1971
28 May 1971
MULLAMUDDY MILKING PARLOR IS A STEP UP FROM THE USUAL
By Yvonne Bucknell
(Photo)
Contented cows at Oakdene, Mullamuddy, spent the night in this enclosed yard with covered hay racks, Mr. McAdam has had success growing and feeding Sudax to his dairy herd.
In 1971, one has become so accustomed to hearing about farmers not making a profit, that when one meets a man who says he’s making money off the land, one sits up and takes notice.
Such a man is Mr. R. J. McAdam, who runs a dairy farm at “Oakdene,” Mullamuddy.
He runs a herd of 130 Friesian and Australian Illawarra Shorthorn cows on 204 acres which comprise 140 acres of river flats and is all ploughable land.
The cows produce an average of about 330 gallons of milk every day.
However, he has been prevented from making his dairy farm more profitable by being unable to make an immediate purchase of an additional fifty cows.
Mr. McAdam, said that he had tried every conceivable avenue in an effort to raise a loan for his cows, but without success.
He said, “We are a profitable organisation and we cannot get finance.
“What hope has a man who hasn’t a profitable rural organisation got in getting finance?”
Mr. McAdam, his wife and three children, Ian, (14½ years), Robin (9 years) and Warren (7 years) moved from Binnaway to Mudgee last year.
The family had run a dairy farm at Binnaway where they had supplied Coonabarabran and Binnaway with milk for some years.
During this time the Mudgee Dairy Company bought out the supplier in that area and the McAdams then provided milk for the Mudgee-based company.
Because the milk was picked up every second day, equipment for the refrigerated of milk to 45 degrees had to be installed at Binnaway.
Mr. McAdam said: “When the new Milk Authority took over the state in July of last year, we were asked by the Mudgee company to consider coming to Mudgee.
“One of their reasons for asking us, was that in those days milk was collected from the farms in cans, and a number of producers in Mudgee were only dairying in a small way, providing 20 to 30 cans a day.
“The Dairy Company told us that if we came to Mudgee they would put in bulk handling facilities and our milk would be collected every day by a bulk tanker.
So the McAdams came to Mudgee with their cows and their machinery.
An outlay of some $19,000 was made for building a brick dairy with six double units and hopper feeders, a refrigeration unit, and a separate shed with covered hay racks and an enclosed yard. The dairy has cement floors.
A feature of the milking parlor is a new concept in milking in that the cows have to go up two steps as they come into the bail.
This allows the operator to stand up, wash and put the machines on the cows while the operator is in the upright position.
The cows are milked twice a day, with the morning milking beginning at 5 a.m. and the afternoon milking at 2.30 p.m. and finishing at 6 p.m.
While the cows are being milked they are being fed between 10 and 12 lbs. of concentrates.
The concentrates are made up of grain, salt, meat meal, linseed, lime and five pounds of chopped hay.
The mixture is made up in a Mix All which the McAdams bought for $2,800 some four years ago.
The Mix All is virtually a giant-sized portable mixmaster.
The feed is fed into a silo by an auger which is then transferred by another auger to the hopper system feeding troughs in the milking bails.
After milking at night the cows are let into the enclosed shed with the covered hay racks, where they remain until the morning milking.
While in the yard they are able to eat as much hay as they want. During the day, the cows are let out into the paddocks.
The hay comprises lucerne and Sudax with most of it grown on the property by Mr. McAdam.
He is very enthusiastic about the qualities of Sudax hay and says that the cows prefer it to lucerne.
It is also a better producer in terms of bales per acre.
Mr. McAdam said that during the past summer he grew 10 acres of Sudax which produced more than 1200 bales.
This is an average three times more than the lucerne crop from the same 10 acres.
He uses a New Holland haybine which cuts and conditions the hay at the same time.
The cows find the Sudax both soft and sweet to eat and with conditioning it retains its Vitamin A.
Sudax does not taint the milk.
In addition he has 45 acres of grazing Sudax which when it is eaten right down by the cows, shoots again.
There is a large hay barn near their home which is at the other end of the farm which has an average capacity of 500 bales of hay.
Mr. McAdam said that dairy cows must be given the best of food in order to give the best milk.
The cows are left in the enclosed yard with the hay racks during the night to enable a quick start to his morning milking.
As we watched the Mix All working, Mr. McAdam said, “It is a pity there is not more co-operation amongst farmers in regard to equipment.
“We use this piece of equipment about once a week and it is invaluable for mixing the concentrates but for the remainder of the time is lying idle.
“If there was co-operation, another farmer or farmers could have the use of the machine, while I would benefit from other machinery owned by other farmers.
“In this way we would all be cutting costs.”
All the plant at Oakdene was brought down from Binnaway and it includes in addition to what has already been mentioned, two tractors, ploughs, combine and a hay baler.
Close by to their home they have about fifty weaner and poddy calves which they are rearing.
Most of these are home bred and are heifers who will one day join the herd, to replace old cows and those culled out.
However, Mr. McAdam has started to retain some of the bull calves to produce as vealers.
He said: “The trend these days is towards lean meat and Freisian vealers are providing this kind of meat.”
There are two bulls at Oakdene, both of them Fresian.
One of them is by a Hawkesbury X Merritt cow bull out of one of the McAdams’ best cows while the other they bought as a yearling two and a half years ago for $300.
Amongst the 130 cows there are a few Jerseys who bring up the butter fat content of the milk.
The McAdams were both born in Sydney where Mr. McAdam was a builder.
It was only when he got polio of the throat about ten years ago that they decided to move to the country.
With a chuckle Mrs. McAdam said, “He was told he would never be able to work again!”
They bought the property at Binnaway which was a mixed farm mainly comprising sheep.
In the years leading up to the last drought their income had been dropping each year from an income of $8,000 to $5,600 t0 $1,600 in the drought.
They then turned to rearing calves which proved a very successful venture and out of this grew their dairy.
Both of the McAdams wouldn’t like to go back to Sydney to live but they do think that it will be harder for their children to get work in a country town.
Mr. McAdam said that both the local Shire and Municipal Council are letting down the community by not promoting the area enough.
He suggested that there should be processing plants for all the vegetables being grown in the area.
“Mudgee” he said, “has a vast potential but little is being done about it.
He also had something to say about the Rural reconstruction plan and the $100 million allocated by the government.
He said, “When it all boils down, this is only 8 million a year to New South Wales, which is nothing.”
“What makes it even more absurd is when a poor farmer reads in the paper that $45 million was raised overnight by a consortium of bankers to save Minsec and the stock exchange.”
“And I can’t get a loan for my cows!1
”