A MOVE to Australia from New Zealand 10 years ago has paid off for the dairy farming Whittaker family, milking 1000 cows at Denison.
The family farm employs 12 people with varying responsibilities, duties and shifts in the dairy and across the farm.
This group includes two apprentices.
"We had assets but no opportunity to grow wealth from dairy farming in NZ," Adrian Whittaker said.
"Here we have both.
"Dairy farming in Australia has been a good investment."
The family arrived in Australia chasing their Aboriginal heritage, which took them on an extensive tour of central Gippsland.
They liked what they saw of the dairy farming opportunities so they began looking at land.
"We came across this place," Mr Whittaker said.
"The guy wanted $7 million for it, herd, irrigation licence and equipment included, so Dad decided to buy it."
That first purchase was the nucleus of an operation that still milks 1000 cows at Denison which supports three couples and a vast workforce.
The herd produced 280 kilograms of milk solids (MS) 10 years ago and for the past three years has produced 570-80kg MS.
While the farm was initially bought by parents Merv and Joan, sons Michael and Adrian and their partners bought the entire enterprise in staged purchases, beginning five years ago with the dairy herd, followed by the farm and its assets three years ago.
They have added surrounding farms to the business, three rotary dairies, their own machinery workshop to service all their equipment, multiple sheds and a total herd of 1870 cows including 400 heifers soon to come into milking with a new dairy.
The farms come under a co-ordinated management plan using computer software automation systems and clearly allocated responsibilities.
With so many people employed on the farm, Mr Whittaker said he found it ideal for its purpose.
"If you're going to have employee milkers, a sharefarmer and farm manager, it increases accuracy; it's a good tool," he said.
"It makes life simple.
"It decreases the risk of inbreeding and lost breeding groups and of overfeeding and enables us to identify milk production figures for each cow.
"We also co-ordinate tasks and responsibilities among each other and the staff."
The computer software enables forward planning and timed events, meaning Mr Whittaker can allocate jobs to future dates and go on holiday knowing they will be carried out.
"It takes the paperwork out of the system," he said.
"There's no need to write lists and (possibly) lose them.
"Everyone can input data into the system.
"If I want 30 cows drafted out at a particular milking – for example, for pregnancy testing – I can program it into the computer and it doesn't matter who is working, the alert for each of those animals comes across the system and the work occurs as organised."
Optimising cow health is also important to the farm.
It begins with shedding the heifer calves and ensuring an average weight of 380kg at their first joining.
"The cows have to walk up to seven kilometres from paddock to dairy so we concentrate on herd health, spending time with them in the paddocks observing and checking their condition," Mr Whittaker said.
This year the artificial insemination joining results showed 95 per cent of the autumn cows were in calf; the spring herd was 92pc in calf.
With the large farm size and workforce, they own the equipment to produce their own fodder – this season they produced 2000 wet tonnes of ryegrass and clover hay, 1400t of ryegrass and clover dry stacks, 3600t of maize and 2000 wrapped ryegrass and clover silage rolls.
They also feed each cow a daily average of 5.9kg of high-energy maintenance pellet mix year-round.
