nfd10

Spring 2010

A special supplement by

Sun Media Ltd 07 578 0030

Showcasing new dairy sheds throughout the North Island, NZ

Dairy innovations

T h is

2010 edition:

* 27 new installations * 10 4p sheds * A m ages of ide ust-have gu * for dairy farm development

NEW FARM DAIRIES

Page 2

Coast & Country

Changing the lives of dairy farmers

Table of Contents FARM

DISTRICT

PAGE

Averill

Waikato/King Country

4-11

McLeod

Waikato/King Country

12-17

Glenrowan Farm

Waikato/King Country

18-21

Holmes Belton Waituhi Pastoral Longview Pastures Quirke Ag Research Field Stonham Farm Landsdaal Addison Pinney Shepherd Martin Bella Vista Farm Ben Alpin Willowford Farm Waipapa Trust Waituhi Kurutau Trust Brinhill Farm Kilwaughter Farms Herrick Landers Clince Bishop

Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Waikato/King Country Te Puke Northland Northland Northland South Auckland Hawkes Bay Hawkes Bay Central Plateau Taumarunui Eastern BOP Eastern BOP Wairarapa Taranaki Taranaki Taranaki

22-25 26-31 32-33 34-35 36-37 38-43 44-47 48-51 54-55 56-57 58-59 60-63 64-65 66-67 68-71 72-75 76-79 80-81 82-85 86-89 90-93 94-97 98-99 100-101

We’ve milked the best new ideas and skimmed the cream of dairy developments to again bring you the best of NEW FARM DAIRIES in 2010.

When the best of home-grown Kiwi ingenuity is combined with world-leading technology – the result is excellence in dairy innovation. It’s all here in this latest edition of NEW FARM DAIRIES 2010 brought to you by the team at Coast & Country, the rural publishing sector of Sun Media Ltd. We’ve trudged the North Island to bring you a stunning cross-section of on-farm dairy developments.

It’s been a trying year for the rural sector. It says a lot for the resilience of the New Zealand dairy industry that there’s such steadfast commitment. That shows in the level of development featured on these pages.

Planning and building a New Farm Dairy is a highly specialised field. New Zealand leads the world

in innovation and technology, a process of constantly-evolving improvement and performance.

Every time we walk into a new milking plant we discover fascinating advances, ranging from the technologically brilliant to the downright ‘so-simple-it’s-stupid’ ideas that change the life of the dairy farmer for the better.

Take a walk through the sheds on these pages, an essential guide for anyone considering upgrading their milking plant, planning a new shed, farm conversions or amalgamation.

There’s a tale to tell in every one, brimming with clever Kiwi thinking and the latest and greatest equipment advances.

The dairy installations featured in this edition tell a story of incredible commitment – to the land, industry, the science, family, lifestyle and best business practice. The common thread – a drive for efficiency, improvement, animal welfare, sustainable environmental practice and profit. That balanced strive for excellence is the hallmark of good modern dairy farming in New Zea-

Brian Rogers Director/ Editor

Publishers Brian & Claire Rogers

No.1 The Strand PO Box 240 Tauranga 3140

New Farm Dairies is brought to you by...

Coast & Country is delivered free to more than 32,000 rural mailboxes, covering all Bay of Plenty and Waikato rural areas. This annual NEW FARM DAIRIES is circulated to all dairy farmers in the North Island, covering 24,000 dairy farms.

land. The team at Coast & Country thanks the many owners, suppliers, builders and contractors who have thrown open the gate and assisted so willingly with the production of this latest edition of NEW FARM DAIRIES. We appreciate being made so welcome on so many of your amazing properties. The morning teas, again, were legendary. Thanks for allowing our team to stride across your paddocks, pick your brains; and poke, prod and photograph the inner workings of your spectacular milking systems. A special thanks to our dedicated team of rural specialists who have worked so hard all year to bring your stories and pictures to these pages.

We are well advanced for the next edition of NEW FARM DAIRIES and as usual, spaces are filling fast.

The 2011 issue will cover dairy farms nationwide.

To be featured, call us early to avoid disappointment.

Sun Media 07 578 0030 or Lois McKinley at 027 2817427

Claire Rogers Managing Director

Lois McKinley 027 281 7427 Advertising

Natasha Mitchell Editorial

Sue Edmonds Editorial

Andrew Campbell Editorial

phone 07 578 0030 fax 07 571 1116 email ads@thesun.co.nz

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NEW FARM DAIRIES

Page 3

New improvements and technology As we go out each year to report on new farm dairies being completed, there are always a raft of new improvements in milking technology to view and understand.

The shed builders compete to make their constructions both cow and milker friendly. The days of elderly herringbone sheds where it was freezing in winter and a sweatshop in summer are gone.

Even this style these days is generally light and airy, while having rooflines which deflect the wind and protect from driving rain.

Larger herds

With herds continuing to get larger, fifty-four bail rotary sheds are more and more common, with even larger ones around. And these days we find cows wearing electronic ear tags, or neck bands, and even anklets, which the computer technology installed recognises and responds to.

Coupled with these are more and more milk monitoring systems, installed under the platform for each bail. Some just measure resistance (cell counts) while others also measure the amount of milk which each cow gives at each milking. No slacking allowed on milk production these days. Fade away and you’re out of the team and on the truck, straight from

the loading bay in the yards! And herd testing has been simplified out of sight!

Electronic cup removers have become almost universal in just a few years, and for those sheds without them, they’re on the top of the wish list for next season.

As well, today’s milking plants allow endless improvements to be simply clipped onto what’s already installed, rather than having to upgrade the whole system.

Changing bails Even the bails are changing shape, both to fit various sized cows and to make entering and leaving easier, and they all seem to have retainers which keep slow milking cows on for a second round. In-shed feed systems can now produce individualised and measured meals for each cow, and we thought feed bins and troughs were pretty good not very long ago!

Hot competition There seems to have been hot competition in the teatspray market this year, with new models squirting from different angles or multiple jets. And those simple looking lumps of plastic which separate cow back legs have made cups-on a visual activity, rather than a blind grope for front teats.

In addition, the models where the clusters drop down below the bridge and get a quick wash as they

go through both reduces the spread of bugs, and offers the cups-on milker a clean set each time.

How yards are designed seem to get more sophisticated every year.

Automatic drafting systems which can siphon cows off up to five different ways can now see cows drafted and held for mastitis treatments or heat testing, extra time on a feed pad or standoff pad, or even get in line for a pedicure. Vet areas now allow for both indoor and outdoor treatments, AI, and anything else your vet fancies to do.

But it’s probably the improvements in effluent management which are the most noticeable.

Even four years ago I used to be shown 25,000 litre holding tanks on farms which used around 60,000 litres of water every day. So what did they do when it rained?

These days they dig huge ponds and use the spoil to create the shed foundation. Weeping walls separate out the solids into bunkers, and stirrers keep ponds from crusting. And all that lovely free fertilizer, spread when the soil can cope, grows great maize and cheers up pasture.

Perhaps one of the best things happening, from the manufacturers’ points of view, is that our technical advances in milking sheds and their contents, are proving a real winner as exports to a growing list of countries. Kiwi ingenuity still growing strong!

by Sue Edmonds

AVERILL

Page 4

Coast & Country

Just kidding around Kerry and Robyn Averill have owned their farm for 20 years now. On the outskirts of Morrinsville, this 50 hectare farm is surrounded by lush countryside. Just a hop, skip and jump to town.

By Lois McKinley

What was previously a cow dairy was converted to a milking goat dairy. Currently into their fifth season milking Saanen and Saanen cross milking goats, the Averill’s are thrilled with their choice of milking companions.

“Goat farming is very labour intensive,” says Kerry. “But I would never go back to milking cows.” The Averill’s are assisted on the goat dairy with the help of three full time labour units.

Kerry and Robyn started with 420 milking goats, and have now increased the herd to 1000.

As the herd grew so did the need for a new shed.

When the Averill’s began milking they used an old converted herringbone shed. The herd well and truly outgrew the shed, so the decision was made to upgrade to a new one.

Kerry works on the farm full time with Robyn doing kid rearing and other bits and pieces, as well as working at the local school as a teacher aide.

with 140 does for mating. The bucks get swapped around quite often.

Robyn copes with all the feeding of kids. The kid feeding has an automated machine that mixes the powder with water, beats it to get the lumps out and feeds it to the kids ad lib. Now Kerry Averill, Rob Broomfield and Robyn Averill.

because calfaterias are unsuitable for goats as they jump into them, there is a series of concave holes in the wall of their pen with teats in, a very novel way for the kid to feed.

All the goats are permanently housed indoors. Indoor housing is done because it keeps the goats warmer and they produce more. The Averill’s purchased all their goat shelters from Harford Greenhouses’ Auckland branch Taylor Built Ltd. Situated just to the rear of the milking shed, there are a series of eight 7x60 metre shelters, and two that are six metres wide by 45 metres long. In between the bays are covered bays, in

Feeding out freshly cut grass. which the feed is spread numerous times during the day.

Kerry feeds his goats small feeds during the day rather than one big continuous meal. Brewers grain and Palm Kernel and freshly cut grass are fed during daylight hours, with another feed at night. This is fed by tractor in the bays each side of the shelters, and the goats put their heads out through the railings to feed. ... continued

Kids and more kids

Goat gestation is only five months, so mating occurs in February each year, then the does have a dry period before kidding with milking commencing on the first of July. The bucks can serve fifteen to twenty does per day, and the Averill’s have three bucks penned up

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Chewing it over

continued...

Goats eating in the Harford greenhouses.

The goat is a member of a group of animals called ruminants. Ruminants chew their cud.

Unlike us, they have special four-compartment stomachs especially designed to digest roughage such as grass, hay and silage.

The goat’s stomach has four chambers:

D a i r yo r SD oom le sat i rc

the rumen, the honeycombed reticulum, the omasum, and the abomasum or true stomach. The size relationship of the four chambers changes as the animal grows up. The abomasum gets proportionally smaller. To understand why this happens, let’s consider the function of each compartment and then review the goat’s diet.

The rumen acts as a big fermentation vat.

Bacteria and protozoa in the rumen supply enzymes to break down the fibre in the goat’s feed. The tiny organisms in the rumen also help to build proteins from the feed and manufacture all of the B vitamins needed by the goat. Many nutrients that help provide the goat with energy are also absorbed here.

The fermentation process produces heat that

Page 5

helps to keep the goat warm.

When roughage is eaten by the adult goat, it is chewed on, soaked with saliva, and then swallowed. This bolus of food is called “the cud”. It goes down into the rumen to be attacked and broken down or digested by the micro-organisms. At regular intervals the cud is brought back up to the goat’s mouth to be chewed more and then swallowed again.

This entire process is called rumination. If you watch the goat’s neck carefully, you can see it swallow and later regurgitate his cud.

The goat will often burp to get rid of the gas produced by all the fermentation going on in its rumen. You can really smell the fermentation process on their breath. If something causes the goat to stop being able to burp up the gases, the gas will build up and bloat or swell up it’s rumen and they may become bloated.

Once the food particles of cud become small enough, they pass to the second compartment or reticulum. Here any foreign objects that may have been accidentally swallowed with the feed settle out in the honeycomb structure of the reticulums’ walls.

The fermenting particles then pass on to the omasum. The omasum removes the water from them and also absorbs more nutrients called volatile fatty acids that help supply the goat with energy.

The particles are then forced into the abomasum or true stomach. ... continued

Page 6

AVERILL

High export quality abomasum through the esophageal groove.

Everytime the kid swallows, a flap of skin at the entrance to the rumen folds over to form

continued...

Here, the particles are digested by the stomach acid, hydrochloric acid (HCl). This form of digestion is the same as what occurs in our stomachs.

The remaining particles are then passed on to the small intestine where most of the nutrients are absorbed by the body and made available to the goat.

When a goat kid is born, its rumen, reticulum and omasum are very tiny and not useful.

The goat kid depends on a liquid, milk, not roughage for its feed source. When the kid swallows milk, the milk goes directly to the

Coast & Country

A dairy doe should be milked in the same manner as a dairy cow, using good dairy hygiene. Does may be milked by hand or

“Goat milk has a more easily digestible fat and protein content than cow milk.� a grove that bypasses the rumen and sends the milk straight to the abomasum to be digested by stomach acid. As the kid gets older, they start trying to consume roughage. The rumen becomes active and starts to enlarge.

Its population of micro-organisms increases.

The reticulum and omasum also respond to the changes in diet by getting bigger. By the time the kid is an adult goat, roughage is their main source of food and his rumen is far larger than his abomasum.

The Milfos goat bails.

machine. The milk requires the same careful attention to cleanliness and cooling as any other milk.

Goat milk has a more easily digestible fat and protein content than cow milk.

The increased digestibility of protein is of importance to infant diets (both human and animal), as well as to invalid and convalescent diets. Furthermore, glycerol ethers are much higher in goat than in cow milk, which appears to be important for the nutrition

of the nursing newborn. The milk from the Averill’s farm is picked up every second day by NZ Dairy Goat Co-op and sent to their factory in Hamilton. From there the milk is sent to Asian countries and used as baby formula.

Site works

Darryl Goodwin from Okoroire Excavators was employed to do the site prep work for this project.

Sited just below the old cowshed, the work began in earnest in a slight hollow, which needed building up by one and a half metres.

The clay mixture, which was sourced locally to build up the foundations, was an excellent material for the base. The ground conditions were such that they got very good compaction.

Darryl Goodwin from Okoroire Excavators.

... continued

AVERILL

PH 07 578 0030

Page 7

Keeping the goats dry continued...

Working in with Rob was just a standard part of the job, and Okoroire Excavators are Rob’s preferred contractor of choice for his dairy shed projects.

Undercover work

Looking out towards the Harford shelters.

Builder Rob Broomfield from Broomfield Construction was employed to construct the goats’ new parlour. The nineteen metre by 36 metre building is all undercover, including the yard, as goats are not at all partial to water.

The steel clad building has refrigerated panelling on the inside walls. This is for ease of cleaning. Manufactured in Palmerston North by Insulation Panel and Door Ltd, and freighted up and installed panel by panel.

It was Rob’s job to organise and hire all the sub contractors, these are sub contractors that he uses on all of his jobs.

Morrinsville roofer, Owen Barlow was called upon to put the roofing on the new shed.

Owen is involved in numerous dairy build projects.

Easy clean surfacing

The new shed.

Modern Coatings from Waiuku was chosen to cover the block work with his acraflex highbuild coating. The coating is a six coat process with three coats of highbuild acrylic, two coats of decorative spots and a top coat of solvent glaze which melts into the whole product and hardens as one. This makes it far more hardwearing than other coatings. It can handle all chemicals used in the dairy shed from acids to chlorine based products.

Roger Farley will be coming back to the Averill’s to paint the blockwork on the exterior

of the shed in Dulux acrylic, to make it look nice and neat. This will be painted in slate blue to give it a swish clean look.

Roger said that the rotary goat shed was something different than the good old cowshed, but the walls were still the same and needed their hardwearing fleck coating to ensure an easy clean surface for the farmer.

Life long friends

Starting in March 2009 and finishing the build in October was a novel experience for Rob. He learnt an enormous amount about goats, he once even had the local escape artist come and knock over his theodolite, get into his power tools, you name it they did it! Rob even has a life long friend in a goat called Lee now.

Rob also made a few extra trips back to the shed to put in overflow drains, and lay concrete for the area between the housing and the yard, which has tidied the area up a great deal.

Rob employed Brunton Soanes from Morrinsville to sort the plumbing and septic tank issues out for the Averill’s shed. ... continued

AVERILL

Page 8

Pedicure time

continued...

At the exit to the yard is an animal handling system, and at the end of milking the hooves are trimmed as the goats exit. Kerry says that approximately 20 goats have their hooves trimmed at the end of each milking.

This keeps things ticking over nicely. On the odd occasion one slips past the drafter.

The first of its kind

Coast & Country

Milfos manufactured the Milfos Iconveyer milking machine for goats and the custom built 100 bail electric drive steel deck platform with electric drives for the Averill’s new goat dairy.

All installation of the Milfos plant, was done

by McLarens Rural Services at Morrinsville.

The cluster removal system is fitted with Milfos smartrams, and the milk metering feeds information to the computer system. “The electronic system was made in Israel and is the first of its type in any rotary in the world,” says Kerry. “Now I just need to set up the internet and send my data off to Israel, to monitor progress.”

The Epiflow Goat and flock management package, including computer data from bail system controls, and drafting all flock records,

Mark McKewen area rep for Milfos, and Tony McLaren from McLarens Rural Services.

are maintained in the system. This system is easy to use and data from every milking is loaded against the goat. Goats have an anklet for ID in bail. There are readers on the platform which pick up the anklet ID. With the new milking parlour in place milking times have reduced from five hours in the morning to just two hours, and afternoon milking has gone from four hours to only one hour twenty.

The vacuum system and some parts of machinery from the old shed were able to be reused, cutting costs somewhat. The machinery is the same for goats as it is for cows.

“There was some minor adaptions and custom work involved,” says Mark McEwen from Milfos. “It has been a journey with minor modifications for the goats.”

This is the first of its kind worldwide with this level of automation,” says Mark. “We are not aware of any other rotary of this size in the world with this level of automation. This has been custom built from scratch.”

There are only four of these electronic systems for goats in the world. One in Italy, France, Israel and NZ. The Averill’s are not currently herd testing, but due to the fact that the software currently only gauges the milk yield, they will commence herd testing at some stage to get the fat and protein and SCC counts.

The software manufacturer is currently working on the SCC side of things. McLarens Rural Services from Morrinsville are the Milfos dealers who installed the plant and machinery.

Tony McLaren had three to four men working

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on the job. One was full time on the development and over saw the entire job from start to finish. “Because a lot of this stuff was pretty new to us,” says Tony. “There was a lot of research and development on the job.

“We had a lot of fine tuning with the cup removers, as there were only two other lots in the country, so we had to make sure we got the job right.

“This has been a unique install for us, and our partners in the whole event have really come to the party, ” says Tony.

The software system is a whole different setup from dairy cows. In operation in about half a dozen farms in Israel, and all to a much smaller scale than the Averill’s farm.

There is ongoing development with the software. McLaren’s did all the water reticulation, which was pretty standard to all rotaries.

