Chris Maslan from Speldon Partnership, a dairy farmer milking 600 cows, shares his experience using the Optiweigh system. Key takeaways:
- Early Intervention: Monitoring heifer weights allows for timely adjustments to ensure optimal growth and faster time to joining weight.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Optiweigh provides insights into paddock performance and the impact of different pasture species.
- Increased Lactation Potential: Achieving target weights earlier can lead to an extra lactation per heifer, significantly boosting milk production.
- Optimised Pasture Management: Identifying underperforming paddocks allows for targeted improvements.
- Beyond Heifers: The benefits extend to backgrounding cattle, where tracking weight gain is crucial for profitability.
For Chris Maslan at Speldon Partnership, ensuring his heifers reach their optimal joining weight as quickly as possible is a top priority. Since implementing the Optiweigh system in August of last year, he’s seen a significant improvement in his ability to monitor and manage their growth.
“Basically, it was important for us to see and monitor heifer weights and get heifers to joining weight as soon as possible,” Chris said.
With over 20,000 animal weighings already logged, the Optiweigh unit has become an invaluable tool. Chris notes the variability in weight gain across different paddocks, ranging from heifers losing weight to some gaining an impressive two kilos a day. This real-time data allows him to make informed management decisions regarding paddock utilisation and heifer movement.
One of the most significant benefits Chris highlights is the potential for increased lactation. By getting heifers to their target weight faster, they enter the milking herd sooner and can potentially achieve an extra lactation in their lifetime. “Depending on milk price,” Chris says, “that one lactation could be up around 8,000 litres.” This represents a significant boost to overall productivity and profitability.
The Optiweigh system has also provided unexpected insights into pasture performance. Chris has been able to directly correlate heifer weight gain with different paddock conditions and pasture species. “You can see the decline in heifer weights, indicating that the paddock must be completely eaten out or on the decline,” he said. This has led to proactive decisions about pasture management, including identifying and improving underperforming paddocks. In one instance, a paddock that appeared fine was actually hindering heifer growth and has since been sprayed out for reseeding.
The application of Optiweigh extends beyond heifers at Speldon Partnership. Chris also uses it to monitor the weight gain of backgrounding cattle. “It doesn’t matter if you’re doing kilos on heifers or backgrounding cattle as well,” he says, emphasising the universal importance of weight monitoring for livestock profitability.
(Full Transcript)
Chris Maslan: Hi, Chris Maslan from Speldon Partnership at Gloucester. Just a dairy farmer down here milking 600 odd cows. Purchased our first Optiweigh in August of last year.
Basically, it was important for us to see and monitor heifer weights and get heifers to joining weight as soon as possible. The Optiweigh system assists with that.
Currently, we’ve weighed over 20,000 animals with the unit beside us. And heifers on various paddocks, varying from losing weight to gaining them, up to a maximum of two kilos a day, so interesting information. And it’s assisting us in seeing the effect of management decisions on joining heifers, not only from a data weight gain over their life, that’s the most important thing to us at the moment.
So, we’ve gone over and entered our date of birth into the system, and a group of heifers that’s interesting—various heifers look okay, like the heifers behind me—varied from 500 grams a day to 900, 920 grams per day over the life of the heifer.
We’re going to put genomic testing beside that, sort of as a correlation. It was just a group of heifers, and it’s just interesting to see that that extra weight gain potentially is going to end up generating one more lactation, which is what we’re after. At the end of the day, the sooner we can get these heifers to the dairy, at full lactation, is crucial.
Q: In layman’s terms, what is an extra lactation worth?
Chris: Depending on milk price, that one lactation could be up around 8,000 liters. So depending on who you supply, depending on milk price.
Q: Any other examples of how you’re using the Optiweigh on a day-to-day basis?
Chris: The day-to-day basis would be monitoring a paddock without having to go to a paddock. You can see the decline in heifer weights, indicating that the paddock must be completely ate out or on the decline. And also interesting to watch paddock yields from pasture species through to all varieties and pasture species. It’s bit blown me away. It’s making me make decisions on what I do with paddocks regarding their performance. Through the winter of last year or through the spring, sorry, we had paddocks doing winter wheat which was the maximum, we got two kilos a day out of the heifers. Ryegrass generally around 1.2 to 1.4, and then other paddocks were non-performers. So, we’ve actually made decisions on pasture improvement all because of the Optiweigh giving me the information.
Q: And you were telling me before you’ve actually identified a paddock to just, for some reason or another, just does not do
Chris: That’s right, and it’s been sprayed out, and it’s going to be sown down to pasture. Yeah, so the paddock appeared okay, and the heifers appeared okay, but the performance wasn’t there in the paddock. At the end of the day, we’re not we’re not here to do this for the love, we’re here to produce basic, and I know we’re only putting kilos on heifers, but it doesn’t matter if you’re doing kilos on heifers or backgrounding cattle as well. We do background cattle here on Speldon. Kilos of beef on hand, or kilos on heifers is crucial.