From one generation to the next

Reading Time: 10 minutes

Arjun Singh manages the 250ha Holstein Friesian stud farm at Gordonton, Waikato for his grandparents, milking 1000 cows.

Dairy farming and family are intertwined for Arjun Singh and his siblings, mother and grandparents.

For five generations they have farmed dairy cows, turning pasture into milk on their land east of Gordonton.

Increasingly frustrated by the seasonal extremities, the Singhs built a barn to house their cows and switched to a Northern Hemisphere-style indoor farming system to better protect and feed their animals.

The decision was initiated by the late Aman Singh and his wife Daljit, together with their son Arjun. 

It became a reality in 2018, when building company Calder Stewart completed the imposing 250m x 40m barn (9625m2) structure. 

Aman did not get a chance to see the best of it. In March 2020, the 49-year-old farmer suffered a fatal heart attack, leaving his family to continue what he had started. 

Arjun says that his father’s vision was to showcase an example of “farming for the future” within a sustainable operation at Lawwal – the name of the Singh’s Holstein Friesian stud.

“He wanted an operation that would be compliant, without compromising cow comfort or great working facilities for our staff,” Arjun says.

“While he worked hard, he never underestimated the importance of having a healthy lifestyle and he encouraged everyone around him to do the same.”

To honour Aman’s memory, the Singhs are holding an open day on April 22 and stock sale where 5% of the sale price will each be donated to the Heart Foundation and the Rural Support Trust.

“The day’s dedicated to Dad,” he says.

“He built the legacy here at our farm and laid the platform for us. We wanted to raise funds for two charities that are close to our hearts. The success of this sale for us will be measured through helping others.”

‘The Legacy’ sale will see around 50-60 of the Singh’s cattle being sold, ranging from in-milk cows, yearlings, calves and the pick of the flush lots. There will be a mix of high production New Zealand-bred animals, which carry LIC interest.

Arjun’s sister Anjena says raising money for those two charities was the day’s main goal.

“We have had a lot of interest over the years of people wanting to come and look at the farm, so we decided to have a bit of an open day and let them look around and have a look at what we do,” Anjena says.

All of the contractors and other services the Singhs use will also be there to explain their role in the farm business.

This is an event that has been planned to be all about family, showcasing improved technology for the future, great cows and living a healthy and balanced lifestyle. It is deliberately slated during the school holidays to reflect the emphasis on family. 

Arjun now manages the farm with assistance from Anjena and his younger sister Amreeta. They also employ six full-time staff, including a farm manager, two tractor operators and three staff who work in the dairy shed and barn.

It remains very much a family-driven business. As well as assistance from his sisters, his mother Daljit rears all the calves and grandfather Karamjit manages the younger stock.

“It’s more like 10 staff. It’s a big operation and while the staff are really important, without our family, the place wouldn’t run,” Arjun says.

“And it will always be that way. It will always be a family-driven farm.”

He cannot put into words the influence his father has had on the farm.

Aman’s mum Mindho Singh says her son loved the cows.

“Ever since he was a toddler, he wanted to farm,” Mindho says.

He was also a humble leader among his family, Anjena adds.

“Our family is quite big and he was always helping everybody out. He was an innovator and found new ways of doing things.

“He was never scared of trying out new things.” 

Arjun says the barn system exemplifies that innovative mindset and was in response to the seasonal extremities they were experiencing.

“We were getting really wet winters and really dry summers. We like fully feeding our cows so it made sense to grow feed. We grow maize every summer and it made sense to bring that to the cows rather than growing grass for them in the paddock,” Arjun says.

The incremental Waikato weather was the catalyst for the cow barn, which was initiated by the late Aman Singh who did not get to see the best of it.

“He wanted to grow the business and was looking at either more land or putting up something like this and utilising more of the land we have to a higher standard.”

It protected the animals from those extremities and put them in a better position to front foot new environmental regulations.

“This system here we think is built for the future. It’s controlled, it’s sustainable and we have gone to using very little fertiliser now. Most of our nutrients are now all sourced through the effluent, both liquid and solids are all put onto the farm all year round,” he says.

Prior to the barn being built, Arjun and his father had many conversations around how they could feed their cows better after struggling to fully feed the cows enough on grass all year round, especially in the summer.