The platform has small enclosed bales, which in comparison to the cow platform is quite minute. The goats quite obviously love their new shed, and this was evident when I was told that the giant water soaker at the exit area, was not used by the workers for fun, but to get the goats off the platform.

What people want

Paul Donderwinkel from Centigrade in Matamata was on hand to discuss refrigeration with me.

Says Paul: “It’s not what we want to sell people, it’s about what people want to put into their new shed.” Having worked with Kerry for the past five years, what we did was ... continued

PH 07 578 0030

AVERILL

Page 9

Re-using systems continued...

look at his project and as there was nothing wrong with the refrigeration system he already had, it was decided to re-house it all to the new goat milking parlour. “We had to make a few tweaks here and there,” says Paul.

“It kept costs down for Kerry too, by using the existing gear.

“There was a solid foundation of equipment which was all utilised, including the icebank, and is the key to what Kerry has done,” says Paul.

Paul says Centigrade is now gaining a lot of knowledge in the local goat industry.

The milking shed has been equipped with a PPP silo outside the shed.

The silo is connected to the shed feed system by an auger. Theo Janssen from PPP Industries explained that the feed comes through the pipe and onto a cross auger box based on a timer control system.

Once the auger is set it releases the feed into the bins. The coreless cross auger is a worm type, so is not a solid auger. The augers come in various sizes, and are installed dependant on the shed size.

The silos are imported from overseas, and assembled at the Tuakau factory. They are then carted to the farm and installed on a concrete pad.

The auger line is also manufactured at the factory. The auger system copes with all types of feed.

PPP Industries was founded in 1962, and was predominantly setup to supply the poultry industry. This has now branched out into the dairy and pig industries, and covers most agricultural areas.

been involved in past upgrades of the original goat milking shed, it was great to be involved from the beginning of the project in planning and complete wiring and design of the new state of the art 100 bale rotary goat milking plant.

Laser Electrical Services say they are looking forward to the future with positive enthusiasm, as new and exciting electronic products are continually being brought out into the market place for all industries, and are continually up-skilling all staff to service

and install all these new products of the electrical industry.

Leask Engineering from Morrinsville did all the welding and pipework for the new shed.

Instead of having rails in the yard it was constructed of mesh as the goats like to climb on the rails. Most of the work was done on site at the Averill farm, with the gates being made at ... continued the factory.

Wiring and design

Theo Janssen from PPP Industries.

Laser Electrical Services, Morrinsville, was proud to be the preferred electrical contractor for the Averill farms new goat milking shed, having

Rom Stellingwerf and David Leask from Leask Engineering.

Page 10

AVERILL

Coast & Country

Innovative ideas

“We supply Rob Broomfield with all the steel posts and everything else that goes in the concrete,” says David Leask.

“Rob and his crew then place it as per the drawings.”

Leask Engineering rolled all pipes to make gates, backing gates and the water boom, these were also constructed in the workshop and fitted on-site.

Modifications

Nick Tautari from Elite In novations.

The goats’ milking parlour has been equipped with a WETiT teat spraying system. Now this did require some minor modifications for the standard cow setup, due again the Supreme Business of the Year in their region, Franklin. They won this coveted to the difference in teat angle from a cow to prize last time they entered the Business a goat.

Excellence Awards in 2003. This year two I had the company of Peter Cooke from districts joined forces for the awards which WETiT to show me around. The teat means WETiT are now the Franklin and spraying electronic sensor setup is located Papakura Business of the year. underneath the platform for the goats, whereas with the cows it is mounted on top Winning innovation of the platform. Because goats only have two A clear example of the innovation that teats, the spray unit is mounted on the bridge and angled to get full coverage. Peter said they makes WETiT a winner is the Platform Magic automatic teat sprayer for cows in had to scratch their heads a bit to adapt the rotary sheds, designed to adapt to most unit for the goats. types of sheds and user requirements. The WETiT, the teat sprayer specialists are once

ll, Mark McKewen, Theo Janssen, Peter Cooke, Robyn Averill, Kerry Averi Tim Stevens, Tony McLaren, eld, mfi Broo Rob kel, erwin Paul Dond Rom Stellingwerf.

Darryl Goodwin, David Leask and

recent installation in Kerry and Robyn Averill’s goat milking operation in Morrinsville demonstrates how easy it is to adapt the Platform Magic for the different type of spraying requirements. The system was easily adjusted to produce the right coverage angle, volume and length of spray needed for goats.

Fine-tuning can be done by the operator, as changes happen over the season.

Once a year the goat poo is scooped off the dirt floor of the shelters, and loaded into truck and trailer units, where it is trucked off to Katikati and made into compost for kiwifruit orchards. The Averill’s find this a good way to get rid of the excess waste. Last year five and a half truck and trailer units were filled with the goat’s doings.

By Lois McKinley

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AVERILL

Page 11

McLEOD

Page 12

Coast & Country

Conversion gets everyone’s heads together

by Sue Edmonds

Some of the many involved in the conversion.

Paul Lowe shows off a big concrete pile.

Dave Lowe, speckle finish expert.

Rex and Nyrene McLeod of Walton have been sheep and beef farming for 40 years and on looking towards retirement, but still wanting to live on their property, had to consider their options by relying on the income from their farm under a manager or lessee to keep them going.

However on consultation a dairy conversion proved to be the best course of action.

But like many before them, they hadn’t quite realised how such an undertaking would stretch the brain, despite loads of willing help.

Guiding the way

Colin Horton, a farm advisor experienced in farm conversion gave guidance and direction on things such as resource consents and plan-

Shane’s welding gang. ning the development.

But turning 300ha of rolling to steep country into a well set up modern dairy operation is very complex, and Rex and Nyrene have been glad to have Colin’s knowledge throughout the process.

For the start the earthworks have been a major undertaking, Rex and Nyrene have been determined to use local contractors wherever possible and long time friend Don Brown’s excavator business has been involved

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Rex and the Straight Up fencing team. from the start.

Don assisted in developing a platform for the dairy shed, yards and feed pad, which is reached along a 1.4km broad driveway.

Divide the way

This long accessway, has now been shaped, compressed, graded, and divided into two parallel lanes and fenced. One side has been finished with fine grit as a race for cows to traverse. The other side has brown

rock and heavy gravel to provide an all weather tanker track.

Another long race winds its way around the shoulder of surrounding hills, to what was originally the home farm, all created at a gradient to make walking easy for the cows, finished in fine grit, and fenced on both sides.

Fortunately there was a source of Rhyolite and sandstone on the farm, and this has made a big cost saving, despite the hundreds of truck

McLEOD

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Page 13 A race around the hilltops.

A very long feed pad.

Shed from the feedpad.

Two large effluent ponds.

Let the hard grafting begin for results loads which have been extracted and moved around, as well as the trucked in grit and brown rock used.

Keep it straight

Big sheep paddocks have had to be subdivided and fenced. Dave Thrupp, another local, had just taken over ownership of Straight Up

Fencing, and when he heard what Rex was planning he approached him and offered their services. His team have been hard at it on the McLeod farm since October 2009.

Paddocks have been fenced with three wire electric, and the races and areas near the sheds done with five wire. Rex took on the job of hooking up the electrics at appropriate places. Dave estimates that

they have completed around 7km of fencing.

And more wire

You need a lot of materials to build that amount of fencing, and Hamish Millward of Goldpine in Morrinsville was very happy to supply all of it, delivering untold numbers of posts, strainers and coils of wire.

Dairy cows drink a lot more than sheep and beef, and Shaun Jellie of Milk and Water Services in Matamata described the huge job of reticulating not only the shed area, but 12km of pipe already installed around the farm, with another 8km still to go. The sloping sides of paddocks have meant that up to four troughs have been needed for some, a total of 110 all up.

Rex described how all required water in the past was drawn from a large spring and bore in a nearby valley. The needs of the shed and all the new troughs had necessitated putting in a new bore. Fortunately the local aquifers are plentiful, and the new deep bore was sited between the three huge tanks at the shed.

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Page 14

Coast & Country

Environmentally friendly and colour blended Controls and air purge.

Milfos cluster.

Overhead wash gland and auto wash.

But the hilly landforms mean there’s a lot of surface runoff when it rains heavily. The original wetland has a stream running through it and has now got cows grazing on both sides.

Massive culvert

So they’d opted to bridge it by putting in a massive 6 metre wide box culvert, 4 metres long and 2.4 metres high. Dave Casey from Humes described their compa-

nies ability to create custom made culverts of any size and strength.

As all that would be crossing this one would be cows and tractors, they had been able to considerably reduce the amount of steel that would have been needed for a road crossing, making the exercise less expensive.

During planning it had been decided to increase the width by 1.5 metres to cope with flood flow, and this decision had already proved its

Milfos drafting gate. worth in recent heavy rain.

It’s even environmentally sound, as the needs of fish and river life have been accommodated by covering the concrete floor with rough concrete and rocks. This breaks and slows the flow and allows fish movement up and down the river.

Rotary in the middle

And yes, there is a dairy shed in the midst of all this. It’s a 54 bail rotary built by another local, Paul

S H E D S ,

B A R N S

Lowe, which accommodates all of Rex’s suggestions and is finished with Paul’s signature construction features. Coloursteel panels, toned to blend with the landscape, outside and in, are finished off with the base blocks inside all finished with the multi-process speckled plastic and polyurethane finish at which Paul’s brother Dave is now an expert.

Paul explained that because of the site and the subsoil, he has used massive portal frame concrete piles

&

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which are 3 metres long with half set into the ground. The shed itself therefore doesn’t rest on the ground, but is bolted to the piles all round the perimeter.

Perfect finish

His other trademark, which really appealed, is that every vertical pipe which rises out of the concrete floor has the concrete around it, finished in a neat small circle, while the rest is done with a non-slip finish.

Goldpine are proud to support Rex McLeod with his Dairy Conversion

McLEOD

PH 07 578 0030

Page 15

Master control panel.

Wrangler hoof trimmer.

Vacuum pumps and variable speed drive.

Main power board with generator takeoff.

Keeping up with a large herd needs thinking Rex and Nyrene chose a Milfos milking plant, and Mark McKewen explained the equipment which had been installed. The ICompac platform and centre area have a flat floor, with the area outside it slightly inward sloping for drainage. The platform has cabinet bails, and a dual hydraulic drive. The rollers sit between two steel beams and there are no bearings to wear out. And of course the clusters

get dropped down and washed as they pass beneath the bridge. The vacuum pump has a variable speed drive.

Top milk system

The plant itself is Milfos’s Intelscan Plus premier milking management system, including milk meters, cup removers and cow restraints. In the centre is their overhead wash gland with its Milfos auto wash and auto drain

system. Mark pointed out that they had been able to install for this gland their latest improvement, a rechargeable greaser cartridge which only needs filling once a year.

Milk is snap chilled and vat temperature is maintained, chilling is done with what is now called an IConverter (previously known as NZ Cold) with its attached tank filled with glycol and plastic balls containing saline solution. And yes, it heats the wash water too.

You can’t do everything in one go, but the system is capable of being upgraded to Milfos’s Dataflow, which will allow recognition and records for each cow including daily weighing. There is already an ISort drafting gate in place.

What power shortage?

All the electrics were done by more locals, King Electrical of Matamata.

The electrics are hidden away in their special all-purpose cabinet

switchboard. Because power supplies in the hills can be sometimes irregular, they have also installed their generator takeoff to save the day when power fails.

Outside in the yards there’s a good sized vet area, complete with a Wrangler hoof trimming crush.

With over 650 cows doing a lot of walking, keeping up with the podiatry can save having to cope with all the problems that multiple lame ones can bring.

McLEOD

Page 16

Coast & Country

Everything up and running for calving

Some of the many pumps. iConverter chiller system.

The main yard is circular with a double backing gate, and alongside it is an enormous sloping feed pad, to which the gang from Shane’s Mobile Maintenance were fitting and welding the last of the rails.

The two rows of troughs which would line up down the centre had yet to arrive. The pad will have a flood wash from two tanks, and drains directly into the first of two

deep effluent ponds. Shane’s team have done all the welding for shed, yards and feed pad, which has kept them coming and going for several months from their Tirau base.

Large storage needed

On such steep country spreading effluent is definitely only a job for when soils will absorb it, so they’ve gone for more than 60 days storage.

It was obviously going to be a race

between getting the ponds completed and the first calves arriving!

However, they’ve been lucky that the clay subsoil was suitable for pond lining. The effluent will be pumped, on a timer, through a four pod and rain gun system, which may be doubled, depending on how it works in practice. The pump installed was capable of coping with a bigger system.

The day to day running of the

farm is being done by the new 50:50 sharemilkers, Marcel and Halei Aarsen who have brought some of their 650 cows from a property near Huntly. The remainder have been bought in for this season.

The right choice

Rex and Nyrene are confident that their choice of Marcel and Halei brought both big herd experience

and the business nous to make a profitable go at running the new enterprise. Certainly a quick look at part of the herd grazing near the long driveway showed that they were in the right sort of condition for calving. Rex and Nyrene are still living on the property, and a new house has been built which is conveniently located for the sharemilker.

by Sue Edmonds

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GLENROWAN FARM

Page 18

Dairy cows instead of sheep Ralph and Pam Gore of Hinuera are relatively new to dairy farming. Their gently rolling 450 acre farm near Matamata was a sheep and beef farm until 2008.

Herd assistant, Brad Gore, farm owner, Ralph Gore and farm manager Kevin Thom.

s gineering’ Leask En construcd n design a ger, Rom a tion man erf.

Stellingw

By Helen Wilson

“My father, Jim Gore, came here from Ngahinapouri in 1936 and the farm was then 760 acres,” says Ralph.

“Only 500 acres was in pasture, the rest was semi developed and included a 100 acre swamp.

“Dad sold 310 acres to his brother after he came back from World War Two. “The farm used to be a racehorse breeding property owned by the Ring family.”

Started with sheep

Jim Gore started with sheep and some cattle and when Ralph bought the farm in 1972 he carried on the sheep farming tradition along with some maize and barley cropping.

“In the latter years I got concerned about the soil structure with continuous cropping.

“It is Tirau ash and a very ‘forgiving’ soil. It can be abused with pugging in the winter and continued cropping, but with good husbandry will still produce good pasture.

“My challenge this year is to get some worm life back into the cropping pasture.”

In the early 1980s there was a downturn in lamb prices and Ralph

EASK Established 1958

Coast & Country

diversified with deer.

“I had 200 breeding hinds on part of the farm for 25 years. Later I farmed yearling hinds and fattened them up for venison.”

The switch

Lamb prices improved in the late 80s and early 90s, but the wear and tear on Ralph’s back from sheep work was starting to take its toll and for a few years they grazed dairy heifers. About this time the couple’s 24-year-old son, Brad, had just finished a building apprenticeship and indicated that he would like to go dairy farming.

Numbers stack up

“I thought this would be a good opportunity to take things a bit easier so we sought some advice

on the merits of converting the farm to dairying and the numbers stacked up,” says Ralph.

After a lot of research and advice from Rob Broomfield of Broomfield Construction, Ralph decided to build a 50 bail rotary.

It is similar to other Broomfield Construction dairy sheds and has been refined to suit this client’s requirements.

The dairy shed was started in 2008 and completed for the 2009 season. It is centrally located on the farm so the longest distance the cows walk is 1.6km.

To start with, Ralph bought two dairy herds of Friesian cross and Kiwi cross cows totalling 420 cows and this year that has been increased to 450 cows.

After milking in the new rotary

NGINEERING

Ralph Gore, Adam Franklin and Steve Morley discuss milking cup requirements.

for one season, Ralph and his farm manager, Kevin Thoms have nothing but praise for the dairy shed.

“It pays to do the job right from the start,” says Ralph, “everything

has run smoothly at the flick of a switch.”

And what about Brad Gore, the herd assistant, “he is rising to the challenge”. continued...

PH 07 578 0030

GLENROWAN FARM

Page 19

New rotary runs smoothly

...continued

Waikato Milking Systems have a sound reputation for supplying quality milking machines to suit New Zealand dairy farmers.

The plant at Glenrowan Farms is no exception.

It has a Full Frontier herd management system which includes ICRA approved electronic milk metres, auto feeding to production on the platform, efficient drafting and a weighing scale.

Individual cow information

The cows have a pedometer fitted around their back leg so the device can measure the activity of an animal. Information about each cow is recorded at milking as the cow is identified when entering the platform, building a complete history over the entire life of each animal. This information is recorded on the farm computer.

“It gives us a good picture of each cow and her production. We have three herds. The age of the cow determines which herd she goes in

to,” says Kevin. The milking plant needs to be fitted by an expert, and Matamata company, Morley Engineering, is the local agent for Waikato Milking Systems.

“In this dairy shed we fitted a Waikato rotary 101mm looped milk line with electronic cup removers managed through the Frontier system.

Minimal maintenance

“We have installed a Fristam milk pump which we have found very reliable and economical. It is a high performance milkpump that requires very little maintenance. It is able to pump large volumes of milk and wash water and uses less power to deliver a better result,” says Steve Morley of Morley Engineering.

Waikato Milking Systems Smartwash automated wash plant is a new product launched at the Fieldays in 2009. It has a touch screen panel that lets the operator make programming changes and formulate wash regimens to suit individual needs. The programming is MENU driven, easy to understand and simple to programme.

Smartwash has 10 key wash functions with infinite programming ability and can alert the operator if a fault occurs. Monitored detergent availability is available using sensors that determine the presence of chemical and report to the farmer if the chemical containers run dry.

It’s a first

An efficient water system with under floor reticulation was installed by Morleys using a new product called fusiotherm.

“It’s the first time we have used this product.

It is a type of plastic pipe, bright green and has less resistance to corrosion,” says Steve.

“We have had 100 per cent positive results from it so we will be using it in more dairy sheds.”

The washdown pump is a Kelco GPS with 15 horse power. The pump is controlled by a flow switch with pressure backup.

The Elite 50 bail platform has a concrete deck, angled bails and dual control consoles.

“Over 30 years of product development has gone into making these platforms, and the integration of the entire installation is very apparent,” says Steve.

The dairy shed walls are covered with an easy care hygienic covering supplied by Nuplex and applied by Dave Sutherland of Matamata.

