The podcast that celebrates dairy farming and the people behind it. Hosts George Dodson (Young Farmer of the Year winner, dairy farming the family farm in Leeston) and Conan Moynihan (Groundshift co-founder, agribusiness coach and Kellogg Scholar) sit down with farmers, experts and industry folk to dig into one topic at a time, from soil health and nutrition to calf rearing and everything in between. Practical advice you can take back to the farm, real stories from the paddock, and plenty of laughs along the way. Because dairy's good..... but how good?
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How Good’s Spring | George Dodson & Conan Moynihan
Calving’s nearly done, mating’s a week away and the grass is going gangbusters. George and Conan catch up on what mid-October really looks like on George’s Canterbury dairy farm.
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11 Oct 2026
How Good's Your Udder Health | Natasha Maguire, Farm Medix
Mastitis microbiologist Natasha Maguire on subclinical cases, cell count, antibiotics and bought-in heifers, and why the answer starts with testing before you treat.
00:00 Coming up 00:28 How good's dairy? 00:47 Meet Natasha and how it all started 03:11 What is mastitis? 04:17 Finding subclinical mastitis: herd tests and RMT 04:58 What somatic cell count actually measures 06:33 Why test every case 07:56 What the bugs tell you about your farm 08:56 Benchmarking your herd's udder health 11:27 When the cell count spikes 12:47 Guessing is expensive: the teat spray trap 14:08 Can teat spray damage teats? 14:58 George's farm: where to start with bought-in cows 16:28 Fresh cow procedures and the first four days 18:05 What's really behind early-season mastitis 19:28 Next steps: just test 21:33 Antibiotics and selective dry cow 24:27 When there's nothing to treat 26:14 Prevention: buying in cows and heifers 28:08 Teat spraying done properly 31:16 Staph aureus: the big one 33:32 Culling, cell count and "it's not the farmer" 34:50 Don't wait, find out 35:52 Takeaways 36:43 Where to find Natasha
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4 Oct 2026
How Good's Tech | Ash des Landes, Canterbury Sharemilker
Ash des Landes and his wife are 50/50 sharemilkers on the Canterbury Plains, milking 650 cows at Dunsandel and, from this season, another 585 near Leeston. That's 1,200 cows producing around 600,000 kg of milk solids. In this episode George and Conan dig into the technology behind that operation and what it has actually changed on farm: Culturing mastitis samples in the farm office before treating. Antibiotic use is substantially down, the bulk cell count is holding around 110,000, and Staph cows at dry-off went from as many as 20 to zero. Virtual fencing collars. The fuel bill has halved, lameness is down, the team spends less time on motorbikes, and kale and pasture breaks are shifted several times a day. How Ash weighs up what a piece of tech is worth, and how he gets a young team using it properly. Why the tech is what let the family take on a second farm without giving up time together. Ash's take: we all do effectively the same thing; what separates the good from the best is the timing of the decisions we make.
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27 Sept 2026
How Good's Your Soil - Canaan Ahu, Agrownomics
Canaan Ahu of Agrownomics on soil biology, nitrogen, compaction and carbon, and why the best soil test starts with a spade.
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21 Sept 2026
How Good's Beef on Dairy | Ben Watson, GENEZ
Beef over dairy is the fastest-growing decision on a New Zealand dairy farm — and most of it gets made in about three seconds, standing behind a cow at mating.
George Dodson sits down with Ben Watson, co-founder of GENEZ and a dairy farmer of close to thirty years, to work out what putting beef over your dairy cows actually does to the bottom line. Conan's away this week, so producer Andy Rowe takes the second chair.
They get into why the beef decision drives genetic gain in your replacement heifers, how GENEZ picks a different sire for week one than week six, what calving ease really means next to birth weight, and why a 40kg calf can still come out easy.
Then the money. A bobby calf gets you thirty or forty dollars. Contracted beef calves are running one fifty to one eighty in the South Island — both sexes, the whole of spring. But Ben won't call it free money: every kilo of calf birth weight costs the cow around 0.67 of a milk solid, which is $6.70 a kilo on a $10 payout.
Also in this one: what a "marker" calf is and why it has to be obvious at three in the morning, the $118 difference in rearing cost between the slowest and fastest bull in the catalogue, and the 156kg weaner that turned up the week after Show Week.
GENEZ: @
Dairy's good — how good? Let's find out.
Chapters
00:00 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU) INTRO
00:32 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=32s) "Ben, how good's dairy?"
00:51 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=51s) Conan's away — Andy fills in
01:23 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=83s) Where GENEZ started
03:07 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=187s&pp=0gcJCWMAwfN6Pr3D) Why put beef over your dairy cows
04:21 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=261s) Picking the right sire, week by week
06:14 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=374s) Calving ease, birth weight and gestation
10:16 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=616s) What the calf rearer actually wants
11:37 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=697s&pp=0gcJCWMAwfN6Pr3D) The $118 gap between two bulls
12:58 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=778s) Why the smaller calf can win
15:10 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=910s) "Who's dropped the ball here?"
