Steve Brown and his herd in one of the dairy shelters on his Princetown farm.
Photo by
Rick Bayne
Steve Brown reckons his dairy shelters might answer a lot of the challenges facing the industry.
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Not only are the two clear roof, deep litter Dairy Shelters Australia shelters helping to reduce pressure on his paddocks, keep the cows and calves warmer and healthier and contribute to increased milk production, they’re boosting the image of dairy farming and easing pressure on staff.
“From a cow management and husbandry perspective, I see these shelters as a good way of addressing the challenges we have in this country,” Steve said.
“People want to know that we’re taking care of our cows and the shelters can be part of that. They’re more efficient and make management easier; I don’t know what we’d do without them now.”
Steve and his wife Jo farm in partnership with their son Travis and his partner Sarah at Princetown, just a few kilometres from the Great Ocean Road and the Twelve Apostles in south-west Victoria.
The family has been on the land for about 25 years and milk 500 mostly Holsteins on a total of 365 hectares.
After losing access to about 140 hectares of leased land a few years ago, the Browns needed another way to maintain numbers and production without damaging their home farm.
The answer was a dairy shelter for the cows that was introduced in May 2023.
It was such a success that they returned to Dairy Shelters Australia this year for two more adjoining purpose-built shelters for housing and rearing young stock.
“We were sitting behind cows for hours to get them to the dairy,” Steve said.
“We thought if we put in a decent feed pad and a shelter, we could address cow comfort and lack of staff, which are among the big issues dairy farmers have to face.”
The five adjoining cow shelters next to the dairy cover about 4000 square metres and the cows are voting with their feet.
“The cows have really changed,” Steve said.
“Years ago, we’d have to get behind them at night to bring them home.
“Now we’ve got a gate break with a timer on it that goes off at 2.15pm and they wander home at their own pace.
“We send them to the shelter at night, but in the mornings, they want to go to the paddocks.
“They’re telling us – daytime they want to be in the paddocks, at night they’re happy to eat what we mix for them on the pad.”
They have retained milking numbers despite the lost land.
“If we had more than 500 cows, the 28-a-side double-up dairy would be too slow,” Steve said.
“On top of that, production definitely came up. We’ve certainly gained a couple of litres out of them since introducing the shelters.”
Steve attributes the production jump to the warmer conditions, less stress and walking, and more consistent feeding.
“When you lose land and keep numbers up, you need to bring more feed in, but you have to balance production to pay for it,” Steve said.
“We look at the whole management: cow health, less walking, more milk, and whether without the shelter, we might need another labour unit.
“On a normal year when it’s wet, they wreck paddocks and now they don’t have sore feet because they’re not walking as much. Straight away the cows loved going in there and laying down.”
Steve Brown attributes his herd's production jump to the warmer conditions, less stress and walking, and more consistent feeding.
Photo by
Rick Bayne
Travis drove the discussion on the shelters and they were instantly pleased with their investment and decided to double up this year with a separate facility for calves and heifers.
“Heifers in winter are a pain. They go onto grass and eat a bit and then just walk around and around and destroy a paddock,” Steve said.
“In the shelter, we have contracted almond hulks at a good price, some straw and hay and energy booster and they’re well fed, warm and not burning as much energy walking around a paddock.”
Calves are born February-April and Steve said keeping them in a clear-roof shelter was better for the calves and the paddocks.
“In the shelter, they’re well looked after. They’re definitely growing out better. It’s warmer in there and we plough the woodchips all the time so they’re laying down somewhere warm and dry.
“A lot of people don’t consider the energy involved in trying to stay warm. If they’re in the paddock shivering, they’re going to need more feed to grow.”
The same applies to the humans.
“When you’ve got cattle outside in winter, trying to feed them is a nightmare,” Steve said.
“If you try to feed in the paddocks, they waste it, if you put it in feeders, they have trouble accessing it and you’re ploughing it up with the tractors getting in there.
“We keep the feed up to them, we’re not destroying paddocks and you definitely get better calves in the end.”
The big cow shelter is multi-purpose and partly used for calving, but long-term, Travis wants to build another shelter purely for calving.
Steve believes more south-west Victorian farmers will look at shelters.
“We’ve had quite a few come and look at it and say they want to do it,” he said.
Some farmers are turning to barns, but Steve doesn’t see them as the best option.
“A few are building sheds to keep them inside all the time, but I don’t see ourselves ever doing that,” he said.
“We toured America and they’re all inside in barns which you can understand because of the weather, but I think cows love going outside.
“We need sunlight down here. Barns up north would work because you’re trying to keep the sun out. I see these clear-roofed shelters as a great alternative because of the heat you keep in them over winter. In summer, if it’s hot, we’ll keep them outside.
“You save a lot of pasture and the system is flexible and you can work it how you want.”
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