Automated measurements

Area manager for FIL, Greg Duncan, set up the dairy hygiene programme. The automated wash system meters the detergents automatically to ensure the correct dilution rate. The teat spray used on the farm is a new iodine and manuka honey based product which is proving very popular with farmers.

“The healing properties of the manuka honey help keep the cows teats in excellent condition,” says Greg.

FIL is a New Zealand company based at Mt Maunganui. It has 15 area managers throughout the country. The company offers a full backup service for their farmer clients.

The non intrusive Wetit Teat Sprayers automatically give the cow’s teats an even covering as they exit the platform. They are a labour saving system and do not interrupt cow flow. continued...

Adam Franklin, area manager for WMS with Ralph Gore, check the system.

Ralph Gore

(obscured)

shows Steve and Adam some No. 8 wire ingenuity.

The Frontier system.

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GLENROWAN FARM

Page 20

Good planning is essential

Coast & Country

...continued

Andrew Arts of Electrico does all kinds of electrical work. For the Gore’s dairy shed he installed a Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) with Human Machine Interface (HMI) and integrates with the Frontier system so the operator has a central control via an LCD touch panel for total system control. This system is becoming vey popular, is user friendly and any changes are software related.

Electrico provide a 24/7 service backup.

Planned for everything

A well planned yard is essential for easy management of cows during milking, drafting, vet care and AIing. The yards were designed by the builder Rob Broomfield and Leask Engineering did the construction work.

“The yard’s rails are made from galvanised pipe and the large circular yard has two entrances for convenience

and another holding yard so cows can be moved from one to the other while other cows are entering and exiting at the same time,” says Rom Stellingwerf, design and construction manager for Leask Engineering.

AI friendly

A fold down platform in the shed allows easy access for the operator for AIing, vet work or tail painting.

Leask Engineering is based at Tatuanui near Morrinsville and has been there for 52 years. Their expertise has recently taken them to Ireland to help with dairy shed constructions.

A byproduct of dairy farming is effluent. Farmers often see this as a nuisance but it can be used as fertiliser and if less water is used effluent production can be reduced.

All that water turns into effluent,

The new dairy shed sits nicely on a small rise.

which has to be pumped on to the pasture. When it is wet and soils are saturated, the water can cause a reduction in application rates and increase the area to apply the effluent to, all of which cost money and soaks up time.

The Gores have installed a Dungbuster automatic yard washing system which reduces water by at least 40 pre cent, if not more. There is also a saving in electricity costs and time.

Quality services

Okoroire Excavators prepared the ground to build the dairy shed on and prepared the raceways. Centigrade of Matamata knows the importance of efficient farm refrigeration and the urgency when something goes wrong. They offer a 24 hour breakdown service where one of their technicians will be on site whenever needed. This sort of quality and service was a good enough reason for Ralph to choose this company to keep the farms product in the optimum condition ready for pick up by the tanker.

ntre of View for the ce . ed sh iry da e th

By Helen Wilson

A view of the dairy shed from the yard.

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GLENROWAN FARM

Page 21

Page 22

HOLMES

Coast & Country

A new design of platforms

by Sue Edmonds

The habit of buying up the neighbours has been the cause of building a lot of new dairy sheds in the past few years. And of course the existing sheds are inevitably small, old and in the wrong places.

The perfect excuse to take advantage of all the wonderful new technology, and build the shed you’ve always wanted. So it was with the Holmes family of Matamata. Terry and Carol originally owned 105ha. Now with the acquisition of farms on either side they have 215ha, allowing them to milk 700 Friesian-cross cows on a

seasonal basis. With the expansion their two sons, Michael and Bryan have returned from careers as a joiner and a mechanic, to help run the farm. The family’s combined skills mean that practically everything can be done by one or other of them, and those skills were used to great effect during the construction of the new farm dairy.

The Holmes family plus contractors.

                                

     

  

The chosen site for the new shed was originally a small dip in an otherwise fairly flat landscape. A great deal of sand was required to fill the dip and build the site above ground level. When you live in an area where the subsoil is sandy, such an exercise provides an ideal excuse to create the hole where your new effluent pond could be sited. It

took a huge number of trips with tractor and trailer, but the Holmes family did it, all by themselves!

The pond is yet to be lined and filled, but it’s a magnificent four metre deep hole. The shed itself was built by Paul Lowe of Lowe Builders. In a move from building houses to building farm dairies, this had been Paul’s second shed, and he was

PH 07 578 0030

HOLMES

Page 23

One of a kind for 2010

very proud of being able to offer a ‘one stop shop’ service, right down to applying the Nuplex texture cladding on the concrete blocks. For this shed the roof had been turned 90 degrees from the norm of having the gable over the bridge. This had allowed the vet area to be brought under cover, and also allowed for big sliding doors to be installed on each side to allow more airflow in summer weather.

Modern technology helps

The fully ducted electrical system was installed by King Electrical, using one of their specially-built steel cabinets. When you are milking that many cows, a power cut can be disastrous. Jason Doherty demonstrated that the system can be hooked up to a generator if necessary.

They’ve also installed a variable speed yard pump, and Terry

Effluent pond awaiting lining.

Installed for Holmes Family Waitoa

Holmes claimed that the power bill for the new shed was up to $500 a month less than they were paying when the old shed was in action. The elderly herringbone had been extended once, but still took two milkers 2.5 to 3 hours to milk 500 cows. Now they have one milker (their worker Michael Zonderop) and it takes only 2 hours to do 700 cows.

The vet area is equipped with a Veehof hoof trimming bail.

With 2800 feet to cope with they ensured they had made the job as easy as possible. And with all those feet in mind, Shane Smith of Central Excavations was confident that the Stock Rock they had laid and compacted to a thickness of 120mm on 400 metres x 7 metres wide of the race near the shed was doing the trick.

The stock rock comes from their quarry in Rotorua, and it had taken 17 truck and trailer loads to bring it in.

Waikato Milking Systems supplied the plant and the fully computerised Frontier Herd Management System. These cows wear pedometers around their ankles which not only provide cow recognition, but also assist with heat detection and health

Jason Doherty of King Electrical.

and lameness identification. ICAR milk meters record yield, conductivity and cow production, and allow the in-shed feed system to provide individual meal allocations according to productivity and need.

These days everything about Waikato Milking Systems equipment is ‘smart’. And the Holmes shed has the whole range installed. So there is SmartPulse to get the pulse rate right for each cow, SmartSpray combined teat sprays and spacer, Smart ECRs and SmartWash to make cleaning up simple. And the 100mm looped milking system provides fast milking and stable milking vacuum.

Something special for the Holmes

But in this shed it’s the Centrus Composite Platform which is really special. These are being made by Rotary Platforms NZ Ltd, a division of Waikato Milking Systems which is based in Matamata. The shed and plant were actually installed in June 2009, but the new platform was not officially launched by

Big vats for 700 cows.

HOLMES

Page 24

Coast & Country

Clever thinking for the Morley’s farm do the teat spraying from two angles as well. And there’s a cunning gap round the outside edge between the platform and the circular surround, which means that what runs off Waikato Milking until the 2010 Fieldays, so it’s been quietly trialled the platform drops before it gets to the milker! on the Holmes farm for a year.

Most of the Centrus platform is bolted, rather than Installed by Bruce and Steve Morley of Morley Engineering Services, welded, which makes it fast to build, and it comes with all Waikato Milking is claiming a world first for milking platforms. First of all it’s made of nine laminates of Kevlar and other composite materi- the bracketing required to fit Waikato Milking equipment pre-located and galvanised. At present they can only supply als, not concrete.

This means it has five times the tensile strength of concrete, but 88% 54 bail models, but they are working on variations.

As a Morley special touch, Bruce pointed out that the less weight, so at 54 bails it weighs 22 tonnes less than ‘usual’. With pipework reticulation through the whole shed was made of an eye not only to ease of installation, but also on a growing export market for kiwi sheds, the platform is formed into six bail modules that 75mm Fusiotherm. So all the pipes are green, won’t corrode, can be carried by four men and placed on the steel substructure. Being and are easy to put together with an iron to weld them. so light it takes less power to drive it, less wear and tear on the rollers and drive wheels.

Planning ahead When the old shed extension was done, Paul Donderwinkel of Centigrade had installed a two vent, vertical discharge Comfy healthy feet The tear-shaped bails are more comfortable for the cows and the cooling system. These are made by Temperzone, and are a design takes up less space allowing the whole shed to be built slightly kiwi product adapted from their air conditioners. This has smaller than normal for a 54 bail. Each bail has a moulded recess in the been moved to the new shed, and a new three vent model deck in which inlaid rubber cow mats are installed. So it’s quieter and accompanies it. Not only do these provide efficient cooling more cow feet friendly. There are moulded recesses for those milkerto the two huge milk vats, but they also provide hot water at friendly Smart Spray ‘S’ bullets which not only spread the back legs but 60° to the two cylinders.

Rubber floored tear shaped bail.

Outside the shed there is a three way automatic drafter, and weigh scales. Set into the floor outside the platform is a grill-topped sump which collects all water used in the shed.

The excess waste

The backing gate in the circular yard scrapes dung as it moves until it reaches the bridge area. Set into the floor of the yard at this point is a long narrow drain, covered with parallel pipework. As the scraper arrives at the drain, all the scraped material is tipped into this drain. The sump has a float switch and a pump, and when full, the water is pumped up to this long drain, washes down the solids, which are then carried out to the effluent sump in a nearby paddock.

Apparently it saves a huge amount of time in yard washing.

The effluent sump comprises a long concrete lined wedge which traps the solids. The liquids are allowed through to an enormous square tank by way of a movable vertical slider.

At present the liquid sump contents are sprayed over 40ha of the farm when the tank fills, but when the big effluent pond is completed it will be pumped across to that. The solids are scooped out with a front end loader from the wedge and stored for later spreading on paddocks.

by Sue Edmonds

Centrus Platform from the bridge.

Yard drain for solids.

Paul Donderwinkel and vertical cooler.

D I M E N S I O N S (METRES)

D I M E N S I O N S (METRES) WIDTH

WIDTH LENGTH LENGTH

A R T I S T I M P R E S S I O N O N LY



4 













                 

 









delivers



  



Copyright Golden Homes Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved. All plans are copyright, no part may be used, copied or reproduced by any means or in any form without the prior permission of Golden Homes Holdings Ltd.

HUDSON

Copyright Golden Homes Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved. All plans are copyright, no part may be used, copied or reproduced by any means or in any form without the prior permission of Golden Homes Holdings Ltd.

 



HUDSON

 

 

  

 







2

















  

2

                                                         

 











2

2

 







198.0 m2

2



 

NOTES



198.0 m2

2



PLAN NAME

23.050

NOTES      

A R T I S T I M P R E S S I O N O N LY

4

PLAN NAME

11.415

11.415 23.050

A 100% New Zealand ow

Qualied hoof trimmer Fred Hoekstra

“I will personally guarantee satisfaction and effectiveness of our methods & equipment”.

HOOF TRIMMING SERVICES, EQUIPMENT & TRAINING

info@veehof.co.nz www.veehof.co.nz

JOB TITLE

 

KING ELECTRICAL TERRITORIAL AUTHORITY JOB TITLE

 

          

DRAWING TITLE

TERRITORIAL AUTHORITY



SALES

DRAWN

JOB No.

        SHEET No.     DATE

DRAWING TITLE SCALE



TIME







SALES DRAWN

 SHEET No. DATE

JOB No. SCALE



TIME

 



PH 07 578 0030

HOLMES

Tauranga Marine Charters

Page 25

BELTON

Page 26

Coast & Country

Working less for better results Acquiring more farms was fashionable for some dairy farmers in recent years, but Simon and JoAnne Belton of Matamata eventually decided that intensification on the home farm gave them a life, profitability, and a lot less work.

A second farm, two blocks away had been purchased, and the intervening block was leased for six years, with first right of refusal to buy, with the whole run as one farm.

Waste of time

As the six years passed the concept became less attractive. They spent too many hours, and too much petrol moving up and down the length of the three blocks, feeding

By Sue Edmonds

out, getting cows to walk in, and doing maintenance.

In addition the original cowshed, what Simon called “the most horrible 20 a-side herringbone ever� had to be replaced. Milking around 300 cows was taking three hours a time, and Simon would arrive back at the house exhausted every evening.

Value for money

So when the time came to make a decision, they passed on the leased block, kept the extra owned one as a

runoff and a source of maize growing, and built the most easy-to-use and up-to-date 40 bail rotary farm dairy their money could buy. And if one could sound ecstatic about a cowshed, then Simon certainly does his best!

This year they will be milking around 330 crossbred cows on a 74ha milking platform. Simon intends to take time over any intensification, working on possibly getting to 5.75 cows/ha in a period of what may be eight or up to 16

years depending on what the future holds in improved feed and more draconian regulation.

Combined thinking

The shed, feedpad, yards and silage bunkers were built by Mark Thorburn of Jack Thorburn Builders Ltd. Mark and Simon had obviously got on well, because each had contributed ideas as it all took shape, and some very interesting and useful

Belton shed.

A happy team - Simon Belton second from right.

us serio rators incinera

LOOK GOODS WORK , BETTE S R

corru gated sid stren gth an es for d styl e

Ask for ax

Proma

BELTON

PH 07 578 0030

Page 27

Space, light and structures structures had resulted.

The shed itself is square, with corner rooms for a large office, a storeroom big enough to fit the bike and ATV in as well as the Lobe Type vacuum pump, and a pump room for everything else on the opposite corner. It has the Thorburn trademark wide clear panel gable giving good natural light.

The all important electrics were installed by King Electrical of Matamata, and Jeremy Kidd enthusi-

astically commented on their special features.

All ducting is under floor, and all is brought to a central point on one inside wall where it is readily accessible. The switchgear is all contained in an all purpose metal cabinet which they have specially made for them locally. These days everything inside is small

them correctly. The result was that every two year old was in calf, one three and one four year old were empty, and the other nine empties were all five years or older. He had 76% in calf within six weeks and this year Westfalia will calve ten days milking earlier. plant.

puts it into the hot water system at 65oC, saving lots of electricity.

Keep it simple

Room for bikes and pumps.

Spacious covered AB area.

and contained, with clear labelling.

The wiring for the shed lighting is all contained within the roof beams, so is all waterproof and birdproof.

AB at home

Simon’s favourite feature was the AB area which could take 12 cows at a time herringbone fashion. He does his own AB work and heat testing, with last year weekly checks by the local vet to be sure he was assessing

The cooling system was installed by Paul Donderwinkel of Centigrade. Paul succinctly explained what Simon had required of him.

He’d said “You know your job so make it work and keep it simple. The last one worked and lasted for 30 plus years”. So, with a set of plans, cow numbers and a local knowledge of precooling water temperatures they did just that, with a new direct expansion vertical discharge chilling unit. Coupled to this is a large desuperheater that recovers the wasted heat and

KING ELECTRICAL

Polar Wraps

Energy Saving Hot Water Recovery New Units

TempPro Pre-cooling or refrigeration not switched on?

On Farm Cooling Various Service options are available Seven day a week Customer Service Centre Phone 0800 500 387

BELTON

Page 28

Coast & Country

Practice makes for perfect milking The GEA WestfaliaSurge milking plant, platform and ancillaries are all supplied by GEA Farm Technologies from their Cambridge base. Jan Winke provided detailed descriptions of all the special features. The central core is domed, sloping to a drain near the perimeter, while the platform slopes

All switches labelled in these electrics.

inwards, with wash water going to the same drain and leaving the milker standing on dry floor. The core requires only weekly visits, and there are steps down at one bail.

Solo operation

The shed was designed to be operated by just one milker, and the hydraulically operated platform rotates anti-clockwise allowing one on and 2½ off from the circular yard. Simon ensures that his heifers get several practices in the shed before calving, and claims the cows enjoy the shed so much that milking now only takes an hour.

Dematron 70 Milk Metering with integrated automatic cluster removal was installed, with the meters on the outside of the platform. Coupled with the DairyPlan computer programme and with the cows wearing Rescounter Cow Collars, Simon receives a warn-

ing and screen signal when a cow enters a bail as to whether she is to be milked, or whether previous milkings have picked up higher than normal conductivity requiring a quick mastitis check first. The visible milk meters also allow Simon to notice any low litreage from a cow.

The cow retention arm system is also integrated, so that cups kicked off on the way round can be replaced as the cow passes Simon, rather than him having to race round the platform.

all that information can be displayed and the cow can be drafted accordingly after milking.

Because Simon is not a Fonterra supplier, purchase of a milk vat was necessary and this was supplied by DTS and holds 16,000 litres.

Dual job

The Rescounter cow collars not only have large visible numbers down one side, but are motion sensors, with automatic data transfer to the DairyPlan software every two hours. This not only assists with heat detection (cows move more often when cycling) but also signals any which might be sick and not moving much at all. So when they enter the shed

Collars awaitng new heifers.

Master control panel at cups-on.

Easy to locate fuses.

YES

WE C REPL A AN CE YOU R COVER S.

many other models available! visit our website to view our full product range:

http://www.shelterstation.com Email shelterstation@xtra.co.nz

BELTON

PH 07 578 0030

Page 29

Creating a solo friendly shed A one person shed needs good control of cows after milking, The Belton cows are not only weighed daily on the way out, but Simon persuaded the GEA WestfaliaSurge people to use their five way drafting gate, one arm of which leads to the AB area, while others open into small yards or send them off down the race or to the feedpad.

Cow safety first

The feedpad itself adjoins the yards, (both can hold up to 380 cows) and has three rows of concrete feeding troughs. The troughs were built with low sides, so as not to damage the cow collars, but some cows insisted on climbing in.

Thus there are now drums at each end and tapes suspended above, a system which is to be improved on further this season.

Essential feeding system Keenan mixer feed wagon was an essential part of the feeding system.

This allows for a variety of different feeds, including some water, to be mixed in a way which ensures that everything is eaten when spread down the feedpad troughs.

To date he has included straw, grass and maize silage, kiwifruit, molasses, distillers concentrate, and future plans include grain and other feed suitable products which can be purchased at the right price locally.

the weather and pasture cover.

No leftovers

Everything on the outside of platform.

Adding the different feeds in the right order, and using the Keenan’s special mixing ability, ensures that even the straw is all consumed and cow condition maintained whatever

Drafter and weigh scales.

Double backing gates and floodwash tank.

