Donovan’s Dairy: Growth and Success
6/10/2017
It’s taken less than 2 decades for the Donovan's dairy farm at Wye SA to grow to the one of Australia’s largest family owned Dairy Farms. From a humble 400 milkers James and Robyn Mann now count 2300 Friesians with another 400 coming by way of a recent purchase that has grown their total holdings to 1700ha.
It’s taken less than 2 decades for the Donavan dairy farm at Wye SA to grow to the one of Australia’s largest family owned Dairy Farms.From a humble 400 milkers James and Robyn Mann now count 2300 Friesians with another 400 coming by way of a recent purchase that has grown their total holdings to 1700ha.
Donovan’s produces 19-21 million litres.
The Mann’s bought a farm in QLD after 1981.
James visited the farm and coming from an extensive line of UK farming stock he saw the opportunities in Australian agriculture and studied at Marcus Oldham College Geelong.
James and Robyn bought a farm at Numurkah which they ran from 1989 to 1998 before buying the land at Wye.
The property required a $6.5M infrastructure investment to upgrade it from a sheep farm with a single hayshed to a 1200 cows in the first year.
James who is also a Dairy Australia director sites work life balance and a good relationship with his bank for his success.
At Donovan’s cash-flow is king and James has around 50% equity in the operation. They meet with accounts and bank manager regularly to track progress.
Donovan’s has two calving periods: 1250 Spring-calving cows are for pasture calve, and 750-900 in an autumn calving used for for money.
The property produces 3000-5000 tonnes of pasture and lucerne pit silage, 3000-4000 silage rolls and 6000-7000 tonnes of corn silage.
Milking cows receive the bail ration of 7-12kg/day of grain, plus 2-7kg at the feed pad and 5-12kg of grazed pasture.
“We’ve tried to become self-sufficient on forage production and buy in dried distillers grain, barley, canola and lupins,” James said.
Up to 7000 tonnes of concentrate is bought annually, 80 per cent of which is grain.
“Heifers, cows and calving cows are all fed separately, depending on the stage of lactation, and calving time,” James said.
For a more in-depth look into the workings of Donovan's view the extended article here
