With ground prepared for a remarkable step-change at Bungay Dairy, Wingham, the numbers add-up for increased production while improving animal welfare.
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Manager Simon Scowen looks after MVD Dairy Company on the historic riverside property where 800 Holstein cows graze improved paddocks, many of them under pivot irrigation, with cattle rotated in such a way as to allow for maximum utilisation of grass.
However a desire for growth and efficiency in the business requires a new approach and so construction has begun on a loose-housed facility, or roofed shed over sawdust bedding, 300 metres long by 30m wide.
The housed cows will be fed corn silage, under cover, with projected feed utilised to increase from 12tonne per hectare for pasture on river country to 26t/ha dry matter for irrigated corn silage which can be followed with 10-12t/ha worth of winter rye.
"We will be able to turn that 12t/ha we used to produce into 36t/ha for a three-fold gain in production," Mr Scowen says.
More than that, 100 per cent of the crop will be harvested for silage while cows grazing pasture can waste perhaps 40pc of their feed in wet and boggy conditions.
"With a larger number of cows than your average farm, we find it difficult to have enough trees for shade and in the wet conditions laneways coming up to the dairy become boggy," Mr Scowen says.
"In the heat and humidity of summer and in the wet of autumn we struggle to keep our milk production in the premium band. With cows remaining under cover and out of the heat or mud we expect an increase in milk quality."
Based on data from other loose housed operations, the Bungay dairy is anticipating a payback on investment - between $7000 and $8000 per cow - after just three and a half years.
"We're not taking any shortcuts," Mr Scowen says. "Fortunately, being corporate owned, we have access to capital.
"High land values here on the coast are making it hard to expand so it makes sense to go down this path. Meanwhile we have great water allocation with 7.5km of frontage to the Manning River."
A push by Dairy Australia and NSW DPI to enhance productivity and efficiency through loose housed cows, under the roof of a barn, is just beginning to grow with less than a dozen such outfits in the country, most of those in northern Victoria where there has been a reported 40pc increase in milk production per cow.
The barn at Bungay will allow 15 square metres of room per cow, more than the typical 7-8 square metres found in other barns, which will improve sustainability of the system.
Manure that falls onto the sawdust bedding will be scarified and aerated twice a day with the bedding expected to last for years before needing to be replaced. About 70pc of manure will be contained within the bedding and the remaining effluent separated in three settling ponds before being spread on crops, reducing the need for synthetic nitrogen and pricey potassium.
Corn, providing energy, is best able to make use of effluent. Protein through legumes like lupins, canola meal and dried distillers meal, will be bought-in.
"When you compare corn at 26t/ha compared to irrigated soy beans at less than 6t/ha it makes sense to use effluent to produce the high yielding crop," Mr Scowen says.
Cost of nutrition will become a big saving for the business.
"At the moment we buy-in a lot of hay which equates to about $600/t dry matter," he says.
"Whereas we can grow corn for silage for $200/t dry matter."