Page 30

BELTON

Coast & Country

Clever water solutions Water on the Belton farm is drawn from two deep bores, and the shed water is held in two large dark green Promax BT30,000 litre tanks.

Simon chose Promax for a

Promax tanks.

Solids collection before effluent tank.

Doubled walled supplement silos.

variety of reasons, including their 20 year guarantee, the mosquito proof screen and leaf guard fitted to the manhole, and the promise that the corrugated walls provide extra strength while complying with all of the relevant Potable Water Standards. And the wide colour range allowed choice to complement the shed, plus they even delivered them right to the site!

towards a tractor wide catchment running the width of the pad. At the time of my visit the solids were being scraped down to this catchment, where it could be scooped up and stored for later spreading.

Backup plan

But when it rains properly and the shed is in use, a floodwash system has been installed which draws water from the top layer of the huge stormwater and effluent pond hidden over a hedge. Whichever method is used, the liquid collected drains slowly through a type of weeping wall system into a very large sunken tank.

The liquid from this tank is sprayed over much of the farm when conditions are suitable using a Numedia five speed irrigator, which controls spread according to soil moisture conditions.

Any overflow from this tank goes into the pond.

Simon and Mark Thorburn were especially proud

Use it twice

But a large feed pad gets somewhat scruffy, and Simon and HiTech Enviro Solutions have got clever with using effluent water more than once. Brian Evans demonstrated how the pad is sloped down

Five way drafter.

of the twin silage bunker system they had devised.

Compressing maize silage into a single bunker means the heavy tractor only has a small width to criss-cross.

So instead of single bunker walls they have gone for a triple dose of double sided, soil filled, system.

Bunker down

This allows the tractor to work across both bunkers at once and have room in the centre and at both sides to pull off the maize. The result has been that 250 tonnes were fitted into spaces devised for only 150 tonnes. Further bunkers and storage areas are to be built this season using the remains of the old farm dairy and space behind it, creating a very compact milking, feeding, storage area requiring minimal tractor movements. A big change from what was needed in the past.

By Sue Edmonds

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Page 31

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Page 32

WAITUHI PASTORAL

Coast & Country

Farmers Walter Walker (L), Daryl Osbourne (R) and Builder Grant McMillan are clearly happy with the new shed.

Builder Grant McMillan with the farmers at the business end of the shed.

All mod cons and a view to match “It’s all automated – the cups come off themselves, the yard cleans itself, the plant cleans itself, the vat washes itself. All we do is put the cups on.”

By Graeme Dobson

Walter and Hilda Walker from Waituhi Pastoral and their sharemilkers, daughter Joanne and her husband Darrell Osborne, began converting

their 200ha farm near Te Kuiti from sheep and dry stock to dairy two years ago.

“When we started the conversion I was going to do it over two years, before starting milking,” says Walter, “but the way it worked out the builder said he could get the shed done (in the first year).”

Since they would have a new shed ready a year early, they decided to start with 270 cows on the front 120ha and

bring the rest in year two. With the conversion complete this year, they’ll milk 420 on 170-180ha of viable steep rolling country.

Positioning the shed

The site they chose for the shed is central, but because it is located on a ridge and suited a rectangular yard instead of the round one Darrell preferred, it required a large amount of earthworks before the shed and

the round yard could be positioned.

The shed was designed by Grant from Morrinsville based company Grant McMillan Construction Ltd. “It was built to Waikato Milking Systems specifications so all their gear fitted in neatly. Everything is Waikato,” says Grant.

“There’s been a few that have tried to mix and match, but it doesn’t work.”

The job was a big one for Grant – not only did he build the shed complete

M ax Tanks

REID & HARRISON REID & HARRISON

with all the associated vet races and concrete work, he also built all the other buildings, including houses, that go with a new farm conversion.

Waikato Milking Systems designed and supplied the milking plant, including a 40 Bail Elite Rotary Platform complete with Bail gates and Smart Electronic cup removers with kick off alerts. These effectively turn milking into a one person operation.

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WAITUHI PASTORAL

Page 33

Three phase works a gem tion, refrigeration and effluent management.

The shed is not computerised, but that’s provided for at a later date.

“We’ve done all the drafting gates so we can do it if we ever want to, all the poles and ducting are in place,” says Darrell, “but we haven’t gone The cluster set up is a Waikato 320 claw (five there yet.” year warranty on the claw bowl) and the milking He is quite happy drafting with the air operplant has electronic 24v pulsation with a separate ated drafting system installed by Qubik. This filtered air line. Other features is operated by a remote control (like include an eight track electrical a garage door control) or a switch on rotary gland, Fristam 1.5kw milk the consul at ‘cups-on’. pump with variable speed milk A Wetit teat sprayer has been pump controller and valve actuainstalled, along with Wetit ‘Waves’ on tors. With these the milker can change the platform. The ‘Waves’ are plastic plates the internal valving between milk and attached to the milking platform directly wash cycles without having to go under the udder that encourage the inside of the rotary platform. cow to stand with legs apart. This not only positions the udder for Saving power maximum spray coverage, it also A Smart Air variable speed makes it easier to put the cups on drive unit provides up to 50 and tidier when they come off. per cent power savings on The wiring for the shed was all running the BP400 air driven done by John Deere Electrical. vacuum pump that powers the Power was a problem because they plant. Automatic plant and vat only have single phase power and washing systems, along with a the shed and the effluent systems milk recovery system to purge needed a three phase supply. milk to the vats before wash “It was going to cost us The emmolients cycles begin, make the whole $100,000 to bring three phase and water system very easy to work with. from town,” says Walter. needed for The whole lot was installed by “Then John put us onto a the Wetit teat local Waikato Milking Systems company in Cambridge that makes spray are mixed registered dealers, Otorohanga converters. All we had to do was conveniently based Kyle Osborne and his bring single phase from the road near ‘cups on’. team from Qubik TMC Ltd. and it’s converted to three phase. It Qubik have 30 years of knowlworks a gem.” edge and hands-on experience That company was Eurotech, behind them and can offer their started by Helmut Holighaus when customers a complete package he arrived in New Zealand 13 years – milking machines, water reticulaago and saw a need to run cheaper and

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more efficient three phase equipment where only single phase electricity was available. Using his skill as a Power Electronic Engineer he developed a converter and now has 280 installed in New Zealand and has sent about 21/2 thousand overseas.

Morrinsville company Leask Engineering did all the welding for the railing and equipment in the yards.

No mucking around

“Those blokes just came here and got stuck in, no mucking around. They welded all the rails, gates, drafting system, the whole works in two days and gone. They were brilliant.”

Robinsons Water Services of Otorohanga were called in to install all the water reticulation needed for the farm conversion – no mean job!

They also set up the shed’s effluent disposal to meet today’s rigorous industry standards.

A toilet for the workers is essential in a modern shed, but sewerage is a different issue to farm effluent, so Nigel, from King Country Plumbing, was called for his expert services.

“It’s important to consider the sanitary drainage early as there are rules around the positioning of septic tanks and effluent beds in relation to milk storage areas,” says Nigel.

“If not thought out and sized properly, these tanks and effluent fields can have an impact on where you can lay feed pads or have metal races.”

Finally they called in Roger Farley from Modern Coatings Ltd to finish the shed with an easy to clean, hygienic, hardwearing and decorative Acraflex coat.

“Acraflex Coatings has been used and proven to be the number one dairy wall coating for over 30 years,” says Roger.

He’s been applying Acraflex Coatings for 17 years and, with good reason, he is clearly proud of his work.

So how does Darrell sum up the shed?

“Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Last year it took me an hour to milk 270 by myself. This year it’ll be under two hours for two of us to milk 420,” he says with a big grin as no-one, man or beast, would want to linger too long on that ridge in

By Graeme Dobson winter.

Kyle Osborne from Qubik with the Qubik supplied air operated drafting gates.

DAIRY SHEDS FEED PADS COOLSTORES NEW HOUSING & ALTERATIONS

LONGVIEW PASTURES

Page 34

Coast & Country

By Sue Edmonds

Getting things right An Earwaker at either end.

When a farm moves to a more intensive system, and cow numbers rise to 700, even a 46 a-side herringbone shed makes for long milking times and high labour input.

With son Karl now running the farm, the Earwaker family decided it was time for a new farm dairy, and they’ve gone for a 60 bail

60 bails for 700 cows. rotary, right next door to the old shed. The 160ha farm is half way between Te Awamutu and Otorohanga, carrying 700 Jerseys. With a comparatively high stocking rate they seem to be getting things right, because Karl doesn’t use CIDRs and the calves were coming thick and fast at the time of my visit. It’s a high input farm, and Karl quoted two tonnes of mixed supplement was being fed per cow per year. This can include maize, straw, PKE, molasses and grass

Extended feed pad.

silage. To make the best use of the variety of types of feed that are economically available at any time, a mixer wagon was considered a necessary part of the budget. This was purchased from Giltrap Farm Machinery of Otorohanga, who had already supplied several New Holland tractors for use on the farm.

The project started when ‘Cactus’ Corboy of Corboy Engineering from Otorohanga and Brent Pevreal began to create the pit foundations, two

new races and new drainage to the huge effluent pond, back in February. All fill was sourced on farm, with the races finally finished with Farmer 40 metal. “Cactus’ himself had created the original two effluent ponds on the farm many years before.

The Earwakers chose a big square design, with two ‘dry’ rooms in corners, and two part-walled corners for wetter activities.

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Page 35

New technology saving time on the farm

vats, with a Mahana Blue unit attached to use the heat produced for 85 C hot water. With the good teamwork which prevailed on the whole job, the copper refrigeration pipes were laid before the vat stand was poured, to remove any potential trip hazards.

The shed has a curved roof, with a full-length grilled air vent at its highest point. The end walls have a series of clear panels inserted across the width, and the precast side walls have huge sliding windows, allowing for both good light and lots of ventilation in summer. The inside wall surfaces are all finished in an easy to clean speckle product, and were done by Roger Farley of Modern Coatings from Pukekohe.

They asked Peter Gray of DairyTech in Otorohanga to do most of the construction. Peter’s business has been building dairy sheds and industrial buildings for 20 years now, and he used 14 of his staff, involving workshop people, site workers and precast concrete workers on the job. Not only did they build the shed, but also the platform including all steelwork, the planning, underground plumbing ducts and drainage. They also created the new yards, and incorporated the existing circular yard into the mix as a drafting yard and standoff pad.

Electrics

Backing gates

DairyTech created the new backing gates, with their usual precast centre sump and drain with removable centre post to allow for maintenance. This post has electrical ducts with a slip ring part way up. This allows the solenoids involved to be activated from the main console, enabling the gates to be driven both ways and controlling the yard wash system.

The existing feed pad has now been extended to connect with the main yard and will now hold 400 cows at a time.

It is cleaned with a new flood wash system and slopes down to a 30 metre wide drive-in catchment sump, with a weeping Above left: Karl Earwaker, Above right: Blair Hoad of Protrack, wall allowing the liquid to then be piped to the largest of the Below right: Vats big and small. existing effluent ponds, from whence it is irrigated at approprithat the plant includes WMS Smart ECRs and bail gates, ate times over half the farm.

SmartPulse pulsation with a separate filtered airline, a milk purge The drive unit for the milking platform has its wheels tensioned and one of the new SmartControl touch screen panels. In the up with a suspension air bag, and on a platform this big there centre of the pit is a Rotary Orbiter 12 track gland, with the milk is one on each side of the inner circle. DairyTech create the platform attachments and bail design to accommodate the milking pump a 2.2kw Fristam controlled by a variable speed milk pump controller. The main vacuum pump has been installed with all the plant chosen, in this case Waikato Milking Systems. existing ones in part of the old shed, while servicing the new.

Installation of the plant was done by Qubik’s Otorohanga DTS supplied the 12hp refrigeration unit connected to both branch, run by Kyle Osborne. Paul McGill of WMS explained

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All electrics for the new shed were installed by Betta Electrical. Because the old and new sheds are close together, John Haworth advised that they were able to leave the main switchboard where it was in the old shed, and merely install a smaller sub-board in one of the ‘dry’ rooms in the new shed.

The roof is equipped with generous fluorescent lighting, and there are floodlights on the outside yards.

Karl Earwaker is an up to date farmer and has gone for the top of the line Protrack Vantage drafting and control system.

He explained that for this season his existing workers had opted to stay on, and this was helping hugely as the cows were introduced to the new shed. However, in future seasons he envisages that milking will be able to be done by one person, which will reduce the farm’s labour input.

All about the cows

The cows are all fitted with EID tags, which are read by a plate reader as they step onto the platform. There are two advice and control panels, at cups-on and cupsoff. These not only note that the cow is there, but have verbal comment/warning ability at the time the animal is being handled. Any further instructions can be programmed by the milker at that moment, and the machine will draft accordingly as the cow steps off. All the information on each cow is then transferred automatically to the MINDApro programme.

Karl is using DNA identification for every cow and calf and advised that Protrack was enabling him to run newly calved cows into the main yard every morning. The system then drafts cows and records them. He takes a DNA sample from the calves as he tags them, and when these are analysed, MINDA sorts out which calf belongs to which cow, saving him and his workers a lot of time every day during calving.

By Sue Edmonds

QUIRKE

Page 36

Coast & Country

Keeping the dream going

d New shed an

yards.

Shed from tanker track.

Andrew, Toni and Gareth.

Sometimes the stories behind why people build new farm dairies add an extra dimension to the whole exercise of writing about them.

by Sue Edmonds

And so it is with the Quirke farm and shed at Te Mata near Raglan.

John and Pam Quirke had bought their first run-down dairy farm 20 years ago. Since then they purchased several properties which, with huge efforts by John, were turned into good farms, both from environmental and farming viewpoints. Creeks and swamps were fenced and planted, and perfection was aimed for in all aspects.

John had been brought up a townie, and Pam a teacher. She is now Head of the Te Mata School, a country school of 80 pupils and four classrooms. But cancer can hit anyone, and four years ago John was found to have a malignant brain tumour and given

Quirke

six months to live - he managed three years!

At that time he owned A light and an 85ha dairy farm, and a roomy shed. drystock unit next door.

The dairy farm had been purchased in 2001. In early 2008 Pam suggested he needed a project to focus on, thinking of something like a vege garden. John had a different project in mind. He decided that what he wanted to do was turn the drystock unit into part of the dairy farm, and build a new dairy shed in the middle of both.

He died in August 2009, but by that time the combined 180ha farm was fenced, raced, reticulated and a new 40 a-side herringbone completed. He had also built a new calf shed and sharemilker’s house. In addition he had searched for and found an experienced 50:50 sharemilking couple, Andrew and Toni Rooks to bring their 470 crossbred cows and run the farm.

They arrived two months before he died. Pam and their two children, Matthew and Katie were left all set up so that they

could continue to live in a place they loved, and with a fully operational dairy farm as well.

Andrew and Toni are now in their ninth season of sharemilking and look as if they are settled in on this farm for the long haul. They have picked up John’s dream, and with continued support from Ken Bartlett, John and Pam’s farm consultant, are continuing to improve the farm in ways that John had planned and carefully written up.

The dairy shed itself was built by Waikato Dairy Builders, and has the usual Jim Harris stamp of being roomy and well lit, with his trademark companionway between the pit area and the building. The latter contains an office, a storage area, pump room and washdown facilities room. The vat area contains two colostrum tanks, and Andrew assured me that every drop was used for the calves born on the farm. Waikato Dairy Builders also put in the circular yard, the backing gates and did all the welding.

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Quirke

Toni with Softy.

Page 37

Special relationships grow

Katie’s lamb, an ho

The new pond

norary cow.

The cooling system was supplied by DTS and is a 10hp Pattons unit, with a Copeland Scroll compressor, both with very high efficiency ratings. There is also a hot water heat exchanger fitted which can produce 50o C+ hot water. At present this is not connected because the power supply has not been suitable to do it. Dave Gray of DTS advised that all the copper refrigeration pipes were laid before the concrete was poured, so there were no trip hazards.

GEA Farm Technologies have installed WestfaliaSurge milking plant. This has swingover arms, electronic APEX pulsators, an air purge and a loopline system. The claws are the 300cc Evolution model, with the back nipples set closer together than the front ones, ensuring better cluster alignment. Andrew has his fingers crossed that the budget might run to cup removers at the end of this season. At present he and Gareth Richards, their farm worker, keep fit trotting up and down the pit!

The effluent management system proved adequate last season, but there is already a four metre deep hole dug further across the hillside, which awaits a lining and connection to the current

two-tank system. The first tank has a grill on top, a floating pump and provides supply to the travelling irrigator which covers a good percentage of the farm. A second, covered tank copes with any excess.

The new pond has been sited so that, if and when a feedpad is built further up the slope, it can drain directly into the pond.

Since the cows were dried off last season, Andrew, Andrew’s ten year old son Deken, Gareth, and long-time friend of John’s, fencing contractor Kevin Hill, have been two wire fencing. At the time of my visit they had completed putting in 1500 posts, 3000 insulators, and used 12 of around 15 coils of wire. They have managed to fence off almost every drain, gully and wetland on the farm, and plan to apply for funding to purchase suitable plants to fill all these areas at the time the next funding round opens. Toni has already begun work on creating a garden on a scruffy bit of land next to the yards.

On a farm which is 40% flattish, and the rest rolling, it was a delight to be taken by ute to the highest point and then on a trip round all the new tracks and races, including a bypass visit

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to the old 20 a-side herringbone on the top of a hill at one end.

The yards of this shed are being used as standoff areas during wet weather.

We met some of the Rooks’ cows at the top of the farm, and the close relationship they have with their stock was immediately obvious. They all came close to inspect us, and several favourite ones demanded a scratched head. Toni told me that Gareth also had his favourite cows in the herd, each of which expected an individual scratch in the yard when they came in to be milked.

There is also a lamb running with the herd. This was Katie Quirke’s lamb for last year’s calf club. It spent its early bottle fed days in a paddock with several calves, and now considers itself an honorary cow! The herd don’t seem to mind.

Andrew explained that the rest of the herd were on a runoff down the road, with some being grazed off further away. Calving was due to start mid-July. Everyone involved in the farm is looking forward to another great season. John’s dedication and commitment to farming, along with his dreams, will continue to inspire all.

by Sue Edmonds

AG RESEARCH

Page 38

Coast & Country

The six million dollar farm AgResearch’s new dairy and research development at Tokanui, near Te Awamutu, provides a vital facility for trialling new technology and farming practices.

