NORTH-EAST Tasmania's sodden winters had finally taken their toll on Winnaleah dairy farmers Jarrod and Lyndon Smith.
In 2010, between July and October the pair lost an unusually large amount of calves, prompting father Lyndon to initiate a change.
"I said to Jarrod if we're going to carry on dairying we need to do something different, it was devastating," Lyndon says.
Jarrod jumped on the internet, initially looking for covered calving barns, and quickly realised the best solution was herd homes - a concrete, steel and plastic structure designed to house cows during bleak winter months.
As Jarrod explains, cows are a superstitious bunch, which made getting them into the homes a challenge initially.
"The first day they came up the lane, stood on the edge of the concrete slates and wouldn't come in," Jarrod says.
"The next day every single one of them ran up the hill, they loved it."
The cow's affinity with their new 60 metre by 10.5m surrounds developed to such an extent Jarrod had a job on getting them out to milk in the morning.
"If it's a horrible day when you go to get them for milking you open the gate and they just look at you and say 'no way I'm not going anywhere' so you've got to push them out," Jarrod says.
The first year of the herd homes in 2011 provided instant relief for the pair, who didn't lose a calf to the weather and managed to keep their cows well fed, however they began searching for ways to capitalise on such a large investment.
"We're sort of locked in, we had to make it work so we went from spring calving to a split calving herd to try and push some winter milk through the system," Jarrod says.
Split calving proved difficult to manage, as Jarrod and Lyndon were either always over or underfeeding a portion of the herd depending on what stage of lactation they were.
This prompted a recent decision to dry-off the whole herd of 350 cows in late December in preparation for a February calving.
The pair believes a uniform calving pattern will enable them to feed their cows more efficiently in order to produce the winter milk that processors pay a premium for.
Tangible benefits of the herd homes thus far have been increased milk production due to improved feed utilization, quieter cows, and, surprisingly, more heifer calves.
Cows were fed through the winter in herd homes this year on a mixture of maize, grass silage and brewers grain.
"They came through the winter as fat as mud," Lyndon says.
"And they were fat in the spring; they've hardly dropped levels of production since July/Aug, which is impressive considering most of them are in very late lactation."
Growing maize silage and fodder beat has also reduced input costs for the pair.
Jarrod estimates during the winter the herd homes are eight to ten degrees warmer than outside temperatures, and a similar amount cooler during the winter.
The percentage of feed going into energy and percentage of feed going into production is altered considerably because they don't need nearly as much feed," Jarrod says.
A warmer and more controlled feeding environment has reduced the vagaries of milk production.
"It's helped flatline production. If you string a couple of rough nights together we don't see it in the vat as much as others would," Jarrod says.
"We have much more control over their lead-feed before they calve, which is critical to levels of production. We used to have springers in the paddock and we'd put lead feed pellets under the fence which was pretty unreliable," Lyndon says.
Producing their own feed has been, and will continue to be critical in making the herd homes work.
An 80 hectare adjoining block has just been purchased by the Smiths to grow maize and other protein crops.
Next year the cows will be placed in the herd homes in the afternoon between February and May, fed pasture in the morning and silage at midday, while in the winter (May-September) they will go into the herd homes overnight and graze during the day.
Attention to detail is an intrinsic part of the herd homes' continued success.
"It doesn't matter what the weather's like, if it's a nice night they'll still go in the herd homes so we can maintain our rotations and give them a consistency of feed," Jarrod says.
With a 200-head capacity, the two herd homes are at present a perfect fit for the farmers' herd size, making further plans to increase numbers and build a new home dependent on the next two seasons.
"Milk prices need to sustain their present level ($6.10-$6.30 per kilogram of milk solids) for a while before we can think about getting another one," Jarrod says.
