GUEST SPEAKER - Rohan Sprunt

Last one of the Sprunt clans (in my generation)
Seventh child, born on the 7th day of the 7th month 1970
Came to Numurkah for schooling from Nathalia
Doug McKeown was a mentor
Turned out to be an accountant as a trade
Didn't learn about computers until yr 11
Went to University in Bendigo, came home on weekends for football and the farm
Worked behind the bar running glasses and doing ‘unqualified’ security work there
Got a job at Darrly Twitt Motors - Mitsubishi
Was a receptionist, salesman and accountant
Living with Eva Golt - grandma
Ended up doing the accounts for five franchises working toward Y2K
Put in an Incentive Program to get reports early to make informed decisions
Spent ten years with Darryl
Finished in 2002, milking cows before work and Graeme was alone on the farm for mum
Director of Genetics Australia and a Board Member of Jersey Australia
Was a part of pulling together the states and creating Jersey Australia
Last three years has been diagnosed with aggressive arthritis in hips and spine
Found out my hip joints are the wrong shape which accounted for multiple hamstring injuries over the football career
Found out he has the gene for early arthritis as does brother Graeme
Farm was settled in 1874 by William Golt, fourth generation of farmers - Kaarimba
Use to mark the trees with an axe so you could find your way home (heavily treed area)
Last flood came from a direction never happened before
Grazing, wheat, cattle and sheep originally
Dad met mum at the old-time dance at Kaarimba
Dairy cows were started in the 1960's, first Jersey registered in 1964
Late 1970's dad got into showing cows
Took a large team of milkers to Melbourne Show - a team of 25
Rohan had photos of Melbourne Show in early 1980's
If there was a show on, everyone went
Brian Leslie went through all his data and found nearly two pages worth of accolades for the show cows
There is no money in showing cows - after dad died, all the show cows got sold off to pay debts
Oldest brother Peter found some of the old cows rearing calves on a NSW stock route and brought them home again
When dad got sick, he told everyone he was sick (not what with) he passed away 7 months later
No life insurance, debt on the farm
Graeme was left at 18 yrs to run 1000-acre farm
Last of the cows were then sold and the farm got leased out
July 1984 Graeme and Rohan started milking cows again, leasing 400 acres off mum
1986 renovated the dairy to 12 bales
Started looking at buying the farm off the family, and then bought everyone out
July 2002 had recently gotten married, purchased another 80 acres off Peter
In 2005 was in USA on holiday, Graeme rang and said about building a new dairy
Got into the new dairy in May 2006
16 aside with rapid exit, readable tags, 130 cows
Got 15% more milk
New pivots onto farm to change from dryland to irrigation
2016 very wet year, purchased more cows and another block
Milked up to 410 cows, believes are healthier if they can graze grass
DPI worked out getting 15T/Ha of grass at their farm with lots of testing
As of last week, we were named the second highest Jersey production farm
The Jersey cow is 21% more efficient than a Holstein cow
Went down the track of biodynamic fertiliser 15 yrs ago, which has improved soil health and increased dry matter per Ha
We are the only farm in Australia that is a Master Breeder in Australia for Jersey and Holstein
Genomic tested herd, which has proved itself
Won a number of accolades in showing cows at IDW
Recent sale had great results which IDW had built our profile
Had four sales over their journey
Rohan spoke about the great individual results of cows and bull semen sales
Still have 350 young stock to join to a breeding program to come up for sale soon