Comboyne dairy producer Philip Borham has supplied Norco for just one year and yet has already been named cleanest milk provider for the whole of the co-operative which supports more than 200 farms from Gloucester to South East Queensland.
The accolade is not unusual for this multi-generational farmer, whose father bought on the plateau 52 years ago, moving from the Upper Manning. Under Philip's leadership, and with his son Shaun's help and his wife Debbie's support, the farm's commodity has won best quality nine years in a row -previously with Saputo, Murray Goulburn and Dairy Australia.
The criteria involves low somatic cell concentration, or bulk milk cell count. At "Adnamira" that number is an average 45,000 per milliliter, half that of the next Norco winner. In Australia payment starts to slip above 200,000 while grade A in the USA allows up to 750,000cell/ml.
"During last year's drought when we had no grass and no water for six weeks it was actually easier to produce better milk," Mr Borham said. "Now that it's wet and the laneways are all muddy my cell count is going up."
During last year's difficult record dry, Norco handled the paperwork for subsidised oaten hay. The drought subsidy of 3c/l paid in part through Coles, after much lobbying from the co-operative, proved essential.
"Usually we would have not fed oaten hay, just grain," he said. "As it was we had more production - 29 litres a day for the herd average - and higher protein."
Mr Borham's Friesian cows are well bred and enjoy kikuyu paddocks oversown with autumn rye that grow lush on red basaltic soil. Mr Borham invests $70,000 worth of seed each year to improve 150 hectares.
In the 12-a-side herringbone dairy all 240 cows have their teats stripped by hand, prior to putting on the vacuum cups and this simple, labour intensive process allows handlers to visually assess milk quality- if it is watery, or clotted with dead white blood cells, indicating infection from mastitis.
"I'm not interested in robotic milking machines," Mr Borham said. "You would lose contact with the cow. You would no longer interact with the individual animal."
It's the same with the breed. The striking black and white pattern of the Friesian takes Mr Borham's eye and he prefers the high volume milkers over Jersey.
"You've got to love what you do, or what's the point?" he said.
Herd selection is central to the clean milk result, with one third of his herd comprised of first calf cows.
Heifer selection involves an assessment of udders, looking for a strong longitudinal ligament that leads to good teat placement, with nipples pointing slightly inward.
Udder texture and veining is also important and after milking them out they should be just a skin vessel, with no firm feeling inside.
"You want the udder to collapse after milking," Mr Borham said.
Adnamira is a hilly farm, and cows need to be suited for the terrain, with legs slightly bent at the knee but not so much that their heels wear down and go lame.
"Of course they need good body, capacity and depth along with a spring of rib," he said. "I also like a good wide muzzle."
Mr Borham's best cows are serviced with sexed semen chosen from leading industry bulls as advised by a professional breeder.
Until his retirement Victorian David James was the one who assessed and made recommendations about what straws would progress the herd in the right direction.
"It was the best $800 a year I ever spent," Mr Borham said.
Heifers are put to their first service at 32 months, three months older than standard.
"I like them a bit bigger so they don't get pushed around. They've got to compete and they've got to fit in the dairy," he said.
Those females who need a repeat service are put to a Wagyu bull, with progeny sold to a backgrounder.
"Cows go back in calf much better with normal semen," Mr Borham said.
"In a perfect world you would put only your good cows to sexed semen but the best ones are heavy milkers and they are sometimes harder to get in calf."
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