By Natasha Mitchell

The $6.5 million project, which was approved in 2008, involved converting AgResearch’s 340 hectare Tokanui beef finishing operation into a dairy farm. Milking started in August last year while construction of the new farm dairy was still being completed.

Valuable future information

AgResearch national farms manager Allan MacManus says the Tokanui Dairy Research Farm will be run based on commercially credible farming practices in order to provide valuable information to help the dairy industry meet the challenges of today and the future and grow the sector.

Research will be directed by Goal 1 of AgResearch’s 2020 Science strategy – to help create the future dairy industry. This will include research and development in environmental management, productivity gains and differentiated milks.

Feed silos.

The AgResearch Tokanui dairy development team: (front) Milfos product manager Jason Quertier, Dairy Wall Coatings’ Greg Fulton, Dairy Technology Services Waikato area manager Dave Gray, Dairy Technology Services’ Paul Zeeders; (back) Owen Barlow Roofing owner Owen Barlow, Don Chapman Builders construction manager Don Fowler, Leask Engineering design/construction manager Rom Stellingwerf and The Wrangler managing director Wilco Ovink.

The farm comprises a 200ha milking platform that will initially run 800 cows. It will provide a large herd context for research and development, with the remaining 140ha used as a support block.

Environmental benchmark

In recognition that the farm will be a focal point for environmental research, much work went into establishing baseline environmental data of land, soil and water status prior to the conversion. Developed with guidance from Environment Waikato, The Whole Farm Plan provides a benchmark of resources to assess whether farm management practices have improved – or worsened – the environmental impact of modern farming. AgResearch is

also working closely with Environment Waikato on stream and wetland protection and enhancement.

Pushing the boundaries

Allan says balancing the environmental and productivity expectations of the industry and public will be a significant challenge.

New technologies and practices that reduce emissions from the farming system will be integrated into the milking platform.

“We intend to be environmentally exemplary as we can. Knowing this is a research farm and we may wish to do things that push the boundaries, you need to have sound systems.”

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Page 39

Test ground for future of dairying

The milking system features two separate milk lines that will be useful during research projects.

One of the objectives will be to eventually reduce nitrogen leaching from the system by 15-20kg nitrogen/ha/year. Precise effluent management will be a high priority in meeting this goal, looking at loadings of effluent on different land types, and monitoring areas where effluent has been applied. Tokanui will also provide opportunities to look at the effectiveness of

The Wrangler managing director Wilco Ovink says the Premier Wrangler is the top of the line model.

DCD inhibitors in reducing nitrate and nitrous oxide emissions within the dairying systems.

Feed for less

At the same time, forage productivity will need to increase by 3-5 tonnes dry matter per ha per year if feed costs are to be kept under control within a dairy system that will carry four cows per hectare. Providing more certain feed at less cost during January to April will be a challenge for the plant breeders and agronomists. Research that will ensure more rapid and consistent establishment of pastures will receive attention, and the role of new hybrid rye grasses and white clover will be evaluated within the dairy system.

Milk for more

Mineral dispensers.

On the animal front, the ongoing operation of a dairy farm will facilitate research aimed at increasing the productivity of cows, as well as enhancing the value of the milk produced.

Specific programmes will look at lactational

Milfos product manager Jason Quertier says the amount of information available in the herd management system installed at Tokanui will be hugely valuable for general stock management and research projects.

epigenetics (how environmental factors such as maternal nutrition and health during pregnancy affect milk production in the offspring); reproduction; mastitis; and added value milk products (milk-based products with enhanced health or processing properties that could fetch premium prices).

Outside interest

AgResearch acting chief executive Dr Jimmy Suttie says great international interest in higher-value milks has been a primary impetus to invest in converting Tokanui Farm.

“Now is the time to be bringing together world-leading research with world-leading dairy farming practices,” says Jimmy.

“Premium-value milk, greater productivity and superior environmental stewardship are just three of many areas where the conversion will facilitate innovative research and development to support and grow our dairy industry and export sector.”

The farm will also host other activities beyond

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research. Tokanui will provide educational opportunities in co-operation with Wintec and the Coalition of 21st Century Schools, showcase dairy technology and practices for Innovation Waikato’s South American initiatives, focus on the ongoing development of dairy technologies by New Zealand and overseas agri-technology companies and provide support for the proposed Food Innovation Network.

Farm manager Bjorn van Wilsem Vos during cups-on.

AG RESEARCH

Page 40

Coast & Country

Production starts from the ground up Ensuring the land itself was prepared for becoming a dairy research farm was an important part of the conversion process at AgResearch Tokanui.

The company installed a washdown pump servicing the washdown hoses around the shed, an impressive floodwash system for the feedpad, and general and potable water systems for

By Natasha Mitchell all buildings.

Russ also took care of the farm water Ravensdown account manager distribution system for stock water. It Teresa Tarr, based in Kihikihi, was features three main ring-main water brought on board with the project Cross Slot no tillage technology at work at AgResearch Tokanui. lines that enable farm workers to isoearly on to prepare a Whole Farm late parts of the farm and interchange different Nutrient Management Plan. metres of new races on the farm and carried nutrient products put through the water lines.

Teresa carried out an in-depth study into out substantial earthworks to create the shed “They can also do trials in different parts of existing soil fertility and pasture nutrient and feedpad site. The company also crethe farm and different paddocks.” status and making recommendations for ated effluent ponds and carried out drainage Each line is metered so workers can tell how future nutrient inputs to ensure the farm can earthworks. much water is going down each circuit. achieve its goals while addressing environmenRural contract manager Butch Gilbert says The water source for the farm is a water bore tal impacts and minimising risk. The farm staff had to carry out cut-to-fill work to take that produces 33 litres per second, so a variplan includes an ongoing programme of soil, steepness out of some races, so cows have an able speed pumping system has been installed. pasture, effluent and water testing to monieasier track to the shed.

Peak flow is 15 cubic metres per hour. tor nutrient changes caused by changes in “Eight kilometres of new races is a lot for “We designed the system for 1000 cows, management systems and their environmental 340 hectares. It was because of all the drains which allowed us to work out what the farm impact. and creeks we had to go around.” required.”

The plan includes Ravensdown’s seven-step Butch worked closely with Environment The dairy effluent system at Tokanui was process: Waikato to ensure the earthworks and races designed and installed by Hi Tech Enviro 1 – Farmer goals and regional and local didn’t cause water quality issues.

Solutions of Morrinsville. policy regulations Staff also created passing bays for milk tankHi-Tech general manager Brian Nicholson 2 – Soil, plant and animal testing ers to meet with council requirements. says it was a challenging design due to the 3 – Nutrient requirement optimisation “This is different than an ordinary farm contours, variation in soil types, number of 4 – Nutrient budgeting because the public access and use means we waterways and wetland areas, and high levels 5 – Environmental mitigation options had to meet building code requirements in of potash in the soil.

6 – Fertiliser recommendation terms of car parks and that sort of thing.”

“There are five separate areas that are irri7 – Application plans and proof of placeRuss Water Services owner Mike Russ was gated due to the design challenges and farm ment. in charge of work on the farm’s water reticulalayout, covering 78 hectares. To achieve this McFall Enterprises built about eight kilotion.

Agricom Agricomisisproud proud to tosupply supplyseed seedto to AgResearch’s AgResearch’sTokanui Tokanui Farm Farmand andto tolead leadthe the way wayby byintegrating integrating AgResearch’s AgResearch’spasture pasture technology technologyinto intoour our cultivars. cultivars.

For more information phone 0800 183 358 or visit www.agricom.co.nz

nearly 7000 metres of pipe was installed,” says Brian.

A key part of the dairy effluent system is the G&H Agri owner Greg storage capacity.

Muller carried out Two ponds were regressing and forage crop installed which establishment. can hold 5000m3 in total.

Two pumps enable more than one area of the farm to be irrigated at the same time, which Ravensdown account manager has the Teresa Tarr prepared a Whole benefit of not only Farm Nutrient Management Plan for the property. getting a lot of effluent out onto the farm when soil and grass growing conditions are right, but also lowering the levels of the pond fairly quickly.

“The second pond which does not contain solids, can be used to wash down the feedpad

AG RESEARCH

PH 07 578 0030

Page 41

Planting the seeds for success

McFall Enterprises rural contract manager Butch Gilbert with AgResearch national farms manager Allan McManus. Butch oversaw the earthworks at Tokanui.

Farm manager Bjorn van Wilsem Vos checks out the effluent system with Hi-Tech Enviro-Solutions general manager Brian Nicholson and AgResearch national farms manager Allan McManus.

The JAY-LOR TMR mixer wagon is a useful piece of equipment during feed-out time.

McFall Enterprises built about eight kilometres of new races. when required, thereby recycling water.

“The first pond has also been fitted with a HiTech stirrer to ensure solids and nutrients within them are irrigated out over the pasture rather than settling on the bottom and reducing the ponds holding capacity. The stirrer will also prevent crust build up on the pond if run regularly.”

Rain water diverters have been installed to maximise the holding capacity of the ponds over the wetter months.

The irrigation is done using a combination of a travelling irrigator which will irrigate down to 6mm; and the

Hi-Tech Uni Sprinklers, which have an application rate of 4mm per hour.

“The sprinklers can be used in areas where the travelling irrigator cannot be used due to the land contour, and also where a lower rate and depth of application is required.”

G&H Agri carried out regrassing and forage crop establishment at Tokanui during the conversion from beef unit to dairy farm and also carried out regrassing this autumn.

The company, owned and operated

by Greg Muller and his wife Hayley, provides a range of agricultural contracting services from Otorohanga to Morrinsville and specialises in crop and pasture sowing using Cross-Slot

no tillage technology.

“It’s more environmentally friendly as there is no loss of carbon, organic matter, degradation of soil aggregates, death or disruption of microbes, arthropods, earthworms, and no soil erosion,” says Greg.

The Cross-Slot technology enables fertiliser to be applied beside the seed at planting to enhance crop establishment and Greg says this can increase yield by up to 50 per cent compared with traditional methods.

The machinery Greg uses is designed and built in Feilding, New Zealand and is one of most scientific advanced drills in the world.

Seed and variety choice was made in

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conjunction with Agricom New Zealand and AgResearch scientist Warren King, who came up with a variety of forage options.

“We looked at species and combinations of species to get up to producing 19 tonnes of dry matter per hectare.

That’s a stretch. The top 10 per cent (of farms) produce 17 to 19 tonnes of dry matter per hectare; tilled pastures produce 14 or less, some 15 to 17.

And that shifts within the year: different species perform better at different times.

“With direct drilling you can push the margins as there’s less time between crops. Direct drilling also keeps moisture in the soil, so it speeds

germination of the seeds.”

Agricom New Zealand sales and marketing manager Mark Brown says some of the latest technology was used on the property in terms of novel endophytes, in particular the AR37 endophyte, which provides broad insect pest tolerance, particularly against black beetle.

Greg says some chicory was also included in the mix to improve summer feeding, and fescues to add bulk and quality.

Powerfarming Te Awamutu supplied a 100 horsepower McCormic cab tractor with loader and JAY-LOR TMR (total mix ration) mixer wagon for feeding out.

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AG RESEARCH

Page 42

Coast & Country

A special project from the start AgResearch national farms manager Allan McManus is impressed by the standard of work of all the contractors involved in the conversion and building project.

By Natasha Mitchell

“Everybody wanted to make it really special and to future-proof it as much as we could within known technology at the time.”

One of the most unusual features of the dairy is that there are two Milfos rotary milking platforms, a 60-bail and a 20-bail, installed by Te Awamutu based company Pratt Milking Machines.

Pratt Milking Machines owner Dan Pratt says the Tokanui plant was by far the most impressive of the six rotary plants the company installed that year.

“This machine does everything!

Nothing compares with the Milfos technology at Tokanui. It wasn’t hard to get the boys motivated to do that job.”

Dan says the installation went surprisingly smoothly considering how complicated the system is.

“Compared to an ordinary conversion some would say we’ve over-capitalised with a 60-bail rotary and a 20-bail rotary, but we need to be able to handle small mobs and have space for cows hanging around while we do research work,” says Allan.

Both rotaries are Milfos’ iFLOW twin I beam design, which means there is one fixed I beam and another

I beam rotating above it with solid rollers spaced at 600mm, essentially creating a large roller bearing. The platform is hydraulically driven. Milfos product manager Jason Quertier says the 20 point rotary is the smallest the company has ever built and had to be designed from scratch.

The 60 point rotary plant features two separate milk lines; effectively there are two milking machines under the one platform. This provides the ability to milk cows producing two different types of milk – for example A1 and A2 – at the same time on the same platform and keep the two types of milk completely separate. The system has been set-up so milk can be delivered to any combination of the current three vats. Each vat has its own iNTELWASH automatic vat wash system, which is also installed on the the 60 and 20 point machines.

Cows wear Milfos activity and rumination collars that enable each cow’s activity and rumination information to be stored and transmitted via infrared into the Milfos Herd Management programme, Dataflow, each time the cows come into the dairy. DataFlow monitors the activity and rumination of cows in two-hour blocks, allowing accurate detection of heat events.

“The system can build a very accurate profile of that cow’s behaviour and then spot any deviation from this. This, in conjunction with digital milk recording and conductivity measurements, allows Datflow to alert for metabolic and

health related issues and these cows can be automatically drafted out as they happen.”

There are two Milfos drafting gates on the exit of the 60 point which allows for five-way sorting. There is also a Gallagher weigh scale and automatic teat spraying in the exit race.

DataFlow provides the ability to electronically monitor and record

The 60-bail platform. details of individual cow’s health, digestion, reproductive function and milk production. A large 42 inch message board at cups-on displays individual cow information and any alerts either as the animals come onto the platform or if any alerts occur during milking, i.e. kick off etc. There are also display screens on each bail, viewable from within the pit so a milker can see which cow is in the bail during milking as well as yield information and alerts. Clusters are removed automatically when cows have finished milking.

Milfos has also designed and fitted an iNTOUCH remote screen in the middle of the 60 point rotary so when

herd testing or milk sampling is taking place workers can see which cow is in which bail just after the cups-on position. DataFlow also controls the amount of feed each cows gets when it comes onto the platform.

The shed is fitted with a PPP Industries fully integrated feed system controlled through a Milfos control unit that individually dispenses feed and molasses to each cow dependant on the cow’s needs.

PPP general manager Nick Morison says the importance of a good feed system is simple: “Feed costs money so it must be controlled. The PPP feed system is the market leader in New Zealand and also leads the way in feed accuracy.”

The company has a long association with AgResearch in relation to the supply of feed systems for milking parlours and robotic milkers.

PPP has been manufacturing feed systems since 1967 and has developed many new products for in-shed feed systems, including molasses and water injection systems through to mineral and multiple auger line systems.

In 2008 AgResearch approached PPP to supply equipment for their new dairy farm at Tokanui. The equipment installed was what PPP currently supply to typical New Zealand dairy farmers. It included two standard 25m3 feed system silos for holding two different types of feed and two auger lines for each milking platform, with each line supplying feed from the silos into feed dispensers. The feed dispens-

Builder Don Chapman says designing the new farm dairy at AgResearch Tokanui was a challenging and satisfying job. ers were chosen to ensure a high degree of feed dispensing accuracy. Each rotary platform has two feed systems.

A mineral dispenser has also been added to each auger line.

“This allows AgResearch to purchase the cheapest feed on the market and add in their own mineral mixes to assist with production and health.”

The system also has water injection.

“Palm kernel is fed to cows at Tokanui. Because of the poor palatability of this product adding water, which has little cost, will greatly improve cow uptake.” Both rotary platforms also have a molasses system that offers a high degree of accuracy.

Dairy Technology Services Waikato area manager Dave Gray says the company is proud to be associated with the project for Ag-Research at the Tokanui site. “DTS provided the refrigeration and pre-chill water to guarantee high quality milk product is protected once it reaches the vats.”

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Page 43

Employing state-of-the-art technology The vats have Polarwrap insulation fitted, which reduces energy costs by minimising refrigeration running time.

The chillers are controlled by Control-Pro, which automatically starts the stirrer and refrigeration, eliminating operator error.

“Once the tanker has collected the milk, the opposite occurs and the stirrer and chiller is switched off without needing anyone to touch any switches.”

Don Chapman Builders’ dairy division, Chapman Dairy, designed and oversaw construction of the new milking parlour, made up of roofed areas of 1220 square metres plus 357sqm of auxiliary buildings. These included a separate specialised animal handling area with facilities for artificial breeding and an animal crush.

Tokanui is the largest single dairy development Don has ever been involved in and the design was very complex.

Presenting needs

“AgResearch gave us an initial brief outlining their present needs and needs for the future and we worked closely with them and the other contractors to incorporate all their requirements in the design,” says Don. “Some of the things they needed hadn’t ever been done before in a reasonably commercial development situation like this, such as having the extra milking line on the platform and five-way drafting from the main platform into separate holding pens.”

Don Chapman Builders has been involved in four major projects for AgResearch in the past decade and has been building farm dairies for more than 40 years.

He says the biggest challenge on this project was the design and planning required because of the scale of the works and the technology involved.

Getting the timing of each stage right was essential to ensure the work was completed on time.

fitted with safety gates.

Construction manager Don Fowler coordinated a The walls are constructed from insulation panels large number of subcontractors to ensure the job supplied by Insulation Panel and Door Comwas run smoothly and successfully.

Morrinsville based Richard Trench Concrete laid pany. The company has factories in Palmerston North and Christchurch and also installs its own all the concrete for the shed, surrounding yards, products but Don Chapman chooses to install the feed pad, racings, feed bunkers and vehicle turnmaterials and make doors himself. ing areas. The feed pad is capable of feeding 400 Dairy Wall Coatings applied Acraflex concrete cows at a time. coating to concrete areas within the dairy parlour, Richard has been working with Don Chapman enabling quick and easy wash-down after milking. for more than 20 years and says this is the most The coating comes with a 10-year guarantee but exciting dairy development he has been involved Dairy Wall Coatings’ in.

Greg Fulton says “We normally farmers constantly spend two to three tell him the coating days on a job – this lasts much longer. took 20 days. It Owen Barlow must have the most Roofing constructed concrete of any the shed roof, which farm dairy in New features crimped, Zealand; about 5000 curved Diamond square metres.”

