WHEN Luke and Meaghan Cleary saw a small window of opportunity to increase the profits of their Wauchope dairy farm in NSW, they jumped through.
The Cleary's 120-hectare property Hastings Park is one of a small number of dairyfarms that now supplies Norco with A2 milk.
Milk marketed as A2 is from cows that only produce the A2 protein in their milk rather than the other main protein, A1, or a mixture of A1 and A2.
"We saw an opportunity and there was only a small window to get in, because they were only looking for a few farms," Luke said.
"If we didn't do it then, we possibly wouldn't have got the chance again and we are always looking for ways to value-add to our product, and that was one way to do."
The Clearys proceeded to convert their 300-head herd of predominately Friesians that produced both A1 and A2 protein, to those that had been tested and confirmed A2-producing cows.
They made the move to A2 a year ago and now milk 260 cows but will soon be back up to their original number of 300 head with the purchase of a mob of A2-tested heifers.
"Production last year was 2.2 million litres, and once we increase numbers we plan to get back up to our previous levels of 2.5ml," Luke said.
"We converted completely to A2, and in doing that we had to test all the cows and sell off the ones that weren't A2 and replace them with ones that had been tested A2."
After dairying at Hastings Park for about 20 years, the fifth-generation dairyfarmer who farms with his parents Sue and Leo Cleary was looking for a way to get more for their product.
"There's a slight bonus pay per litre and we had an excess of heifers, so we thought we could test and without too much trouble replace our current stock with A2 cattle," Luke said.
"A2 was looking for people and we were looking to value-add to our product - once the dust settled and the testing and changeover of stock finished, there wasn't any more work involved than before but we were receiving more for the end product."
* Full report in Stock Journal, May 22, 2014 issue.