By Neil Adams
We’re pleased to announce that Rob Chilman from Droitwich, Worcestershire has been named Promar’s 2021 Milkminder Manager of the Year. Rob beat off over 600 other dairy businesses to win the award, which has been presented for over 30 years.
Rob Chilman runs a herd of 230 Holsteins averaging 11,455 litres, with a margin over purchased feeds of £2,546 per cow. The cows are managed on a straightforward system based on maximising contribution from forage. The milking herd is housed all year round and bedded on sand cubicles. Cows are milked twice daily and TMR fed, and all are fitted with activity monitors.
The objective of the business is to maximise margin per cow which is driven by milk from forage. Attention to detail is key to all they do, with the objective of managing costs while striving to improve herd performance.
Rob farms a total of 86 hectares made up of owned and rented land and buys in 20 hectares of grass silage per year. The milking diet is kept as consistent as possible, based on grass, maize, a blend and Trafford syrup.
Despite a challenging market, with milk prices under pressure and significant commodity feed price inflation, Mr Chilman has maintained margins by focusing on attention to detail in all aspects of the business.
Attention to detail and regular monitoring of performance has allowed him to achieve an outstanding level of technical performance. By focusing on controlling costs, he has gone a long way towards maintaining margin over purchased feed per cow while reducing other cost areas to manage total cost of production.
We’re proud to work with a host of brilliant dairy farmers, including Rob Chilman. They are driven, ambitious and very capable farm managers, open to change, aware of the challenges their business faces and positioning their businesses to meet the demands of a volatile milk price. They concentrate on parts of their business they can influence and appreciate that business management solutions require a skilled team both on and off farm.
About The Author
Managing Director
Neil.Adams@genusplc.comI am old enough and wise enough to remember that businesses, have to make a profit as well as feed people, care for the birds and the bees and ensure the planet will sustain future generations. A tall order but one which is endlessly fascinating and never dull. more
