Flexible milking to improve dairy production and farmer mental health

Defined by Dairy New Zealand as a catch-all phrase for milking intervals not within traditional once-a-day, or twice-a-day schedules.

Most commonly for flexible milking, it occurs up to three times in two days or ten milkings in seven days.

FarmWise farm consultant, Brent Boyce who coined the 3-in-2 schedule describes flexible milking a a "game-changer" and encourages farmers to consider implementing it.

"There's a tsunami of interest because people can see they can make a difference in their lives and businesses," he said.

"We live in a volatile climate and we have to be flexible in how we approach businesses.

"I don't tell a farmer what to do but I make a lot of suggestions."

Mr Boyce said farmers with a robust pasture-based dairy system could be making more money, improve their mental health, gain significant lifestyle benefits and have happier and healthier cows if they follow some simple ways of changing.

"People ask if they will lose production, when I answer that you'll make more profit it probably answers the question for them," he said.

"It means you can have a sleep-in on a dairy farm - that's something unheard of for centuries."

Currently less than 40 per cent of New Zealand farmers are following a traditional twice-a-day milking routine and Mr Boyce thinks Australian farmers should at least weigh up their options.

Mr Boyce came up with the 3-in-2 term while working with a farmer in 2001 who was following a 16-hour milking routine.

"He was doing cups on at 5am, 9pm and 1pm the next day but it was too tough. He was getting smashed and the cows were struggling," he said.

"I said to myself - does it have to be a true 16-hour milking - it could be a different split, so we did 5am, 7pm and 11am the next day which became a 14-16-18-hour split."

The idea was quickly picked up and today fifteen per cent of Mr Boyce's clients milk once a day.

"More farmers thought it was a good idea from Christmas because the cows didn't lose production because they'd already peaked," he said.

"I called it 3-in-2 and that became internationally quite famous.

"We tried to find something that would work better for people and 3-in-2 did its job for many years."

In 2016 Mr Boyce was awarded farm consultant of the year and re-wrote the papers on 3-in-2 which further spiked interest in flexible milking.

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Following on in 2018 following a talk on udder health from Livestock Improvement Corporation senior scientist, Steve Davis, Mr Boyce realised he could do more.

"Steve said it was possible to milk cows twice a day, twice a week and stimulate the udders enough and have similar production," he said.

"The afternoon milkings rescue the udder tissue memory so it thinks it's on twice a day.

"It fired me up. We had 14-a-week on twice a day, 7-a-week once a day or in the middle 3-in-2 was 10 and a half milkings a week.

"I had a light bulb moment - could we do other formats such as 11-in-7 or 10-in-7 and fill in the gaps.

Confident that this concept will work for many dairy farmers across Australia, Mr Boyce said it allows farmers to have a better lifestyle and get involved with weekend sports and allows for a better, more flexible social life.

"The issue we have as an industry is we're a 24-7 business in a weekend-based society," he said.

"Dairy farming is a tough way to make a living and we need to become weekend centric.

"This way we have a life."