ONE dairy farming family has acted decisively to improve their fodder use, writes SIMON PINDER
Loch dairy farmer Ian Hooker had to change his herd's feeding routine after he realised his property was being washed away in winter.
To protect his land from damage caused by his Holstein Friesian herd, Ian knew he had to come up with a big and lasting solution.
The result of all that is now clear to see - an imposing 120m-long undercover feed pad.
Ian has expanded his dairy farm since taking over his father's 60ha property in 1978 and now farms 190ha with his wife, Pam, and son Trevor in South Gippsland.
Ian's main farm, with its 40-unit rotary dairy, is in a hilly part of the Loch-Bena district, but he also owns an out-paddock at Nyora.
To feed their herd each year, the Hookers make 700 round bales of grass silage off 40ha of rye pasture and grow about 20ha of maize to store in a bunker.
In 1999, Ian decided to build his feed pad, with its large roof, to confine the area where his herd was fed.
"I was losing about a third of the farm through winter (from livestock damage) before I decided to build the feed pad," Ian said.
"I was ripping the paddocks up and it was a bit of a silly idea."
The steel span and Colorbond metal roof structure, with its enclosed south side, is an impressive sight that measures about 18 metres at its widest point.
Ian and Trevor feed out their maize and grass silage blend with a Canadian-made total mix ration machine that lays it out in front of the 200 feeding bays in the impressive feed pad.
Ian said that, formerly, they would feed out their silage in a paddock, only to see it blown away or saturated and the cattle refuse to eat it.
"Now what they don't clean up one day they will eat the next," Ian said.
Ian said they planted either Snowy River or Pioneer brand maize each year in November.
This then grew until April, when a contractor was hired to harvest and fine-chop it.
He said that once the maize was processed, it was stored in a concrete bunker measuring 40m long by 11m wide and 2.4m high.
The Hookers use Geoff Miller-brand silage plastic to line the sides of the bunker before the maize is packed in, then seal it with more silage wrap anchored with old tyres.
Ian said that, so far, they had experienced no trouble with their maize going mouldy, although they did make sure it was inoculated to help fermentation and they tarped it properly.
The family's annual schedule to produce the round silage bales depends on seasonal conditions, but they generally cut the pasture between mid-October and November.
Their pasture is a mixture of Banquet and Matrix brands of perennial rye grasses.
Ian uses a Krone Multi-Cut baling machine to chop the grass into lengths of about 60mm before it is netted it into 1.3m-diameter rolls.
A spray unit attached to the Krone Multi-Cut contains a fermentation inoculant to treat each round bale as it forms.
Once the Krone has done its job, they immediately get their wrapping machine out to seal the round bales.
Ian said a friend encouraged him to try a Profile brand inoculant on his grass silage in 2007 and he found it improved the fermentation process.
"The silage is definitely working better since we started with that," he said.
The family now feeds out all their silage on the feed pad and it is used up to three times daily between March and August.
At present, half of the Hookers' feed pad floor is concreted, while the rest is bare sloping ground.
Ian said his advice to anyone contemplating building a feed pad was to not underestimate the amount of time needed to keep it clean.
He currently directs the sludge into a drain connected to an effluent pond, but he plans to install a flood wash system in time.