16:23 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=983s) Wearables, beef price and the perfect storm
18:01 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=1081s) What a marker is
20:05 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=1205s) Why you don't use Angus at AB
22:11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=1331s) The bottom line — $30 bobby vs $180 beef calf
26:08 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=1568s) Contracts, scale and a 156kg weaner
28:10 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=1690s) What that beef calf costs the cow
30:52 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=1852s) Bridging the gap — markers, then SGL
32:34 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=1954s) Coming up — George's beef mating plan
33:20 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El169AwWeLU&t=2000s) Where to find GENEZ
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13 Sept 2026
How Good's Year One - First Season On Your Own Farm
George is a season into milking his own cows, and he's already doing things his own way: a colostrum mob that never goes behind a wire, and a breeding rule with no science behind it at all.
From there it's the ideal cow for a wet, heavy farm, why Conan gets a bit miffed at being called a regenerative consultant, the three legs of the stool on compaction, why effluent ends up in the wrong paddock on most farms, a planting plan going in this autumn, and an honest word about what eleven-hour days do to a body.
George Dodson farms at Leeston, Canterbury. Conan Moynihan is an agribusiness coach and co-founder of Groundshift.
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6 Sept 2026
How Good's the Co-op | Richard Allen, Fonterra CEO
Fonterra CEO Richard Allen on what the co-op actually does with your milk, how the milk price is really set, and why New Zealand dairy farmers are the envy of the world. Dairy's good — how good? Let's find out.
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30 Aug 2026
How Good's Nutrition | Shaun Balemi, myCOW
Feed is the biggest controllable cost on most dairy farms, and the easiest place to quietly lose money. George Dodson and Conan Moynihan sit down with dairy nutritionist Shaun Balemi (myCOW) on feeding efficiency: fillers vs concentrates, early vs late lactation, palm kernel and protein, what rumination data is really telling you, and what nutrition does to in-calf rates. Plus why a hungry cow is a stressed cow — and an expensive one. George puts his own farm up for some free consulting.
More from Shaun: https://mycow.nz
CHAPTERS
00:00 A hungry cow is a stressed cow
00:32 How good's dairy?
01:11 Thirty years in, and what farmers taught him
03:08 Three big opportunities for New Zealand dairy
05:01 Drowning in data: which numbers actually matter
06:46 George on farm: stock sense vs the computer
10:06 Collars, rumination and reading the paddock
11:32 Feeding efficiency without breaking the bank
14:30 What counts as a starchy feed
15:23 Pasture-only vs a complete diet, and the digestion army
17:23 Fillers vs concentrates, and what NDF means
19:25 When early lactation becomes late lactation
20:07 Palm kernel, DDG and getting the protein right
22:53 Can you actually measure the payback?
25:08 Pasture harvested per hectare: the number that pays
27:29 Silage quality: New Zealand's blind spot
29:13 Nutrition and reproduction: consistency is the lever
31:53 Minerals, selenium, B12 and the transition window
35:06 Soil, nutrient density and where this is heading
36:58 Shaun's one piece of advice
39:46 Where to find Shaun and myCOW
41:02 Takeaways and wrap
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23 Aug 2026
How Good's Calving | Karen Fraser, The Calf Experts
Calving is relentless. And the decisions that shape an animal's entire life get made in the middle of it, thirty seconds at a time.
Karen Fraser has reared calves through just about every version of this job — from converting a Hawke's Bay potato farm to 1,500 cows in the early 2000s, to running young stock on Rakaia Island and Woodstock Farms, to teaching people who'd never touched an animal how to rear calves properly. These days she's one half of The Calf Experts alongside ruminant nutritionist Stacey Cosnett, and a technical specialist at Farmlands.
She sat down with George and Conan on George's farm to go through calf rearing the way it actually happens at 5am, not the way it looks in a manual.
We get into the five Qs of colostrum — including the one nobody talks about, and why a frightened calf absorbs less of what you just fed it. Whether to tube a calf or teach it to drink, a question George and his dad have never agreed on. Why topping up a water bucket with a garden hose is quietly teaching your calves not to eat. Rumen development, and why you're really feeding two animals at once. Ad lib feeding, and why the step-down needs 21 days rather than 14.
And the question we finished on: what's good calf rearing actually worth in lifetime production?
00:00 How good's dairy?
00:47 Welcome — Karen Fraser
01:01 From potato growers to 1,500 cows
02:34 How The Calf Experts started
04:19 The five Qs of colostrum
06:56 Squeaky clean — and the Q nobody talks about
08:52 The first two feeds
09:34 Tube it, or teach it to drink?
12:06 Water: why a bucket is a problem
15:07 What skimming does to the grown cow
16:16 Rumen development — you're feeding two animals
18:54 Fibre, acetate and the 10% rule
20:13 Ad lib feeding, and the 21-day step-down
23:02 What George does on his farm
25:40 The best calf sheds Karen has seen
27:46 What's good calf rearing worth?
29:48 Takeaways
32:32 Where to find Karen
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4 Aug 2026
How Good's Dairy? Meet Conan & George
Welcome to How Good's Dairy — the podcast that celebrates dairy farming and the people behind it. In this first episode, George Dodson (Young Farmer of the Year winner and Canterbury dairy farmer) and Conan Moynihan (Groundshift co-founder, agribusiness coach and Kellogg Scholar) introduce themselves, share why they started the show, and set out what's coming: one topic at a time, unpacked with farmers and experts, with practical advice you can take back to the farm. Dairy's good — how good? Let's find out.
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