Southland cows outnumber people 4-1

Cows graze near nightcaps with the Takitimu mountains in the background.

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There are now four dairy cows for every Southlander.

The province's cow population has topped 400,000 for the first time, according to the New Zealand Dairy Statistics for 2008-09.

The figures, released yesterday by Livestock Improvement and DairyNZ, show there were 418,337 dairy cows in Southland in the 2008-09 season, up from 353,323 in the previous season.

Southland is home to 9.8 per cent of New Zealand's cows – last year it had 8.8 per cent.

The number of herds in the province rose by 101 to 809, with the average herd size now 517 cows. In the previous year it was 498.

North Canterbury has the largest average herd size at 723 cows.

Ten years ago, there were 170,323 dairy cows in Southland. That number had almost doubled by the 2003-04 season to 300,821.

An additional 25,000 hectares of Southland pasture were converted to dairy in the past season with 155,436ha now used by the industry. There are an average of 2.73 cows a hectare.

Southland had the highest average milksolids per cow (374kg), followed by Otago (367 kg), and North Canterbury (364 kg). There were 1.7 billion litres of milk collected in Southland in the past season, up from the 1.4 billion litres collected in the previous season.

Ten years ago, 609 million litres were collected.

New Zealand dairy companies processed 16 billion litres of milk in the past season.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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