Meander dairy joins top 100

A MEANDER dairy has been named in the country’s top 100 at this year’s Australian Milk Quality Awards.

Jamie Berne milks 350 cows in a spring-calving herd on 130ha at his Fossil Park Holstein stud at Meander, but said there was no silver bullet when it came to milk quality.

“It’s things I’ve done all the time and that’s part of it, I think — just being consistent and keeping an eye on them,” he said.

Mr Berne does most of the milking during the early part of the season when the cows are at peak lactation. “I think that probably helps because I do both milkings and I know all the cows,” he said.

Mr Berne keeps records of the cow’s bloodlines, and heifer calves are identified soon after they are born.

Production across the herd averages about 10,000 litres or 600kg of milk solids a cow each year.

While he is happy with the production level, Mr Berne said in recent years he had focused more on health traits in their breeding program.

“We started to look at a few different traits like daughter fertility and longevity. It takes a lot of money to get them into milk, so we wanted them to stay sound and be productive for longer,” he said.

Dairy Australia’s Kathryn Davis said the on-farm management of milk quality was key to ensuring the competitiveness of Australian dairy in the marketplace.

“Every year the Australian Milk Quality Awards celebrates the great job being done by dairy farmers up and down the country to keep milk quality at a consistently high standard,” Ms Davis said.