In November 2002 Kelvin Cave made a trip to Victoria and met a number of enthusiastic farmers who thought that crimping would be of great help in raising yields and helping them get away from a wholly pasture based feeding regime.
This followed an invitation from Ballarat based Basil Britt who met Kelvin at their stand at the Royal Highland Show in Scotland the previous year. As he said "We will certainly save money by growing all the feed on our own farm. Our 200 head herd have been fed largely on bought-in by products. Instead of sowing paddocks to pasture we will sow more crops of winter wheat, peas and beans."
Basil Britt has just taken delivery of the first Korte crimping machine to be seen in Australia. As a result of Kelvin's visit an agent, Steve Nussio of Advance Rural Industries has been appointed and a container load of machines and the essential Kemira preservative have been sent.
Impressions of down under
Kelvin made the trip with nutritionist Bruce Woodacre and they felt that there were marked differences in approach between the two countries.
"New Zealand is still wedded to pasture based systems while the more forward Australians are looking at supplementary feeding mainly because of the widespread drought. While the cattle are kept outside all the year round the move is towards establishing large concrete feed pads where troughs are set out for a buffer feed usually of mixed forage. We met some very advanced farmers looking at establishing 1200 head herds. And Australian dairy farmers were most welcoming and receptive to new ideas. They wanted to learn."
They were surprised to see that on the whole New Zealand dairy farmers (in South Island) were nutritionally behind the UK in not realising the importance of supplementary feeds in raising yields and fertility rates. In particular it was a shock to see tails routinely as scouring was endemic.
Bruce commented "Almost total reliance on pasture based diets derived from piling masses of urea and irrigating on a ten day cycle is only going to bring problems. With many yields below 4000 litres, cheap land no longer an option combined with falling milk prices, the New Zealand dairy farmer is heading for a difficult time - unless they change their feeding patterns."
Halving feed bill
Not all disappointment however for Andrew Morris who crimped barely last season says he reared 1700 calves last year and "halved my feed bill. I shall definitely crimp again." Due to the indifferent weather conditions in Southlands (the Invercargill area is very similar to Scotland) we have seen a keen interest in crimping. A number of farmers have now tried the system for the first time. |
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The grain is never still: crimping in Australia
First crimper in Australia: the Korte 1000HD
Odd sight to English eyes: docked Fresians
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