Steel Styline. The Richard and Don design chosen has worked out a detailed bull-nosed ends. ‘plan of attack’ prior Owen says it was one to commencing the concrete pour to Leask Engineering design/construction manager of the largest roofs ensure the job went Row Stellingwerf headed up the team that carried he has ever put on a milking parlour. smoothly. out the steelwork in the yards.

Leask Engineering completed the “Some areas had huge amounts of pipe steel pipe work for the yards, feed work,” says Richard. pad and animal handling area.

Brunton Soanes Plumbing and Gas Services, also based in MorrinsDesign/construction manager Rom Stellingwerf and his staff ville, carried out drainage work also designed and fitted a special around and under the building and domestic plumbing inside. hydraulically operated sliding roof The staff area includes toilet and for the covered feed storage bunkers shower facilities, as well as a large adjacent to the dairy parlour.

“It was a very complex yard,” says meeting and controls room.

Rom. An underpass provides milking “It’s the biggest one we’ve done in staff with easy access to the centre of the rotary from cups-on to terms of the amount of pipe, and the cups-off so they don’t have to climb second biggest in the area. There are through the bails. The underpass is so many small yards and gates going

everywhere.”

The majority of Leask Engineering’s work is in the area from Tokoroa to Waiuku but Rom says they have also been involved in projects from Taupo to Northland, as well as overseas.

“We’ll build a shed anywhere if someone gives us the money.”

The three-way auto cattle handler in the yards at Tokanui features a Gallagher Touch Screen Weigh Scale, load bars and a radio frequency ID reader.

The TSi Touch Screen indicator records the animal’s ID and weight and presents the user with an instant history of all weight statistics, treatments, breeding etc.

Revolutionary system

Colin Ranby, technical support manager for Gallagher’s animal management division, says the revolutionary system is easy to use as it is similar to a Windows interface and is a very ‘agri-friendly’ way to collect and review data.

“You can have all your cow data at your fingertips.”

He says the system will be ideal for AgResearch’s research work, where staff need to have more than just weight and EID information easily available.

The shed also features another piece of Gallagher technology, supplied and installed by Milfos: the Gallagher Dairy Scale. This is a walk-over weigh system that weighs each cow as it exits the milking platform and records this information in the computer records for that cow. Gallagher Dairy Scales have been installed on both the 20-bail and 60-bail platforms.

AgResearch chose a mobile Premier Wrangler from The Wrangler, which managing director Wilco Ovink describes as ‘the top of the line model’. The wrangler is used for vet work.

A Reporoa High Lift Backing Gate was supplied and installed by Reporoa Engineering.

By Natasha Mitchell

FIELD

Page 44

Two into one equals efficiency Stephen and Sheree Field’s property lies just south of Ohaupo in the centre of some of the Waikato’s prime dairy country.

recycled from the old sheds.

“We read an article in your paper (NFD) and there was a whole lot about rotaries in that,” says Stephen.

by Graeme Dobson

The 135ha farm is an easy 75-80 per cent flat consolidated peat and the rest gently rolling ash soils. It was originally two smaller units; one was about 75ha the other about 60ha that Stephen amalgamated into one unit. He now employs two full time workers, Russell and Brad, and Sheree, who helps out at calving time.

Stephen and Sheree were sharemilking on the farm next door until a windfall from a property investment nine years ago allowed them to buy and amalgamate the properties. Integration was gradual and they continued to operate with two herds and use the two original herring bone sheds, one 14 and one 20 a-side, until 2008 when they decided to upgrade to a single shed and a combined herd.

Stephen says that the improved efficiency will allow them to increase their herd and improve production, but the drought frustrated them in their first season.

“We want to push up to 500 milkers, but with the drought we’ve kept it at 460,” says Stephen.

Blew my mind

The cows have got plenty of grass now, but the drought stopped Stephen realising the full potential of his new shed in its first season.

BY

“Originally we were thinking of a herring bone, but then when things looked brighter, as they did, we thought we’d have a look at rotaries. I’d worked in herringbones all my farming life, never in a rotary, but it just blew me away how amazing they are.”

And so they looked at other people’s sheds, lots of sheds, with some specific requirements in mind.

“When we looked at doing this we wanted something that was animal friendly and staff friendly and a plant that we would have no problems with. In the end we decided that this 50 unit rotary was exactly what we were looking for.”

Make comparisons

Mind made up

The site for the new shed was easy enough to decide on – they’d had it in mind for some time because its central position cuts down on travel time for the cows and services. And putting the new shed in a completely virgin location meant they could start from scratch, although there were a few things they

Coast & Country

The gang that put it all together. From left to right – Pat Gibson, Will Proser, Kerry Perrett, Jason Hare, Sheree Field, Stephen Field and Paul McGill.

They got together with Pat Gibson from Gibson Rural Ltd and went around for a look at more sheds, identified problems and pitfalls to avoid and positive innovations to include. Pat had already been contracted to build a new herringbone and had actually done all the site works for it before Stephen’s conversion to rotaries. So he changed it all around – no problem for Pat who has been building milking sheds for 40 years and he was able to incorporate in the new site works the positive suggestions and ideas that they had picked up in their travels.

They needed Paul McGill from Waikato

PH 07 578 0030

FIELD

Page 45

Switching over made easy

Jason Hare, Kerry Perrett and Will Prosser from Qubik TMC Ltd explained that Qubik offer their customers the complete package; milking machines, water reticulation, refrigeration and effluent management.

“We’ll provide you with a milking system that’s specific to your needs,” says Jason.

“We can do this because we’ve got 30 years of knowledge and hands-on experience.

“Coupled with our relationship with Waikato Milking Systems, this means you will always get the best quality equipment and machinery.”

Milking Systems to design and supply the milking plant to incorporate more of the innovations they had seen. Once again, no problem – Waikato Milking Systems has been in the business longer than anyone else and have massive experience with dairy technology.

Smart move

So for Stephen and Sheree they supplied an Elite 50 Bail Rotary Platform with a 12 track electric gland and a milk recovery system that purges from delivery line to the vat, including a top loading milk filter and an industrial plate cooler.

On the platform they put Smart cup removers with bail gates, 320 claws (there’s a five year warranty on the claw bowls) with 24v electronic pulsators and milk recovery system. The milk pump is a Fristam 2.2kw combined with a variable speed milk pump controller.

All valving in the plant has automated actuators, a great timesaver as Paul explains.

Refrigeration recyle

Waikato Milking System’s Elite 50 bail rotary platform.

The Qubik Milk Control System manages the works at the touch of a button (or the turn of a switch).

Automatic switch

“Normally the operator would have to go down into the platform to change valves in between milking and washing, but we’ve got a switch on the outside that automatically opens and closes all the valves.”

Cleaning up was taken care of by an Aquastorm Automatic Plant Washer with temperature probes and a 30 day data logger – like so many other mundane chores that had previously been time and labour consuming, plant washing became a ‘push the button, turn the lights off and walk away’ operation.

As well as installing all the plant, Qubik also installed the refrigeration, hot water and effluent services at the shed. The refrigeration uses an existing unit from one of the old sheds with another second hand one added. They linked them in to a new Mahana Blue heat recovery unit that delivers water at 85 degrees, every minute that the vat is chilled the recovered hot water is stored in three 450 litre hot water cylinders.

For cleaning the vat, they installed a Qubik Milkminder 2000 incorporating a fully automated vat wash system with a 30 day logger. This does the total vat wash – the cold rinses, the hot with chemicals, everything at the push of a button. The platform is kept spotlessly clean by using a stationary spray unit that constantly cleans it as it rotates.

Keeping it sparkling

Will Prosser from Qubik shows off the Milkminder 2000 control box.

With this unit in operation the milking platform looks like it hasn’t even been used. This shed is one of the first to have an 11kw Dab wash down pump fitted with a Qubik Aquaramp variable drive that varies the amount of water (and power requirements) delivered depending on requirements, resulting in a saving in both power and water.

Beams & Timber Direct Ltd (BTD)

FIELD

Page 46

Coast & Country

Cows happy to run into new shed Along with the new shed came a couple of other new labour saving devices, such as the Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC) Protrack Drafting System. This is a state of the art, robust and reliable automated drafting system that reduces labour in the shed and at other times that stock need to be separated out.

The Protrack system is linked through the farm’s computer to the one touch reporting system, so when Stephen wants to sort a cow from the herd for any reason he simply has to tell Protrack which one with the touch of a key or two. The machine reads the cow’s tag, gates open and close and the cow ends up in a side yard where he wants it with no fuss or stress – for the cow or the worker.

and ropes attached to a ratchet system at the back end of the Wrangler allow the back legs to be similarly lifted and restrained. All pretty simple, but very effective and certainly beats the hell out of getting kicked trying to sort out hoof problems.

Exciting future

Protrack Drafting System.

Saves time

This is labour saving at its best. It utilises all of LIC’s vast experience in herd improvement to make life easier and more profitable for farmers. LIC is a New Zealand dairy farmer owned cooperative that’s been in business for more than a century, since 1909 to be exact, and which today provides herd improvement services around the world.

Another extra to the shed is the Wrangler hoof trimming system installed in a side yard by Wilco & Waverly. The Wrangler immobilises the animal in a press. Once the animal is secured the front leg can be lifted, placed in one of the moveable concave ‘shelves’ located at the front of the press where it’s held firmly with straps. This allows the hoof to be worked on easily and safely. Slings

The extensive concrete yard is kept clean by the Technipharm Dungbuster.

Building the new shed with all its innovations was (and is) an exciting leap into the future for Stephen and Sheree. So after a season in the new shed, what’s the verdict? Stephen summed it up.

“In the old herringbones milking took two hours each, now in the new rotary, with the herds together in summer it only takes an hour and a half, a little longer in the spring,” says Stephen.

“We’d heard all the stories about how hard it would be bringing the herd into the new shed, but it only took a week with two herds from separate herringbones to get used to coming into this. It was just incredible. They were actually running into it, and we don’t feed them or anything.”

End result The Qubik installed refrigeration unit with Mahana Blue heat recovery system.

The Wrangler hoof trimmer has adjustable restraints for the front legs.

But Stephen, at least, still has some reservations about the technology.

“I still like someone at cups off, I’m not fully convinced there.” But from the warm, comfortable staff room/farm office and nerve centre that’s incorporated into the shed it all looks good and the Fields are a pretty contented couple of farmers.

by Graeme Dobson

PH 07 578 0030

FIELD

Page 47

Page 48

STONHAM FARMS

Coast & Country

Smart solutions in the Waikato In the beginning....

The Stonham team: Matthew OberlinBrown, Scott Bradley, Scott Olesen, Jim Van Der Poel and Ashley Lambert.

Gibson Rural Builders owner Pat Gibson was the main contractor.

Mike Richmond from MC Enterprises.

Jim and Sue van der Poel have been farming at Ohaupo for 12 years and they were keen to grow their business. So when the opportunity arose to buy the farm adjoining their home farm they took it.

by Ken Usmar

They named their new property Stonham Farm by joining letters from the names of their sons Stephen (St) and Aaron (on) with ham from Hams Rd where the family lives.

Stonham Farm now consists of 400 hectares of flat Waikato land, 330 of which are effective. Originally the land was divided into three small farms.

“We bought the new farm two years ago at auction and we spent the first twelve months developing it, and last year was the first year it has been in

A side view of the shed.

full production,” says Jim. “It’s a good farm in a good location and the people that owned it before had farmed it for a very long time. When we bought it we wanted to upgrade the shed, but we’ve actually ended up upgrading the whole farm. In addition to the new shed we’ve put in the feedpad and the yard and the bunkers. Plus we’ve re-raced and fenced the whole farm.”

Jim says they also had to put in a new water system, because most of the existing water systems were for much smaller herds and so they had small lines.

Earthworks contractor, Mike Richmond of MC Enterprises had a lot of preliminary work to do on the land before the shed build could begin.

“Mike did a lot towards the development of the farm, as did my fencer, and I really am grateful to Shaun Chatfield who project managed the whole job for me. I spend a lot of time off farm and so I couldn’t always be around for the contractors, but Shaun did an excellent job and took the pressure off me.”

Jim says he is very pleased with how the build went and also how the cows have adapted.

“We had a really good run and we’re really happy with the guys that built the shed and the plant’s gone well. When we built the shed none of the cows were used to rotaries, but they trained to the rotary really well and the shed flow is good and the cows move through it very well.”

Jim doesn’t actually farm Stonham himself; he has a new team on this year led by farm

manager Scott Bradley with herd managers Matthew Oberlin-Brown and Scott Olesen and manager’s assistant Ashley Lambert. Between them Jim’s team milks 900 cows each day in the new shed while on Jim and Sue’s original block, contract milker Jason Hoyle milks a further 500.

Putting out a contract

The main building contractor was Gibson Rural Ltd, a Te Awamutu firm owned and run by Pat Gibson.

“When Jim approached us he was originally looking at two sheds or an 80 bail.

This property has been amalgamated with the home farm and there are two separate herds. The shed we built for Jim is one of our 60 bail sheds with a 54 platform. And we put in his feedpads and the bunkers as well.”

Pat says the job ran without any major hitches, although the site did have a couple of challenges.

“It’s a standard floor plan – being on flat country with a high water table we did have a few issues, but we got over those. There were significant site-works in getting it to where we wanted it, but once we got that organised, it was pretty much straightforward for us.”

The build began about November 2008 and Pat had to have the bunkers ready for March because that was when the maize was coming off.

“After that we did the feed pad and then we built the shed. It was all pretty quick and it was all completed by July 09.

We specialise in excavation & cartage

Shayne & Denise Hamilton P 07 871 3894 F 07 871 4459 M 021 846 109 6887389AA

STONHAM FARMS

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Page 49

Major earth moving results from the swampy areas, while still preserving the native plantings. He says his biggest challenge, though was probably putting in a 3.3 metre culvert to cross the Mangaetama Stream.

“That took a lot of fill. We had to dig down four metres to get to the hard stuff under the swamp and then it had to be built up another eight metres with fill.”

It all went very well and Jim was a great client to work for. He knew exactly what he wanted which made it easy for us to deliver that for him.”

From the ground up

Considerable earthworks were needed on this project and MC Enterprises owned and run by Mike Richmond and his wife Chris were called in. The company is based in Te Awamutu and specialises in rural work, but Mike also has an interesting sideline creating MotoX tracks, through his own interest in the sport.

Mike says his involvement with the Stonham Farm began very soon after Jim bought it.

“Jim called us in to pull out all the hedges and we pulled out four kilometres of hedge from the original farm before we re-raced it. Basically everything on the farm’s been re-done. It was June 08 when Jim took over the farm and I started work around September 08.”

Joining the farms together was a major undertaking and Mike called in another contractor to help him. A 100 metre wide swamp gully ran through the farms and Mike had to remove a lot of willows

Electrician Mitchell Oud from Waikato based firm Alpha Electrical says the work he did at Stonham Farm was a good example of the type of smart technology Alpha specialises in. Mitch says many of the technological features are not just to make life easier; they also contribute towards an energy efficient operation.

“We’ve put in automated lighting and a wash-down pump that only utilises the power that’s required for its pressure.

You can simply hit a push button when you leave the shed and all the lighting for the entire building will shut down.”

Even the effluent system features some very smart technology.

Alpha also worked in closely with the contractors installing the milking plant and equipment, taking care of all the electrical work necessary for the autowash system, platform control, console units and the water solenoids for washing the cups and the platform.

“As far as the rest of the project went it was all pretty standard power and lighting. We put a fair bit of yard lighting in – sufficient to light the area and we’ve got a programmable logic controller operating all of that. At the end of the day it is all about making life simpler for the farmer, giving him ease of control and making a lot of commands available at his fingertips.”

Mitch is another who was very impressed with Shaun’s management of the job.

“Shaun did a fantastic job of managing all the contractors and keeping us liaising with each other. It was a very smoothly run operation and it was good to be a part of it. You really felt like you understood what was happening the whole way through.”

Text it

Showing their metal

Working smarter

“We installed an SMS text service.

Basically you can send the effluent pump a text message to start it or stop it. That’s great when you’re out on the farm or on the bike, and if you want to change the irrigator around, you can do that without having to come all the way back in to hit start and see if it’s working. It will also give you peace of mind when you are at home or away from the farm, because it will send you a message if it’s overloaded or faulted in any way. It makes servicing a lot easier.”

Te Awamutu contractor Waikato Bobcat & Digger Services Ltd supplied the metal and did much of the bobcat work on the site. Director Shayne Hamilton says the bulk of his work is preparing building sites, races and driveways although his truck and trailer units are also available to cart lime and other fertilisers.

“We worked with the earthworks contractor on this job and most of our work involved dressing and supplying metal for the races.”

Care was taken to preserve as many natives as possible in the wetland area.

The crossing needed to be raised with eight metres of fill.

Looking across the yards.

STONHAM FARMS

Page 50 The front view of the shed.

The 54 bail I-Flow platform.

Easier to keep it clean Jim chose to install a Dungbuster from Technipharm to keep his yards clean. Technipharm CEO, Harmen Heeson says the Dungbuster is becoming an increasingly popular option for dairy farmers.

“More farmers are realising that adding more water to effluent is not the best way to go. The Dungbuster is a great time saver – no more scrubbing those yards down. But it is also an eco-friendly solution that doesn’t use so much of one of the farmers’ most precious resources – his water.”

The engine room

The Mahana Blue system.

Coast & Country

Milfos International supplied the milking plant and the platform.

Milfos area sales manager Mike Prendergast says the platform they supplied was a hot dipped galvanised 54 bail I-Flow running on a nylon roller system, which he says makes for extra low maintenance.

“We assembled it all on site and put it on a concrete deck to keep the noise down and increase durability. The milking machine is a 54 I-Conveyor with ICR cup removers that make it possible to run it as a one-man milking operation. The Milfos Intelligent Cow Restraint System will alert the operator to any cow that kicks its cups off, and will identify that cow when she comes around to be re-cupped.”

Other features of the Milfos system include the Intelwash automatic

plant cleaning system and vat wash and variable speed drives on the vacuum pumps to keep power usage down and increase shed efficiency.

