DairyBase Senior Analyst and Project Lead

Research Data Analyst

Scientist

What do saloon doors and exosuits have to do with reducing injuries on dairy farms? They’re among a range of practical ideas DairyNZ is trialling to help farmers avoid sprains and strains, particularly around calving time.

NZ Animal Evaluation Manager

Contagious mastitis in cows is often spread during milking. Minimise the spread by maintaining healthy teat ends, using well-operating milking equipment, and disinfecting teats after milking.

Ryegrass selection for a dairy farm system involves key decisions: choosing the right ryegrass variety (from annual to perennial), picking an endophyte for insect control, and selecting ploidy (diploid or tetraploid) and a heading date.

Switching to full-season once-a-day (OAD) milking is a practice considered by many dairy farmers, especially in New Zealand.

Grass silage is pickled pasture, preserved through the conversion of its sugars into lactic acid by bacteria. This process extends the shelf life of the pasture beyond what it would have if exposed to open air.

Disbudding is the process of removing a calf's horns between one to six weeks old. This prevents injuries to both the farm team and other animals.

Discover the benefits of flexible milking for dairy farms - DairyNZ provides insights on milking intervals beyond OAD and TAD.

Irrigation systems require suitable application depth, rate, and return periods to meet soil, plant, and climate needs. This page encourages evaluating your system against its design specifications to find potential improvements.

Backing gates are tools used in the dairy yard to improve cow flow into the dairy, leading to more efficient milking. Moving the gate little and often takes up space in the yard, while still providing cows enough room is important.

Clusters in dairy milking are a set of components that include a claw and four fully assembled cups. Selecting the right clusters and setting them up correctly will increase milking efficiency and improve animal health.

Sodium is vital for dairy cows, aiding in water balance and nerve and muscle function. It's expelled routinely and needs replacing. This page discusses how certain regions, like the Central Plateau pumice soils, can be deficient in sodium.

Bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) is a widespread disease impacting around 80% of New Zealand's dairy and beef herds, causing losses in reproduction, increased disease, and reduced growth and milk production.

Succession planning is the process of transferring farm assets, knowledge, and skills to the next generation.