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00:00:11
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the muster.
00:00:12
Speaker 2: James Burrows of Dairy NZ joins us once again on this hump day afternoon.
00:00:17
Speaker 1: G'day, James. How are you doing?
00:00:19
Speaker 3: Andy, very well. How are you?
00:00:21
Speaker 1: Car can play.
00:00:21
Speaker 2: It's been a season that it is what it is, a few more Easterlies. Thunderstorm watch happening this afternoon, but generally there's been a lot of work done in the region lately.
00:00:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.
00:00:33
Speaker 3: No, it's gone from sort of famine to feast in terms of groundwork and even getting bales and silos starting to get done now. So it's always a good sight at this time of year to see some surplus feed getting backed away for later in the year or later in the season.
00:00:51
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Great to see a correction there.
00:00:53
Speaker 2: Now, some events coming up shortly regarding policy with Dairy NZ.
00:00:57
Speaker 1: What's happening?
00:00:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Dairy NZ's got two opportunities for people to attend some policy update events. We've got one in Invercargill on the 1st of December and one in Omeru on the 2nd of December. So just over, what's that, three weeks, two weeks away now. So these sessions are a great opportunity for farmers or rural professionals to come along and get a bit of an understanding of the policy and regulatory changes that are likely to affect everybody's farming businesses in the coming seasons. So what we're hoping is that people will take away some practical insights on upcoming government decisions and what they might mean and how we have the opportunity to influence farm systems and investment decisions based on what those policy changes are. So that's a great opportunity. We've got Roger Lincoln, who's the General Manager for Policy and Government Relations with Darien Zed, and David Cooper, who's Principal Policy Advisor at Darien Zed. So, yeah, great opportunity to come along. If you're wanting more information on those, just pop along to the Darien Zed website. We are asking that registrations are done for those just so we can manage capacity at those venues. But yeah, great opportunity to get along, hear about what is going down in the policy space, largely behind the scenes. You don't sort of see or hear much of it, but there's definitely a truckload of work that goes on in that space.
00:02:44
Speaker 1: A lot of people flat out with mating at the moment?
00:02:48
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, we're well and truly into the thick of it. So just wanting people just to, I know it's a busy time and it's hard to sometimes to stop and gather your thoughts a bit, but just wanting people to look at some of those cows that perhaps haven't, primarily focusing on early carvers, but perhaps haven't cycled or haven't had a mating yet, just looking at them and whether it's grafting them out, having a look and looking back at your calving records to see if there's some reason why they haven't cycled yet or haven't had a mating yet. And if you are concerned, getting the vet out, getting that advice in there because early calvers are where you want your cows to be. Even if it's your sort of later calving cows, anything that hasn't had a mating yet is... is a concern, I guess, for all farmers. Everybody's pushing to try and get three-week submission rates high and six-week in calf rates high. And if you've got cows that have been calved for, say, over 50 days and they haven't been mated yet, then they're definitely ones that would warrant some form of investigation. So, yeah, just knowing what's happening within the herd, which ones have cycled, which ones have had a mating... And yeah, I mean, there's that much technology around now that it's literally a click of a button to find out those numbers. But it's often when we're in the heat of things, those kind of things get forgotten or perhaps get waylaid a week or two. And that's the difference between them perhaps calving in the first three weeks or in the last three weeks. So yeah, just wanting people just to have a bit of a sit down and figure out what plan they want to put in place around those cows that haven't been mated.
00:04:46
Speaker 2: And the spring flush, depending on where you are, and a lot of places are talking about the situation finally correcting.
00:04:53
Speaker 1: Itself as far as having a bit of tucker.
00:04:56
Speaker 2: It was touching go for a wee while there, but you can see a bit of a positive going forward in most areas.
00:05:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, no. By and large, the majority of feedback we're getting is that, like you say, that spring flush has arrived. But given the winter and the spring, a lot of surplus feed or feed banks, be it silage or baleage or hay, was well and truly decimated given the poor growth rates we had and poor utilization of feed. Just wanting people just to make sure they're capturing that feed. Obviously, supplement feeding is a great tool to help capture milk, but not at the cost of wasting pasture. So whether that's locking up paddocks away now for baleage or silage or whatever, but yeah, really trying to capitalize on that spring surplus and put a bit of put a bit of surplus feed in the bank for later in the season or in the wintertime. So just restocking what was or what has been a poor spring so far. Yeah, just topping up those feed reserves so that if El Nino does rear its ugly head the way that we have been told, that we do have those feed stores in the banks.
00:06:29
Speaker 1: It's a glass-half-full effect of milk at the moment, though, James. We'll leave it at that. Always appreciate your time.
00:06:34
Speaker 3: No, no worries, Andy. Thanks very much for your time.
00:06:40
Speaker 2: James Burrows of Dairy NZ as we catch up with the team weekly here on the muster, as we do with our next guest. More on a monthly basis, but he is the sponsor of the five-day forecast here on Hockanui.
00:06:53
Speaker 1: Andrew Walsh out of Twin Farm Genetics. We chat next.