Dunford family chase dairy dream with purchase of historic Jersey herd

Mr Dunford has been managing the Gladigau and Sons Holstein Friesian herd at Mount Torrens, SA, for two years, but has industry experience stretching back three decades.

His family were the founders of well-known dairy brand Udder Delights, which originated from their goat dairy at Lobethal in the 1990s.

Starting out as a milker, Mr Dunford has since worked at a sheep dairy on Kangaroo Island and a manager at Udder Delights.

While his family have sold their share in Udder Delights, in a twist of fate Mr Dunford is now selling milk to the company they started all those years ago.

Managing a 100-head Holstein herd, that are milked twice a day through a 10-a-side herringbone dairy, the Dunfords recently bought a 36-head Jersey herd from the Semmler family, Lyndoch.

With a history spanning more than 100 years at Lyndoch, the Jerseys have found a new home alongside the Holsteins in the Adelaide Hills.

While his long love of the dairy industry was one of the driving factors behind the Jersey herd purchase, Mr Dunford says the family (he and Emma have three sons Alec, Joseph and Peter) also has grand plans to value add to the milk production.

"We were looking at particular breeds that produce milk with a Kappa Casein BB protein, which is really good for making hard cheeses and ice cream," he said.

"You've got your Friesians that are milk factories, your Jerseys that are butter factories and then there's a couple of different breeds you can cross with that would make the ideal type of cow for the type of milk I'm looking for.

"Jerseys have a higher percentage of having that Kappa Casein BB in their bloodline so I'm getting them genomically tested and also selecting bulls that are carrying that gene so that every heifer calf born will have this protein in their milk that certain cheesemakers are looking for."

The Dunfords are looking to eventually have a mix of purebred Jerseys and Jersey/Norwegian Red/Montbeliarde crosses.

Mr Dunford said the crosses would not only provide milk suitable for hard cheese and ice cream making, but the bull calves would be more suitable for the beef market than Australia's common dairy breeds.

"In Europe, some of those crosses are quite common," Mr Dunford said.

"They either do a Friesian/Jersey/Montbeliarde or a Jersey/Norwegian Red/Montbeliarde. It's a smaller compact animal that is easy to work with and dual purpose."

While it is only early days in their journey, the Dunfords one day envisage running an ice creamery as another value-adding venture.

The historic Jersey herd arrived at the Mount Torrens property three weeks ago and it was a landmark 'dream becoming a reality' for Andrew and Emma Dunford.

Worker Peta Parker will continue working with the herd and has been instrumental in getting the Jerseys accustomed to a new dairy.

The Dunfords plan on growing the herd steadily and have already had two heifer calves born since the herd's arrival.

Initial milk production has been similar to the Friesians during this time of their lactation cycle, getting about 16 litres a cow a day.

Some of the better performers who have just calved are in the 25-30L a day range.

The herd is being fed barley with a supplement mix from Hills Farm Supplies, as well as silage and hay that's produced on-farm.

"During autumn, winter and spring, once the rains come, we've got plenty of grass out in the paddocks," Mr Dunford said.

"There's 1500 acres (600 hectares) we can access and this year (with the Holsteins) we did rotational grazing which made a huge difference to pasture availability.

"Five months of the year we'd be getting 25-30L a cow a day."

To make their venture successful, Andrew and Emma have trained in artificial insemination and are doing a pregnancy scanning course.

Emma, a chiropractor, has also started adjusting cows and is giving chiropractic treatment to see if it has any benefit on overall health and production.