“We started looking around and we liked the look of the free stall barns. So, Dad went to the US and saw some really good barns – and some really bad barns,” he says. 

“He came back and he sent me down to the South Island to look at barns down there, and when we came back together, we knew this was what we wanted to do. It was definitely the right call.”

The open day will also showcase their total mixed ration (TMR) feed system. The system has worked well for the Singhs, allowing them to feed the required level of nutrition for each cow.

The Singhs grow 70-80% of the ration on-farm via maize silage and grass silage.

“This system has allowed us to increase production, take better care of our environment and increase the amount of feed we can grow. I definitely wouldn’t go back to pasture farming,” he says.

“So, hopefully if someone is thinking about doing it, we can help them along just as others helped us when we were making our own decisions.”

The barn is divided into four sections, with cows split into four herds designated by calving times. 

The barn’s floor is fitted with rubber matting to protect the herd’s feet and scrapers attached to steel cables fitted into grooves on the floor are used to collect up effluent.

Under the TMR system, each herd is fed a different diet depending on their lactation stage. For example, those cows who have just calved and are at their peak lactation are fed a higher level of minerals compared to the herd at their latter stage of lactation.

When a herd is close to calving, it shifts it to the front of the barn and opens up so that herd has access to a neighbouring paddock so the cow can calve in peace, away from the barn.

There is also a designated area for dry cows, where they are fed a different diet.

The system also means the cows avoid having to walk long distances from the paddock to the milking shed that can take place on an outdoor system.

The farm’s Lawwal Holstein-Friesian stud sources 90% of its genetics from North America, with the remaining 10% from LIC.

We have always gone down that [North American] route. Dad always used those overseas bulls and we have always liked Holstein-Friesian cows,” he says.

The barn held 1000 stalls – one for each cow – and he feels that they might as well put the best cow they can in each stall.

Constructing the barn also enabled them to increase their cow numbers from 600 to 1000 and lift the herd’s overall production by 30%.

Arjun says the key to getting the best out of these cows is feeding them properly. If this is done, they are capable of great production up until the point where they are dried off.

The imposing 250m x 40m barn [9625m2] structure was built in 2018 and can house their 1000-cow herd. The barn allowed them to increase stock numbers from 600 to 1000 and they have seen a 30% increase in production.

“Whereas Kiwi cows we feel are more seasonal orientated. While they get in calf a lot easier, they only milk for a certain amount of days and then they start drying off,” he says.

“They can produce great volumes and they can hold their type better, whereas other cows can break down after a few lactations.”

The cows produce an average of 700kg MS across their lactation on the System 5 farm. Having an indoor system means they can avoid the steep seasonal production peaks typically seen on an outdoor farm.

Their flatter but more consistent curve means they can hold their herd at peak production longer because the cows are not as affected by the heat of the summer as they do in a more traditional system.

Their highest producing cow for last season milked 1043kg MS and 14,350 litres as a six-year-old. Their top two-year-old produced 943kg MS (11,990 litres).

Switching to a barn system has made a big difference for their animal health, with lameness levels falling rapidly because the cows no longer have to walk from the paddock to the milking shed to be milked. All the cows’ hooves are trimmed yearly.

It also led to a 50% fall in the herd’s somatic cell count and mastitis, which Arjun believes is a result of the cows being more comfortable in the barn.

He says the perception that the system is poor on animal welfare or is not the ‘New Zealand way’ of farming is wrong.

“If we let the cows out of the barn, they’ll do a few laps [in the paddock] and they’ll go back in. If you give the cows the option, they’ll stay in there every day of the week. When it’s really hot, the cows will break fences to get inside,” he says.

The milking shed is a 50-bale rotary shed with automatic cup removers. Eventually Arjun says he wants to invest in more technology in the shed and incorporate that into how the cows’ performance is measured.

“It’s on the radar,” he says.

For now, the cows are manually drafted with all of the cows’ details recorded on MINDA.

The farm operates as a closed system, with all of the young stock born and raised on the farm. The farm has a 20% replacement rate, with calves reared in a shed before being raised outdoors.

They stay on the paddocks once they have transitioned to grass and are also fed maize and silage on the feedpad once a day.

In-calf heifers join the cows in the barn eight weeks prior to calving so they can become familiar with it.

