In less than a decade, Reagan and Sherrie Hamilton have grown their dairy herd from 10 cows to 700, and they have their sights firmly set on hitting 900 in the future.
Photo by
Sophie Baldwin
Eight years ago, former shearers Sherrie and Reagan Hamilton decided to rear a few calves on an ex-dairy farm they had purchased at Wakool.
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They started with just 10 cows.
Having some excess milk, they put in a call to Murray Goulburn, who at the time said they would pick up them up if they had more than 500 litres.
“We decided to buy a few more cows, and then we calved down 60, and that is where it all started for us really,” Sherrie said.
Over the ensuring years, they have moved farms a couple of times, and are now milking 700 with a plan to hit 900 in the future.
Sherrie said their progress had just evolved as they had made the most of any opportunities that came their way.
“To be honest, I can’t believe where we are and we wouldn’t have half of what we had now, if we hadn’t of made a start in the dairy industry, but that’s not to say it’s not stressful because it is, and it is also a lot of hard work,” Sherrie said.
The herd size soon grew to 200, and because the cows outgrew the infrastructure, they decided to buy a farm at Tullakool that had a better dairy — a 44-unit rotary.
“We then grew the herd again to around 350 and we were looking at building a feed pad, but the cost came in at around $1.5 million, so we decided it was better value to buy another farm down the road that already had a rotary and feed pad — that was in 2021.
“We wouldn’t have have got as far as we have if we had of started all this on a greenfield site,” Sherrie said.
The family recently built a 40m x 200m barn.
Photo by
Sophie Baldwin
Throughout their entire journey, they continued to supply Murray Goulburn who then turned into Saputo after the milk price crash in 2015.
“Their growth incentive has been very good for us because we have been basically growing production every year since we started, and we haven’t had any reason to move processors,” Sherrie said.
Since purchasing the farm, the couple has put in an additional 25,000 litre vat, installed cup removers, concreted from the dairy to the feed lane and built a 45m x 200m barn.
In the future, they hope to build a maternity barn and maybe buy some more land.
“I want a dedicated maternity area to give the girls the best possible start, and the price of land around here is reasonable, which creates an opportunity for us to expand down the track,” Sherrie said.
“If we lived in a high rainfall area, land would be way more expensive and out of our reach.”
Sherrie acknowledges lack of rainfall is a risk, but the risk is mitigated to some degree by access to good quality bore water and irrigation.
The farm also has two centre pivots which are used to grow wheat and barley.
“As part of our risk mitigation, we like to have two years’ worth of feed ahead, and when there is affordable water and favourable conditions, we grow as much as we possibly can and store hay and silage,” Sherrie said.
Lucerne makes up part of the fodder rotation.
Photo by
Sophie Baldwin
For the last couple of years, cheap temporary water prices have enabled them to grow rice for additional income and they rear all of their calves and run a beef herd of about 130 to 140 head.
They usually sell all their steers once they reach a certain weight.
“We have a river block where we take all the calves so they are off the home farm,” Sherrie said.
The home farm is 607ha and they also lease a further 400ha.
Sherrie runs the dairy side of things, while Reagan grows the crops and does the irrigation.
They can step into each other’s lanes of they have to, but Sherrie reckons it works well having their own roles.
The herd is a bit of a mixed bag consisting of Holsteins, Jersey and crossbreeds.
Cows are calved every day of the year to keep a flat milk supply and collars help with health and fertility.
“I am not into breeding at all, and I am not fussed where our milk comes from, as long as we get it,” Sherrie said.
“We use sexed semen and all our cows get two goes at AI, or if they are older cows, we usually join them straight to beef.
“We use World Wide Sires and they tell me what bulls we should join to and I tell them when the semen is too expensive,” she laughed.
They breed mostly for good udders, longevity and polled animals.
“We aim to get our cows in-calf at around 100 days.”
With a year-round calving pattern, there is always a herd of dry cows on the farm somewhere.
Photo by
Sophie Baldwin
Staffing is always an issue, and while they have been down the backpacker route, they are looking toward employing more permanent staff.
Sherrie has had a permanent Filipino working for the last eight months and has applied for three Kenyan workers, the first one has already arrived.
“The problem with backpackers is spending time teaching them and then they leave, now with a more permanent staff, we won’t have to do that in the future.”
Sherrie said while getting to where they have could be largely attributed to hard work, it had also been made easier by their trusted financial adviser/agronomist/bookkeeper, who is part of every major decision they have made.
“He has been instrumental in finding opportunities and guiding us forward and we have been lucky with the timing of our buying and selling.
“We make the hard calls, and I am not afraid to make a change if we have to — one bank told us they wouldn’t finance our last farm purchase, so I just rang another bank and we had no trouble.”
In the future, Sherrie hopes to get the herd up to around 900 cows, employ some more permanent staff and eventually milk three times a day.
“We have three boys — Jye, Thomas and Mason — and I want to have a sustainable farming business they can take over if they want to, but they will have to go off and do something else first.”
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