
“They’re a time saver,” Mat said.
“It gives you peace of mind that you’re not missing cows on heat.”
The shed also has solar power, introduced about five years ago, which Mat says has been helpful, but not a game changer.
The heifers calve in November and the cows in January until the start of March, with a 71 per cent six-week in-calf rate this year.
Previously most calved in June-July.
“It was a hard slog, especially when trying to get cows and calves out of wet paddocks,” Renee said.
“Because we started employing staff and the money would be better if we calved everything in summer, we progressed to doing that.
“You have longer days and people are happier and more willing to do the work in summer.”
Summer calving has also led to improved calf health and production fits with their new Coles fresh milk contract.
The herd is mostly Holstein with a few Monbéliardes, Aussie reds and occasional Jersey crosses.
“We had Holsteins, but they were harder to get in calf, so we introduced three-way crosses,” Mat said.
The black and whites have picked up their fertility rates, but the Monbéliardes have had problems with eye cancer, so they now focus on Aussie reds for cross-breeding.
Mat and Renee like well-fed cows. They buy vetch hay and feed close to three tonnes of grain per year.
They grow maize, but no longer do summer crops after finding little success.
“They seemed to be a lot of hard work for little reward and putting 800 cows on one crop paddock is difficult to manage,” Mat said.
They added pivots last year and watered 40ha of grass, but don’t plan to return to summer cropping.
“Giving the cows a couple of kilos of green feed every day made a difference,” Mat said.
They average about 8500 litres or 600 kg/Ms a year.
“That’s been fairly consistent and is around a kilo of milk solids per kilogram of weight which is pretty good.”
The new shelter went into use in May and came out of necessity.
“We had extra cows parked here last year and we were trying to work through the logistics of not wrecking paddocks and the shelter seemed to be the best way to go,” Renee said.
It was initially planned to put half the herd in during the day and half at night, but the cows are voting with their feet.
“The cows loved it too much,” Renee said.
“They have the choice of going in the shed or down the paddock.
At night they go down the paddock and when they’ve had enough grass, they wander back to the shed and sit down.
“They love the shed. We don’t force them to go in there. They’ve got the choice and they choose the shed.”
They will look at adding shade cloth to protect them from summer heat.
Production initially increased as well, but Mat said the biggest improvements were in the time saved at milking and protecting the paddocks which can get bogged with 900mm annual rainfall.
“Everyone got home half an hour earlier over winter and the paddocks seem to be in better condition coming into spring than they normally would be,” he said.
“We’d been looking at it for years, but it was a bite-the-bullet because of the situation we were in with the parked cows, but the necessity will have long-term benefits.”
The other herd left in August.
A concrete feed pad next to the shelter was built in 2015.
Mat and Renee have a confident outlook.
“We’re hoping to be in a steady state now and repay some debt,” Mat said.
The mandatory code of conduct for milk suppliers has made a big difference.
“We’ve got a milk price now for three years which means we can breathe easier,” Renee said.
“We can plan and budget. It makes it easier for everyone, especially with the fluctuating price of inputs,” Mat said.