Arjun runs a split-calving system, with 60% of the cows calving in February-March in early autumn and the rest in September. They 100% AI the herd and also use sexed semen.

The split-calving system ensures they get a winter milk premium.

The September calving only lasts four weeks, then starting in October, their cropping programme gets underway.

This plays a huge factor in the success or failure of the season, he says.

That feed – mostly grass and maize silage – is grown on their 250ha and harvested and stored on their feed bunkers.

Around 170ha of maize is grown every year and that is rotated with an annual grass.

They cut the grass all year round, including winter. Arjun says they are careful over those months not to leave too much mess in the paddock from tyre tracks.

“It’s not easy and we’ve made some messy silage stacks before but with this system, we don’t have too many other options,” he says.

In spring, they cut their grass paddocks for silage once it hits the residual target. Effluent is then applied after cutting to help it grow again until it gets cut again. He can usually get at least two cuts off those paddocks over the spring flush.

“Feed quality is really important in our system so we’re always speaking to the contractors and keeping an eye on the weather,” he says.

“I feel like a weatherman sometimes, looking for good windows to get the work done.”

The maize crops are left to grow until early autumn when it is harvested. The farm’s peat soils are excellent for growing maize because of their high levels of water retention, Arjun says.

About a quarter of the feed is brought in supplementary feed, which is mostly soya bean, palm kernel and corn gluten.

It is fed out to the cows in the barn once a day in the mixer wagon. The Singhs use a farm advisor and a nutritionist to monitor the cows and recommend the feed ratios to be given to the cows.

Team member Michael Carter feeds out maize and grass silage to the herd.

Nothing is wasted, with any feed not eaten by the herd collected and given to the heifers on the nearby feedpad.

That ratio changes over the course of the season depending on the requirements of the cow for optimum milk efficiency.

“Most systems like these use more concentrated and hard feeds. Here in New Zealand, we have to pay a lot for soy and gluten. We have to grow most of the feed ourselves – maize and grass silage and we grow that well – but we have to balance that out with the soya and gluten.”

Skyrocketing input prices have pushed Arjun to look at ways of growing more feed to lower their costs. They grow around 75% of the cow’s diet and increasing that percentage will help reduce their costs.

Their staff complete the cropping groundwork and they use contractors to harvest their maize.

The Singhs have also taken a novel approach to effluent management by investing in an umbilical system. 

From there, it is injected underground straight into the soil at around 300cm deep on their effluent paddocks.

Their effluent pond also has six months of storage, giving them plenty of options if they have to store the effluent due to wet weather.

“It’s new to New Zealand, there’s a few doing it down south but I don’t think there’s many dairy farmers doing it,” he says.

“We’re really liking the umbilical injecting system. The barn produces a slurry that is too thick to irrigate, therefore, we had to look at other options. One of the many things we have learnt since having the barn.”

That slurry is spread out onto their maize crops and even onto the pasture as fertiliser.

Looking ahead, the Singhs want to make the farm as self-sufficient as possible across all facets of the farm, from cropping and feed production through to cow maintenance.

“We’re very fortunate to have a very reliable, experienced team; our manager has been with us for 15 seasons,” he says.

For their herd, he wants to keep focusing on hitting his production targets with the goal of reaching 800kg MS per cow in the next three to four seasons.

“That comes down to breeding and feeding. If you get that right, it can be done,” he says.

He also wants to increase their homegrown feed levels so they are less reliant on imported feed, which he thinks will help keep costs down.

This will also help create a financial buffer when dairy prices eventually fall off their historic highs, he says.

He is constantly reviewing and fine-tuning the system, having learned a lot since the barn was installed four years ago.

“We have made a lot of mistakes and we have learned, but now we’re definitely starting to see the benefits,” he says.

“One of the key drivers for our open day and fundraiser was not only to help raise funds for these important charities, but also to give farmers an insight to what we’re doing here and how it’s benefiting us for the future and be a sustainable farming system.

“If someone’s thinking of going down the track with this system, we’re happy to help them.”

Fact box:

Owners: Karamjit and Mindho Singh

Farm manager: Arjun Singh

Location: Gordonton, Waikato

Farm size 250ha

Herd size: 1000 Holstein Friesian cows

Production 2020-21: 700,000kg MS 

Production target 2021-22 700,000kg MS