Taieri dairy farmer Ryan Sutherland on the value of life experience and composting barns

Taieri dairy farmer Ryan Sutherland is a big fan of composting barns. Photo / Shawn McAvinue

Dairy farmer Ryan Sutherland bought his family’s farm on the Taieri earlier this month. He talks to Southern Rural Life’s Shawn McAvinue about the benefits of composting barns and the value of life experience.

Life is busy for Taieri dairy farmer Ryan Sutherland.

Earlier this month, the 32-year-old bought his family’s farm, including 280 cows and an 85-ha home block in Henley, just south of Dunedin Airport.

One of his first projects was to get a contractor to demolish an old milking shed on the farm.

“It’s been sitting there for 22 years and it’s time to say goodbye.”

He and his partner Rhonda Nyhof were also busy raising their son Eli Sutherland (3).

The year Ryan was born, his parents, Ivan and Jenny Sutherland (nee Hall) bought the farm and the home he was raised in.

He wanted to work on the farm after leaving Taieri College but his mum denied his wish so he could get some life experience.

The experience included work as a builder, driving logging trucks and harvesting grain in Texas.

“It was the best thing - I learnt so much.”

He vowed to never let any of his children work on the farm straight out of school.

Life experience taught you there were other ways of thinking, other than your own.

Before buying the farm, he had been 50:50 sharemilking with his father for six years.

His mother died from cancer in 2015.

A large wooden sign reading “Jen’s Block” stands on a run-off block, land she inherited from her father.

Dairy farmer Ryan Sutherland leans on a sign commemorating his late mother Jenny Sutherland outside a new composting barn, sheltering 110 cows. Mrs Sutherland died in 2015. Photo / Shawn McAvinue

Both sides of his family had a proud history of dairy farming on the Taieri.

Both his grandfathers, Allan Sutherland and Joe Hall, had neighbouring dairy farms and Ryan’s parents met over the fence.

“My mum was biking past and my dad was doing a fence and they started talking.”

His parents bought both farms and ran them as a single entity, expanding by buying a neighbouring farm and leasing two run-off blocks, about 40ha each nearby.

His father planned to retire after having knee surgery in August.

“He’ll still play around in the background - farming is in his blood - he likes animals as much as me.”

When they were sharemilking it was just him and his dad working on the farm.

“I idolise my dad, big time, he is the rock to my business, if I need help, he’s there.”

The father and son had different ideas and could argue but always worked it out.

“There may be a day or two of silence but we bounce back,” he laughed.

Now his dad was retiring, the youngest of his four sisters, April Sutherland, was working on the farm.

Improvements on the farm include building a composting barn, 52m long and 22m-wide, on the home block about two years ago.

Sawdust was sourced from Milton to put in the barn and needed to be aerated daily, which helped the compost generate heat.

His cows loved the barn, he said.

“On a frosty morning, they think it’s an electric blanket.”

Initially, he thought the frosty condition had killed some of his cows in the barn but on closer inspection found they were lying down and stretching out to make the most of the warmth.

“They’re loving the heat.”

The barn was made by Auckland firm Smart Shelters and could house half the herd.

They wanted to prove the barn would work in their system before investing in a second barn.

“It worked really good.”

The cows were in better condition from keeping warm in the barn.

“They’ve got a bit of fat over their hip bone.”

An identical barn was built on the farm in autumn this year.

The material for the first barn, excluding earthworks and concrete, cost $158,000.

Inflation bolstered the cost of the same materials for the second barn to $270,000.

An aeroplane flies above Ryan Sutherland’s dairy farm in Henley. Photo / Shawn McAvinue

A reason for building the barns was to combat the traditionally wet conditions, which usually hit the farm in July.

The sight of cows eating a crop in the mud started his search for a better way to winter his cows.

“Dealing with mud wasn’t pleasant.”

The cows in the barns were fed baleage from ring feeders outside the sheds.

Usually, the cows would be fed silage but they used too much of his supply due to a dry summer.

A crop of cultivated kale on his farm won a section of the Taieri Winter Crop Competition this year.

The Regal kale crop had 18 tonnes of dry matter per hectare.

“We were happy with the result.”

The cows were given grain in the milking shed for the first time in the 2022/23 season.

“The cows got hooked on the grain and production skyrocketed - they did 575kg of milksolids a cow.”

His top cow produced 880kg of milksolids in the season.

The cow was in-calf for the first time and was due August 4.

The sire was Penza from STgenetics Canada.

He loved calving time.

“I love seeing cows with nice udders, full of milk and seeing the next generation of heifer calves.”

The cows, which calved in October last year, were still being milked.

Rising costs due to on-farm inflation meant farmers could not dry off cows too early.

“You can’t sit down for two months and not milk, you need money coming in to pay for everything.”

His cows were mostly Holstein Friesians, a breed his grandfathers both milked.

In a bid to chase fertility in the herd, Jersey genetics were introduced to the herd but the resulting conformation of the cows was disappointing.

As New Zealand genetics was failing to produce desired outcomes, they started using genetics from overseas and the results had been pleasing, he said.

In an attempt to reduce the number of bobby calves being put on the truck, they bought a Hereford bull, so they could sell its bobby calves to lifestyle block owners.

“We sold a lot of calves.”

Although more bobby calves were being reared, the births of the massive calves were injuring his cows and reducing their chance of getting in-calf the next season.

“They were nice calves but they were too big.”

To produce slightly smaller calves, they now used a Red Devon bull and a Jersey bull.

He hoped lifestylers would continue to buy the bobby calves.

“I’ll try everything to get them to have a life.”