Cows on cane make for a winning combination

Thirty-six varied milking cows on 1,2ha with cane tops as the major source of dry matter hardly sounds like a success formula - but the Shaws are making it work. 

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Dr Merron Galliers once ventured the opinion that it would not be surprising if in the future, the most economically successful milker was a crossbred. He was of course talking solely economics. The rising cost of feed, pasture production and the need to use the dairy cow more effectively all contributed to his theory, and he is not alone in his thinking.

Galliers was discussing a scientific exercise where only purebreds were used in the crosses for the sole purpose of creating hybrid vigour in the first cross and returning in the second cross to the pure-bred originally used. At present, no one is practising the theory on a large scale, or even seriously contemplating it as far as we know, except perhaps the Shaws, of Melmoth.

Shirley and Hugh Shaw run the small Zululand town's local dairy, started 25 years ago by Shirley's first husband. She continued running the dairy after his death and in addition maintained an 80-head beef herd 15km out of town. Calverly had owned a butchery in Melmoth but this was disposed of and Shirley found the economics of the two herds without the butchery outlet difficult. Her problems were unusual: the dairy is run as a zero-feed enterprise, with cane tops as the main fodder source, on only 1,2ha. Young stock, dry cows and heifers are kept on the beef farm.