Milfos also provided the I-Sorter remote control unit. Mike explains this allows the drafting gates to be operated from a distance of up to 30 metres improving productivity at milking time and reducing the operator’s workload.

“The shed is automated up to the point where it serves Jim’s needs for now, but it can be easily upgraded further if he wants to do that later on. Milfos prides itself on being able to offer simple solutions with an easy upgrade path to the highly automated herd management systems.”

Getting equipment in

The milking plant was installed by Te Awamutu contractor Pratt Milking Machines Ltd. Dan and Jude Pratt have been authorised Milfos dealers for the past fourteen years and Dan is an experienced and fully qualified fitter and tester.

Their son Zack is also part of the team and he too is now a fully qualified fitter and tester.

Dan says the job was an uncomplicated one for him that went without any problems and he enjoyed being part of the construction.

Best hoof forward

Lame cows should be easy to treat thanks to the installation of a

Wrangler. This is a crush made and installed by The Wrangler Ltd of Awakeri near to Whakatane. Winches for both front and back legs, make it easy and quick to secure a cow’s leg for hoof treatment and underbelly girths prevent the cow from falling during treatment.

The animal is kept comfortably restrained, allowing the operator to work safely.

Wrangler’s sales and marketing director Waverley Klein Ovinck says Jim will also find the Wrangler invaluable during calving time and for other veterinary and stock handling procedures.

Free hot water

Specialist refrigeration and heating company Qubik supplied Jim with an Arctic Mahana combo unit.

This unit is designed to cool up to 25,000 litres of milk to six degrees for secondary pre-cooling so the milk enters the vat at eight or nine degrees.

The temperature in the vat is maintained by cooling it with standard refrigeration. One of the best features of this combo unit is that it can also heat between 1600 and 2000 litres of water to 85 degrees using the hot gases from the refrigeration unit.

by Ken Usmar

PH 07 578 0030

STONHAM FARMS

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Page 52

NEW FARM DAIRIES

Coast & Country

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NEW FARM DAIRIES

Page 53

LANSDAAL

Page 54

Bringing the two together at last Three years ago Peter and Christine Lansdaal bought the farm next door. They have owned their original block near Waharoa for ten years now, and with the new farm it brought the area up to 164 ha.

by Sue Edmonds

tract milkers heroically using the two old 22 a-side herringbone sheds.

Then, at a time when the anticipated payout was $4.50, they approached their bank manager to see what finance could be raised to build a new rotary shed in the middle of the farm. When they were given a figure, they sat down to work

out just how much shed and plant that much mortgage would buy! As always, there have been a few unanticipated ‘extras’ to be paid for, but they got most of what they wanted, and plan to add further electronics later.

six days and already sixty had arrived.

Heifers would be raised as replacements, and some of the bull calves would be sold at 10 days old to be raised as bulls.

Round two

Having admired Terry Holmes' new shed with its Centrus platform from This season they will be calving 580 Rotary Platforms of Matamata, the Lansdaals based their plant purchase Jerseys. At the time of my visit around having one, and equipping they had been calvit with Waikato Milking Systems' ing for plant. Now there are two such platforms in the same area.

The galvanised steel sub-structure used under a Centrus platform is essentially the same as that used to support a concrete platform.

However, because of the lightweight composite Kevlar deck longer life is expected from the rollers, bearings and drive units. It's interesting to note that the Kevlar platform sections are just bolted onto the substructure, and a further development has been that the milking system with all its control systems is mounted on a new SmartFit mounting system exclusive to Waikato Milking systems. The flexibility provided by this unique The gang with mounting system allows Christine Lansdaal. for quick, easy assembly

Sixty in six days

However, until this season they had continued to more or less run the farms separately, with con-

Shed and backing gates with long drain below.

delivers A 100% New Zealand ow

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FARM DRAINAGE & EARTHWORKS

Phone 0274 968337 or 07 884 6784

Installed for Grassdaal Limited Waharoa

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and servicing. Added to the finish are the simple things like black caps that cover the ends of the 'I' beams completing what is a very classy installation.

As with the first platform, the installation had been done by Morley Engineering. Bruce Morley, and Dave Tebbutt of WMS, explained that the milking plant includes Smart ECRs, which allow for a range of timing and flow options, all controlled from a touch screen in the pit.

There are milk flow meters which measure conductivity and a milk recovery system with an air purge to get all the milk available into the vat.

Peter was delighted with the ‘nose squirt’ to encourage cows to get off the platform, and also pointed out the small pipes near cups-off which wash the platform skirt free of dung splashes.

Moving land

Kevin Wade of Laser Drainage of Manawaru was on hand to explain the large amounts of earthmoving which had been involved. The land here is dead flat, so to raise the circular yards by 1.5m, any small humps around the farm had been scraped to provide a sand and clay mix, as well as a large amount of Farmers 40 metal brought from a local quarry to surface the new tanker track and provide a base for the two new races.

The shed itself was built by Chapman Builders, and had allowed for

PH 07 578 0030

LANSDAAL

Covering all the corners the shed wash water, and pumped to the nearby sand trap and thence into the effluent tank.

Prevention trick

Because of the high water table, all drainage pumps are outside the shed, and the system has been designed so that if any milk were to leak into the central pit it would be noticed at once, because all the drainage fluids have to pass under a shallow grilled area sited beside cups off and any milk would discolour them.

Outside the vat area has a large milk vat wrapped in a ‘Polar’ wrap, both supplied by DTS, as well as a colostrum vat moved from an old shed. Part of the old cooling system has also been reused, with a natty lean-to of its own to protect it. The rest of the cooling system Pumps of all shapes and sizes. has been supplied by Centigrade using its own vertical units, with an row, and the second designed to move inbuilt heat recovery system to heat cows into a herringbone position. the two hot water cylinders.

Insulation Panel and Door had supplied all the panelling for the shed Make use of the old walls. Richard Trench Concrete had A great deal of thought had gone supplied and poured the yard area into looking at what was already on and shed floors. the farm, and what could usefully be Leask Engineering had done all the retained and incorporated into the welding for the yards to their usual new systems. So the yards at the old high standard, and the circular yard sheds are now standoff pads, and the was equipped with a Technifarm double backing gate and dungbuster. existing effluent ponds have had new piping to take the excess, when wet The wetted dung is collected as it moves round the yard, and deposited conditions don’t allow spreading from into a grilled drain running from the the 100,000 litre new tank with its edge to the central drain. This is then floating stirrers and pumps. This new tank, installed with pumps by Dave flushed from a sump which collects

100,000 litre effluent tank with stirrers. specific rooms to be added as a lean-to. Three of these contained the pumps, a dry room for the electrics (all done by King Electrical) and storage shelves, and a smaller one sited behind the plant cleaning area to hold the wash chemicals. All were reached by panelled fold up doors on the outside.

Family friendly

Because some milkers have to bring children, the office and staff areas in one corner of the shed had been separated with a partition wall, with the latter area equipped with a TV, a heat pump, bunk beds, and big windows into the cups-off area.

A third corner was a raised vet area, complete with fold down platform for herd testing. This corner also had a wide fold up door leading out to the vet area for other treatments and AI. This was in two parts, one a single

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Page 55

07 889 6168

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KING ELECTRICAL

Manning of Environmental Technologies, is sized to hold three days worth of effluent, with stormwater diverted from the shed into a nearby large drain.

The water table in this area is very high, and tanks and swimming pools have a tendency to pop out of the ground, floated up when empty. So the new circular tank has a floor

which extends some distance outside the vertical walls, and the walls themselves are bunkered with 100 tonnes of crusher dust ballast. There are two sets of pipes and two irrigators which can be used alternately, and Peter advised that to date he had only needed to irrigate the piped total of 25ha of pasture once each year.

by Sue Edmonds

Vat with insulating wrap.

Page 56

ADDISON

Coast & Country

Rotary changes everything

Tony Addison checks the Protrack control panel.

Mike Prendergast with the Milfos milking platform.

This shed was ‘a bit of a challenge to fit to the site’, but the Addison’s new rotary is worth the effort.

By Graeme Dobson

The new rotary milking shed on the Addison family farm just out of Te Puke has made a big difference to the way they work their farm. As the farm workers Mike and Todd say, “milking’s heaps faster now,” and Tony Addison, the farm manager agrees. He manages the family’s lush 210 ha farm of mixed flat land and low gently rolling country.

On this, plus two neighbouring lease blocks of 20 and 40 ha, they milked 730 cows last year (divided and managed in two roughly even herds) and this year are looking to increase that number to 760.

Let’s go shopping

This increase is partly due to the new shed they installed last year in time for the new season. The old shed was a 34 bail rotary built back in 1976, it was showing its age and took two milkers about four hours per milking to milk the two herds – that’s a big chunk out of the working day. So the Addisons – Tony and his parents Peter and Marilyn – went looking for a new milking shed.

“We looked at a lot of sheds in the Waikato and the Bay of Plenty,” said Marilyn, “And

The milking platform with Wetit ‘Waves’. direction.

They build about 40 sheds a year, roughly even numbers of rotaries (40 - 80 bail) and herringbones (20 - 44 a-side).

“It depends on what year you’re talking about,” Don says. “Year before last it was probably about 80% rotaries, but it seems when the payout goes down the proportion of herringbones rises. It also depends on the number of cows being milked,” he added. “We seldom build a rotary for under 400 cows, and certainly for over 500 most people would be going to a rotary.”

every one we looked at that we liked was a Don Chapman design.”

So he was the obvious choice to build their new shed.

Don Chapman and his wife Yvonne started Don Chapman Builders in Morrinsville in 1988 and have been building cowsheds The right fit ever since, but Don’s experience goes back even further – he remembers “every one So the Addisons were looking at building his first rotary back in the a rotary, but it was a challenge for Don. mid seventies, a tiny 17 bail operation we looked “Making it fit in the available space, – so they have a wealth of experience at we in the field. tie into the existing infrastructure and liked” Today they have a selection of concept just the lay of the land there wasn’t as friendly as we’d like. We had to get reasondesigns that Don adapts to suit individual ably creative.” situations. He works directly with the farmer to ensure he gets the shed he wants, then, if The yards in particular needed some creativit’s in the Waikato his workforce of 25 builds ity and for this they turned to David Leask of it. Outside of the area – and for Don outside Morrinsville company Leask Engineering for his area can mean as far afield as Ireland and welding all the pipe-work that went into the Argentina – he contracts local builders to railing. do the construction under licence and Don’s Inside the shed the milking system was

supplied by Milfos International, specialists in innovative dairy solutions.

Mike Prendergast, the Milfos Waikato/Bay of Plenty Area Sales Manager, explained that for this job they supplied an iFLOW hot dipped galvanised platform, prefabricated at their purpose built factory in Hamilton and assembled on site. Milfos have positioned themselves in the market as dairy platform specialists and their iFLOW platforms are so well regarded that they have been exported in kitset form worldwide – including to Russia, South Africa, Europe and Asia.

Just the touch

The Addison’s shed has a 60 bail concrete platform mounted on low maintenance nylon bearings and features the one touch autowash (iNTELWASH) system. All valving is automated and a two port wash gland allows the platform to keep turning while the wash down is in progress. This means that work such as AI can go on while the wash is in progress.

As a rule the Milfos arranges for their own contractor to assemble and install the platforms. In the Addison’s case the installation was done by Peter Wheeler and Peter Chissell from the local Milfos dealership, Industrial & Farm Services in Te Puke. They installed all the milking system and associated plumbing work, including the vat cooling and heat recovery unit.

G & K ELECTRICAL

Leaders in Pump Technology

GRUNDFOS

ADDISON

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Cutting time in half

As well as the milking system the Addison’s asked Industrial & Farm Services to install all the water needs for the shed and yard wash.

When it came to organising the yard wash they used their ingenuity to design as they went to give the most efficient wash using a constant pressure gate wash mounted on a straight gate across the oblong yard.

for the shed and one for the effluent pump – and a variable speed milking pump make the shed even more energy efficient. All the wiring is underground, including prewiring in the vat stand to cater for the installation of a second vat if it’s needed at a later date.

Takes skill

It’s clear that Garth is innovative, knows what the farmer wants and goes out of his way to provide it. And when it came to installing the Livestock Improvement Corporation’s (LIC) Protrack Drafting System he needed all his skill. LIC is a New Zealand dairy farmer cooperative that’s been in business since 1909, Chilled floor and walls Refrigeration was supplied by Dairy Technol- today they provide herd improvement services around the world, including the Protrack ogy Services (DTS), specialists in vats, chillers Drafting System that is essentially a computerand associated equipment. A heat exchange unit associated with the chillers supplies all the ised nerve centre for the shed. Each cow has a RFID tag in the ear that is read as it enters the shed’s hot water needs. In the vat the tembail, its milk yield is recorded on the central perature is maintained by the chilled vat floor and walls. The vat is fitted with a ‘safety data base and the conductivity of the milk lever’ operated by a micro switch that checked for indications of mastitis. Even prevents milking starting if the vat is the feed in the troughs in each bail is not set up correctly, or the wash cycle “so they’re controlled by the Protrack System. starting unless the switch is set to Milkers can run the whole shed easy to ‘dump’. through a touch screen located at spot” The vat and all the Milfos compo‘cups-on’, and when they want a cow separated for any reason one touch of nents were wired in by Garth Burgener, the screen sees her efficiently drafted into from the local firm G&K Electrical. a side yard as she leaves the shed. Smooth.

When the Addisons asked him to wire the Teat cleaning at cups on is done by the Wetit shed they sat down together and designed Teat Spray system. Wetit are specialists that the whole electrical system. For this job they have put years of research into developing an needed a new transformer, so Garth’s first job efficient automatic teat cleaning system and was to liaise with the power companies. He now export their product to Australia, the UK installed two meters to save on unit charges and Europe. Their teat sprayers are designed (an annual saving of around $1,100) and to deliver accurate udder coverage through reduced the load on the transformer and lines a unique nozzle design. The accuracy of the by installing staged operations programmed to switch load as needed. Two switchboards – one spray is aided by another Wetit innovation –

the Wetit Waves. These are a plastic plate with two raised ‘waves’ attached to the milking platform directly under the udder. The ‘waves’ encourage the cow to stand astride the plate and always places the udder exactly where the spray will be most effective.

“They’re also good at identifying hoof problems” says Tony Addison. “Cows with sore back hooves tend to rest it on the top of the wave, so they’re easy to spot.”

Out in a side yard there is a labour saving device that was brought over from the old shed – a Wilco & Waverly Wrangler Hoof Trimming System. This is one of the older Wranglers, but, according to farm worker Michael, it works perfectly and makes working on cattle much safer. The animal is immobilised and the hooves can be lifted and secured where they can be worked on without risk of the worker getting kicked. The front legs are secured to one of the moveable concave ‘shelves’ located on either side at the front and the back legs are lifted and secured by a system of slings and ropes attached to a ratchet system.

“And it’s good for calving,” adds Tony. “The belly straps hold the cow and the side rail can be taken out for caesarean deliveries.”

The end product is an energy and labour efficient unit that the Addisons and their workers are clearly comfortable with and which should last them for the next 30 odd years.

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PANEL BEATING SERVICES For a free quote phone 578 5605 24 hours 26 15th Avenue, Tauranga NFD09tbPanelbeating

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Don Chapman Builders Morrinsville

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Garth Burgener from G & K Electrical shows off the Milfo shed control box.

Cows stand astride the Wetit ‘Waves’.

PINNEY

Page 58

Coast & Country

Drug free farming Merv and Cara Pinny have recently completed a 72 bail rotary dairy shed in the Mangakahia Valley near Kaikohe in Northland.

can cross from each yard without disturbing the other cows,” says owner Merv Pinny.

“We have built a large basic dairy shed that is easy to operate, lots of room for the milkers to move around in, the

By Helen Wilson cows are milked quickly and the price was very competiThe 670ha property is the amalgamative.” tion of three farms of which 50 hectares Having a large modern dairy has recently come out of forestry. Last shed with a reliable milking season they milked 1000 Friesian/Frieplant means the Pinnys can sian cross cows and within 12 months attract better quality staff. will increase that to 1500 cows.

“Competing for good staff The dairy shed is centrally located and has been a problem up here. was started at the beginning of 2009 We have brought in a drug free A view of the and completed in time for the 2009/10 policy on the farm and that has platform. season. totally changed the operation “I spent about 12 months going over and staff quality,” says Merv. the design to ensure there was good cow One of the conditions of their own farm training programme flow. The cows are kept in two herds employment is agreeing to a drug test. at their office in Kerikeri. The and the yard design The Pinnys also run students are trained in pasture means they management, herd management, effluent disposal, animal health and milk quality as well as other farm related subjects.

The instructors come from other farms in the area and there is practical training on the farm. This sort of innovation has won the Pinnys the ‘most supportive trainer of the year’ award at the Northland ITO awards.

The four full time employees on the farm are: managers, Matt and Michelle Hume, who have worked for the Pinnys for eight years and Front row: Managers Matt and Michelle Hume, owners Cara and Merv farm workers, Marlon Witehira Pinny. Backrow: farm workers Collin Beasely and Marlon Witehira. and Collin Beasely.

Looking from the yard to the dairy shed.

The WestfaliaSurge milking plant was provided by GEA Farm Technologies and includes a 72 bail Yarroweyah platform. Yarroweyah manufacture all the GEA WestfaliaSurge platforms supplied worldwide. This platform is very popular as it has hydraulic drives and nylon rollers which are virtually maintenance free. In particular this suits larger operations where greasing and oiling underneath the platform is both messy

Resting after a hard days work.

Farm workers, Collin Beasely and Marlon Witehira. and time consuming. The milking equipment includes the Demax 55 cup remover system with advanced retention arm control. This system is fully programmable and can be adjusted to suit individual

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farmers needs. The individual pulsators for each cow, shut down when not in use, with many benefits including extend pulsator and rubberware life. The system has a blower vacuum pump with a VOD variable speed control and a Variotherm auto plant wash. Due to the plant’s size there are two milk receiver cans with a PLC (Pro Logic Controller) to make sure the plant wash water is handled effectively and to allow full flow through each side of the plant. They have a WestfaliaSurge manual drafting system which can be upgraded to fully automatic at anytime.

PINNEY

PH 07 578 0030

Page 59

Bringing it all together Doug Grant and Austin Heffernan discuss milking machines.

