Glenstuart Holstein Friesians was established by W.Y. Dickie near Mataura in 1919.
His grandson Ray Dickie, who now owns the stud, said his grandfather’s main stipulation was that his herd must be easy on the eye.
“He said, if you have to look at cows twice a day, every day of your life, they’d better be good-looking,” Ray said, laughing.
“That’s been the philosophy of the farm ever since, and the Holstein Friesian breed is a good fit.”
He and his wife Margaret — who was brought up on a sheep farm in Eastern Southland — had settled on the farm’s support block while their eldest son Rob and his fiancee Brianne had taken over management of the farm.
Although Rob was the “driving force” behind the farm, the business was still a family affair.
“We all pitch in,” Ray said.
“We have always had good family involvement throughout the years: from grandad to aunties and uncles, they all pitched in.”
The stud had a rich history, Ray said.
In 1929, the business name was changed to W.Y. Dickie and Sons.
The most involved sons were M.V. (Vic) Dickie and later L.A. (Alton) and Colin, who farmed in partnership at Glenstuart from 1954 until 1979 when Alton and his five sons, including Ray, took over under a new name, L.A. Dickie and Sons.
During this period, 80 cows were milked on the farm.
Ray went straight into farming when he left school.
“That was my leaving school present 50 years ago — a full-time farm job,
“We had the town milk supply, which was seven days a week.”
Glenstuart had long had a reputation as an excellent show stud, exhibiting at many Southland shows.
Ray recalled travelling to the Otago Show in Dunedin.
“We could never understand why Dad would go so far, but as we got older we realised the show was a shop window for the stud,
“He would head back in spring with bulls that had been sold during those trips.”
Among the many royal champion and reserve titles the stud won included cows Glenstuart KO Queen at Christchurch in 1955 and Glenstuart CP Count in 1969.
More recently, the stud won several championships with cows Glenstuart CP Glitter, Glenstuart Linmack Heidi and Glenstuart OR Judy.
Today, the 290ha farm includes a 120ha milking platform.
Ray took a hiatus from milking cows between 2007 and 2019 to work at Semex.
When Rob showed an interest in farming in 2016, Ray and Margaret bought the dairy unit off Ray’s brothers, taking over in August 2016.
Ray said when it came time to build a herd, they bought 250 Holstein Friesian cows from a variety of studs, half of which were in-calf heifers from Cresslands, Royal Oak, B & D Haylock of Oihitu, and D & S Petheram of Sudarra.
“In 2016 they were genuine surplus cows,
“We paid less than $1300 per cow to put the herd together, and there have been some real gems that have come through. Unfortunately, there were not many of the original Glenstuart cows left.”
They also bought a line of 50 crossbred cows.
They are now in their sixth season, milking 340 cows producing 150,000kgMS annually.
In 2016, they were milking 250 cows and produced 80,000kgMS annually.
“We’ve almost doubled our production without doubling cow numbers,” Ray said.
The farm was rolling country with ridges and the family stopped growing crops as there was not enough flat country to do so successfully.
“We winter the herd on feed pads which are sheltered by trees,” Ray said.
“Best practice would be for us to build a wintering barn which we may do eventually, but the feed pads are working for us at the moment.”
To supplement the pasture-based system, they feed out dairy pellets and use a little baleage and palm kernel.
Calving starts on farm on August 1, and mating on October 23 with 10 weeks of artificial insemination.
Under Rob’s management they were in their second season using Afimilk collars on the cows, monitoring heat detection and rumination.
“The collars make management so much easier at mating time,” Ray said.
“It works well with our drafting system.”
Over the past 50 years, the genetics they had used had been of North American and Canadian descent, including Croteau Lesperron Unix, winner of the Holstein premier sire title at the 2021 World Dairy Expo.
“We’re always happy with Unix daughters,” Ray said.
“Overseas genetics works for us; they are slower-maturing animals but last better on our country.”
Balanced animals were bred on the farm.
‘‘We have 10,000-litre cows but we are more than happy for the herd to be averaging between 440kgMS and 450kgMS.”
One outstanding production cow was Glenstuart Unix Dolly, who saw success in the 2020 Southland Oaks Competition 3-year-old class, and also as a 3-year-old in the Otago-Southland HFNZ Semex On Farm Competition last year.
Classifying for the first time last year, Glenstuart had six cows classify ‘‘excellent’’ including Royal Oak Laurento Remi S3F.
When selecting bulls, good conformation was their No 1 criteria, due to the rolling farm terrain, Ray said.
“The cows do have to be sound, functional cows to last on the hills, with good feet and legs,” he said.
“Good udders are important to us as well.”
The family use Semex Immunity+ bulls wherever possible, which support robust immune systems capable of dealing with a large variety of potential immune challenges, both viral and bacterial in nature.
“If we can breed cows with greater immunity to mastitis and other major diseases and they last longer, then why wouldn’t we?” Ray said.
“We also use some bulls of good genomic value.”
Family remained a dominant feature of the farm business, Ray said.
He and Margaret had five children and two grandchildren.
“They have all helped in the last few years,” Ray said.
“We have a midwife and an accountant among them, but they all link back to the farm in some way.”
They hope Rob and Bri — who hails from New South Wales — would take over the farm one day.
“Rob is now the driving force behind the farm,
“If it wasn’t for his enthusiasm and everyone’s willingness to pitch in and help, I doubt we would have carried on.
“Rob is working to build a sustainable business going forward, for his family and for generations to come.”
