BY ROBIN PHILLIPS
Staff Correspondent
STATE COLLEGE - Following
an afternoon of management
lectures by Penn State personnel
at the Dairy Herd Management
Conference last week, dairymen
were entertained Thursday
evening by guest speaker, Dr.
Graeme Mein, world renowned
research scientist from Australia.
Dr. Mein has traveled
throughout the world researching
the milking machine and mastitis.
Scheduled to lecture on his findings
the next iporning, Mein
enlightened the audience with the
differences between dairying in
Australia and the United States.
Australia consists of 10 to 15
coastal cities separated by
millions of miles of arid country.
The population density is about
four people per square mile. There
are approximately 20,000 dairy
farmers concentrated in the two
major dairy states of Victoria and
Tasmania. Average herd size is 100
cows owned and managed by one
family.
“It’s very much a family
operation,” Mein stated about
Australia’s tarms.
“Australia can produce milk
products more cheaply than
anyone else in the world, with
maybe one exception.” “We can do
this by turning pastures into
milk.”
In Australia very little con
centrated grain is fed. Herds
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Australian dairying
average 6,600 pounds of milk and
300 pounds of butterfat yearly. The
basic price for manufactured milk
is $5.40 per hundredweight. Prices
ranging from $B.OO to $lO.OO per
hundredweight are received if the
dairy is supplying major cities and
prime areas, but $5.40 is the
average price most dairymen
receive.
Surplus pastures are harvested
for silage and stored on open piles
with cows feeding directly from
the piles in fall and winter.
Mein also told farmers that there
is less equipment used in their
parlors and everything is kept as
simple as possible. No weigh jars
are used and the washing systems
in the parlors use reverse flow
cleaning. Over half the herds are
milked in “walk thru dairies” and
80% of the new milking sheds being
constructed are “eight to a side”
herringbone setups. One man can
milk 60 to 70 cows per hour.
The bigger dairies use a rotary
system with two men milking 40
cows at a time. “It’s an amazingly
successful way to milk cows,”
Mein related. He also explained
that the basic philosophy in
Australia is, “for better or worse,
you should be able to get done
milking in an hour and a half.”
Australians get no government
subsidies. Subsidies were phased
out several years ago, Mein said.
“It’s only what they can get out of
the market.”
All cows calve m August and
September and all go dry at the
same time too. Calf raising is left
to the wives and only five to ten
percent of the dairy farmers need
to employ outside labor.
“One of the worst features of
living in Australia,” Mein went on
to say, “are flys.” “It’s one of our
worst problems by far.” Big fans
are used in ceilings to move air and
flys. Sprinklers are also utilized on
roofs to cool the roof and milkers
and reduce flys.
Although Mem stated that there
was a four-year drought that broke
last spring, mud is still a big
problem during the rains. Rainfall
averages 20 inches a year with a
44-inch evaporation rate. “It’s a
very hot, dry climate,” Mem
stated about the fall weather.
During this time, bush fires
destroy farms and cows.
“Southeastern Australia is the
most bush fire explosive area on
earth,” Mein stated. The “super
dry air” causes fires to erupt
anywhere. Hard to control, they
often wipe out entire herds and
dairies before they are controlled.
To the attending dairymen, Mein
posed this question, “if we fed the
way you do, would our cows
produce like you’re used to ?”
He answered yes to this question
and also stated that New Zealand
(Turn to Page A 33)
is entirely grass to milk
Dr. Graeme Mein, world-renowned researcher on mastitis
and the milking machine, addressed both the banquet and
session of the Dairy Herd Management Conference at Penn
State.