The dungbuster raised up and out of the way.

“This size shed will milk 600 plus cows per hour comfortably with two operators,” explains Austin Heffernan, North Island Area Manager for GEA Farm Technologies.

Grant Engineering is owned by husband and wife team Doug and Bev Grant from Dargaville. They supplied and installed the milking plant, the water reticulation system, a serious wash down pump with enough pressure to run three hoses at once and the automatic wash system.

“I have worked on similar dairy sheds in the past but this is the biggest. It was a long way round the platform, but it’s all relevant, just took a bit longer,” says Doug.

They provide a 24 hour seven day a week service. Doug was impressed with the cooperation between the builder, electrician and FIL which made the whole construction run smoothly.

Grant Stevens of Laser Electrical in Kaikohe had the job of making sure the electrical side of things worked well.

“This is also the biggest dairy shed I have worked on. Everything went well. Merv left us to do our job so there was a good outcome and everything works well with no problems,” says Grant.

One extra addition to the dairy shed was a security alarm system. Grant has been an electrician for 30 years and owned Laser Electrical

for 16 years. He does commercial and rural work “a bit of everything”.

His 24 hour seven day service is provided by him and two other staff.

The automated wash system was set up to dispense the right quantity of chemicals for the amount of water.

“We work out the best plan to suit each dairy shed depending on its size,” says Brian Salvigny, Northland/Helensville area manager for FIL. A point of difference with FIL is their iodine teat spray with manuka honey. Farmers are reporting good results with this as it keeps the cow’s teats in excellent condition. FIL provide an ongoing service and maintain regular contact with their clients.

The cow’s teats are sprayed automatically as they exit by a Wetit teat sprayer which is mounted on the platform. It ensures the teats are properly covered and prevents mastitis and keeps the teats soft and supple.

The refrigeration units were supplied by Hamilton firm DTS. The farm is on two-day pickup so keeping milk chilled to the right temperature is important. The units have a heat exchanger minimizing the cost of water heating.

The backing gate on the large rectangular yard has been fitted with a Technipharm Dungbuster. This scrapes away most of the effluent during milking, saving time when hosing down after milking. The gate conveniently swings out of the way when not in use.

Merv and Cara Pinny have taken the time to research and plan this project and choose products and services from experts.

This has meant a well designed dairy shed that works well.

“Price wise this has been very competitive and I would probably replicate this on another dairy farm,” says Merv.

This area too has been hit badly by the drought and they are all looking forward to a

By Helen Wilson better season next year.

The Wetit teat sprayer at platform exit.

The team that put the complex together.

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SHEPHERD

Page 60

Coast & Country

Expanding dairy operations Paul and Ruth Shepherd have a long association with the Wellsford area. Both are descended from original pioneer farming families; the Albertlanders.

By Helen Wilson

They have a 200 hectare farm on the outskirts of Wellsford in the Rodney County, part of which was the original family farm and have recently expanded their dairy farm operations to 400 dairy cows and built a new 40 a-side herringbone dairy shed.

The land is gently rolling country

to try dairy farming. We decided to expand the dairy operation and reduce sheep numbers. Because Cameron hadn’t had much dairying experience, we re-employed Dean Weatherall, one of our past dairy farm managers and they are now both lower order sharemilkers,” says Paul.

Expansive views

Above: Milking cups.

Left: Milfos milking plant. and referred to locally as ‘gum country’. Originally it was covered in kauri trees and pieces of kauri gum and old kauri stumps still come to the surface.

Reducing sheep numbers

“We were sheep and beef farmers and also milked 200 dairy cows in an old 16 a-side herringbone dairy shed. Our son Cameron was a good shearer and sheep farmer and recently decided he would like

The dairy shed is sited in the centre of the farm on a rise with views over the rolling countryside.

A wonderful view, but prone to the prevailing strong westerly winds, so a solid corrugated iron wall has been built around part of the yard to protect the milkers and cows.

The new dairy shed is used all year as the Shepherds supply winter milk. At the time of writing (June) they were milking 150 cows and this will increase to 400 later in the season.

Paul and Ruth spent a lot of time researching the best dairy shed for their situation and took a lot of ideas from previous editions of New Farm Dairies and adapted them to suit. They appointed Steve Coop as project manager who was there on a daily basis to make sure construction was kept on track.

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SHEPHERD

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Aiming to double production The earthworks for the new dairy shed began in October 2008 and were followed by the wintering sheds at the beginning of April.

Paul and Ruth adapted their facilities from a European design called a medium input dairy system. The cows are milked and fed in adjoining premises.

“In the winter the cows pug the land too much and restrict grass growth. This way they are let out into the paddock after the morning milking and brought into the feeding shed at 1pm to be fed supplements and then straight into the dairy shed for the afternoon milking,” says Paul.

“The objective is to double production without buying anymore land. We decided on a 40 a-side herring bone instead of a rotary as we could build the dairy shed and the wintering barns for the cost of a rotary.”

Split herds

The Friesian/Friesian cross cows are split into two herds, a dry herd and a milking herd.

This year has seen one of the worst droughts in history in the area and the Shepherds had to buy in supplementary feed, hay baleage and palm kernel for the animals.

Jeff Hadwin is the upper

North Island sales manager for Ravensdown and has been advising the Shepherds on their animal supplements for the past five years.

“I always find it a pleasure to work with innovative farmers like Paul and Ruth. Our company is a trendsetter in price and the supplement price has come down by 30 per cent since Ravensdown has been in the feed supplement business,” says Jeff.

Nutrients

A nutrient management plan is worked out for the whole farm and includes fertiliser, agrichemicals, and animal health requirements. It is reviewed annually so any changes in management of the farm can be accommodated. Ravensdown have a depot in Wellsford and once ordered they can have any product delivered to the farm within three to five days.

For a reliable milking machine the Shepherds have been willing to invest in reliable, high end technology. They chose the Milfos iXPRESS4 milking system with automatic plant and vat washes along with energy saving variable drives on both the vacuum and milk pumps.

To maintain the best possible cluster alignment, Milfos swing arms were installed and these

1098296-CT 1098296-CT Engineering:Layout Engineering:Layout 1 1

29/04/2009 29/04/2009

also carry the cup removers eliminating the problem of swinging clusters as they are removed.

The cup removers are controlled with a premium milking point management Milfos iNTELSCAN PLUS. This system allows for superior individually controlled milking of the herd. There is flow controlled pulsation and stimulated letdown to ensure speedy comfortable and safe milking out. Yield and alerts are displayed on a conveniently located position at each point.

As a premium Milfos system there is a clear path for the Shepherds to upgrade to full herd and cow management called dataflow. To solve the problem of drafting and to allow for future upgrades, such as automatic drafting and dataflow, a very quiet Milfos iSORT drafting gate was installed with easy to use remote controls.

This system has a fantastic flow as a 900mm wide gate and exits means even the largest cows are comfortable moving through and being drafted in the iSORT. Watertech Plus has been the local agent for Milfos for eight years. Lester and Raewynne Borrows have owned the business for eight years which has been in the industry for 35 years.

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Above: Left to right: Cameron Shepherd, Jeff Hadwin, Ruth and Paul Shepherd and Dean Weatherall. Below: Jeff Weatherall feeding the cows in the loafing barn.

SHEPHERD

Page 62

Coast & Country

Left: The innovative loafing barns.

Below: Project manager Steve Coop with cows in the loafing barn.

Quality of workmanship They are involved in dairy shed upgrades, new builds, maintenance and selling and installing milking plants and pumps.

“As well as the Milfos system we installed an Areta 10 horse power wash down pump in the Shepherd’s dairy shed. It’s a good solid Italian brand pump with plenty of pressure,” says Raewynne.

Working proprietor, Lester Borrows, prides himself on his quality of workmanship and makes sure all systems are working satisfactorily and the customer is satisfied.

Electrical work

The 13 horse power refrigeration units were installed by Hamilton based company DTS. They also have a branch close to Wellsford at Maungaturoto.

“We had excellent service from Tim Reid Electrical, we have dealt with them for a number of years and found their advice invaluable,” says Paul. Tim Reid Electrical are industrial electricians, based at Wellsford and provide a 24 hour seven days a week

service.

From the start of this project Paul realised it would be a full time job overseeing the day to day progress as well as running a large farm so he decided to appoint Steve Coop as project manager. Steve worked closely with Paul in the design of the dairy shed and wintering barns.

“I think someone like me can come in and see things with ‘new eyes’,” says Steve.

“We sat down together and came up with some designs. Nothing was really put down on paper but we were on the same wave length and I was on the site 90 per cent of the time so if the contractors had a query I was there to sort it out. For instance we changed the original site as there were going to be problems with the access road etc.”

Steve was brought up on a farm, has a lifestyle block in Wellsford and wears a lot of different ‘hats’.

“I have been an engineer, a shearer and have built a few stockyards. I have had a lot of experience in pole construction and that’s why we decided on wooden poles for the

wintering barns. They are nice and simple, look good, have strong bracing and they don’t rust.”

When doing their research on wood versus steel for the wintering barns, they found that in a short space of time the steel poles would rust.

“We did have to compromise with the roof though, as a fibre cement one was cost prohibitive and we decided on coloursteel,” says Paul.

There are two wintering sheds, 10m x 60m, with a central race and each one can house 200 cows comfortably.

Easy on the feet

The rubber matting on the ground is easy on the cow’s feet and a soft place to lie down on. Recycled water is used to wash the sheds down each day.

The rubber matting was purchased by Paul and Ruth from Agri-Mat through Numat Industries of Oamaru. “The Agri-Mat was installed in the loafing barns, which has proved a very valuable investment that we couldn’t do with out. We have now had our dry herd on the matting continually for six weeks now and they will be on there until calving. The cow’s feet and legs are in excellent condition, even better than when we first brought them in. Without the agri-mat

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Page 63

Effluent disposal we would only be able to stand the cows in there for up to three days and then three days back in the paddock and we’d still have lameness issues as well as bad pugging. There is no reason why the cows can’t be kept on the matting 24/7 all winter. Some say the matting is expensive, but compared with pugging, food loss & lameness it has proved very beneficial,” says Paul.

Barn washing

“We use a flood wash system, which is done in the late afternoon that gives a clean surface for the cows to lie down on.

When we arrive in the mornings at least 80 per cent of the cows are lying down and during the day there would be about 30 per cent lying down some of the time which is very good, showing the cows are comfortable and contented which in effect means increased production.”

Numat Industries specialise in agricultural rubber and have a large range of products to suit any requirements. Continuous rolls and interlocking sheets for feedlots and stand off yards, cow bedding systems, calf trailer mats, anti-fatigue matting for cowshed pits and equestrian matting.

The innovative effluent disposal is Steve Coop’s design as well. The effluent from the dairy shed and wintering barns runs into a trench beside the yard where 70 per cent of the solids remain and the rest seeps through a grate to two holding ponds at a lower level until it is ready to be distributed on to the farm as irrigated liquid fertiliser.

Top experience

Trevor Barfoote of Whangarei firm Barfoote Construction has been building dairy sheds around the world for the past 21 years.

“Our expertise in building dairy sheds is sought after from off shore clients as well as locally. We are cost effective, know what we are doing and get the job done for the client.

We have built herringbone and rotary dairy sheds as well as covered feed pads,” says Trevor.

The Shepherd’s dairy shed was a Barfoote standard design with a few changes to the layout of the side rooms. It was a difficult complex to site because of the contour of the land and making sure there was enough room for the effluent system.

The design of the loafing barns was to incorporate cow com-

fort, cot efficiency and ease of operation as well as a structure that was not going to be affected by high winds. In summer the temperature inside the shed is up to 7C below the outside temperature.

“We are seeing more of this sort of complex on dairy farms now as farmers are putting more emphasis on per cow production rather than controlled starvation of cows practised in the past,” says Trevor.

Barfoote Construction provides an on-farm consultancy service and work closely with the farmer during construction to get the best result. They employ 52 full time staff in New Zealand. They also do commercial buildings, build bridges and will have a go at anything.

The efficiency of this dairy shed and wintering barns can be put down to the Shepherd’s taking the time to do their research, get good advice and employ the best people for the job.

By Helen Wilson

Above: Recycled water cleaning the loafing barn.

Below: Liquid ends up in these two ponds.

MARTIN

Page 64

Coast & Country

Push button cow control The drought this summer has hit the far north of New Zealand hard and farms were just recovering in June.

Brian and Debbie Martin milk 300 mixed breed cows on 180 hectares just out of Dargaville.

By Helen Wilson

“There are even a few Ayrshire’s in the herd,” says Debbie. Their pasture was looking green but still very short and they were lucky to have a paddock of fast growing barley to winter the cows on.

The herd was dried off earlier than usual this year affecting production but they are both looking forward to a better season next year.

They provide winter milk and this year milked 90 cows right through. The main herd started calving again on July 20.

Debbie Martin is a bundle of enthusiasm and energy and farming is in her blood. The Martins are farming on the same piece of land as her grandparents, which is something she is proud of. As if running a farm wasn’t enough to occupy her, she also has 15 thoroughbred X warm blood horses for dressage that she has bred herself. She competes locally and nationally in events and is placed frequently.

The couple have three children aged 20, 18 and 16 years.

The old dairy shed was at least 40 years old and over that time had been modified from an eight a-side herringbone to a 12 a-side then a 16 a-side and finally a 27 a-side which could only fit 22 cows as the cows were too big.

“Each milking was taking us four and a half hours and when we acquired an equivalent sized farm across the road it was time to consider building a new dairy shed,” says Debbie.

The couple decided on Dargaville company,

King Brothers Construction to build the dairy shed.

They are a well known company and this was their first dairy shed.

Usually they do more commercial work. “We looked at lots and lots of dairy sheds and picked out bits from each one. We decided on a 50 bail rotary and the concrete platform was so big that the actual construction had to fit around that. Neil King was very helpful and between us we came up with this design which works well.”

The building was started in January 2009 and finished in July the same year. Everything is at ground level so there are not a lot of steps to go up and down. It has an extra opening along the side which makes the building light and airy.

It can be closed off in bad weather, keeping the milker and cows nice and warm.

The building has a steel frame with colour steel cladding, is low maintenance, cost-effective and has aesthetic appeal.

The dairy shed is central to the farm with wider and easier maintained raceways. The cows walk in, walk round and walk out.

In the old dairy shed they had to be moved four times at each milking.

The milking plant is a Milfos variable flow, with 50

Above: The entry and exit area of the milking shed.

Below: The milking shed.

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Page 65

A pick and mix of design ideas

Above: Milk clusters.

Below: Farm owner Debbie Martin.

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sets of cups and automatic cup removers allowing one person to milk.

Everything is controlled by a flick of the switch on a console beside the milker.

“The brief from the Martins for this parlour was to create a high volume shed able to be handled by one person at a reasonable cost. To accomplish this we used the Milfos 50 bail iCOMPAC inward sloping flat floor platform that is hydraulically driven for quietness and in the event of power failure able to be turned by tractor hydraulics to get cows off safely.

The iCONVEYER milking system is designed for efficiency and reliability featuring variable drives on both the milk (iNTELFLOW) and vacuum pump (iNTELVAC), high efficiency plate cooler, auto wash (iNTELWASH) for plant and vat with a twin port wash gland,” says Mark McKewen area manager for Milfos International in the Waikato and Northland.

For labour and time saving during milking iCR intelligent cup removers with independent cow restraints eliminates the need for someone at cups off and prevents over milking.

A cluster dropdown system takes the cluster under the bridge for rinsing and picked up at cups on ready for use.

An iSPRAY auto teat spray is in the exit race.

Baty Thomas Engineering, another Dargaville company, provided all the pipe work around the circular yard and the frame for the dairy shed. “We were very pleased with their workmanship as they kept checking everything as they went along.” Baty Thomas does all kinds of engineering work from building trailers to fixing the forks on tractors.

Hamilton firm DTS provided the large milk silo. They arrived one day had it installed and it is working well.

The electrical work was done by McKay Electrical. They are based in Dargaville and as well as rural work do commercial and domestic. They provide a 24 hour seven day a week service.

Keeping the milk at optimum quality awaiting pick up by the tanker is an important aspect of the new dairy. Refrigeration units were provided by Frostline Refrigeration of Dargaville and are working well.

The cow crush adjacent to the yard was provided by Technipharm. “It is really good as it has knee rests making it easier to reach the cow’s hooves if they get sore feet, although with the new dairy shed we have noticed that the cows are not having as many feet problems,” says Debbie.

“The new dairy shed is fantastic, I usually milk on my own and it now takes one and a half hours. The cows got used to the rotary really quickly and the first few milkings we had some help from a neighbour to get the cows on and off.”

Brian and Debbie run the farm by themselves and during busier times employ casual labour as needed.

Let’s hope the rain falls at the right times in the right places this year.

By Helen Wilson

Page 66

BELLA VISTA FARM

Coast & Country

Building a showpiece Brothers Murray and Graham Shaw’s new rotary shed on the 150ha Bella Vista Farm in Karaka is literally a showpiece.

By Graeme Dobson

Fonterra brings international visitors to it to show them state-ofthe-art New Zealand dairying – trade delegates from the United Arab Emirates were the last through – and in November this year organisers of the International Dairy Federation World Dairy Summit to be held in Auckland, will host delegates.

Needless to say the brothers are justifiably proud of their new acquisition.

Before they decided to upgrade they winter milked 450 Friesians in a 22 unit rotary built by their father in 1974. It did the job okay, but was inefficient by modern standards and needed two people and 3-3.5 hours to milk 450 cows.

Lifestyle changes

“Installing the new shed was really a lifestyle thing – we were getting brassed off with the hours in the shed,” says Murray.

“We’ve got good labour and they didn’t seem to mind, but if they ever left we’d be struggling to get somebody to spend seven hours a day in the old shed. And it doesn’t leave a lot of time to get other things done – Graham and I ended up doing a lot

of the chores that they could’ve been doing.”

By building a new 50 unit shed they have been able to increase the herd to 500, reduce the milking time to 1.5 hours, the number of milkers to one and reduce total farm workforce from four to three.

They started looking at designs, systems and people to put it all together back in Above: The cows look 2008, and that pretty happy with the is when they new arrangements. found GEA Below: Aesthetics have Farm Technot been sacrificed to nologies and functionality in WestfaliaSurge this shed. milking equipment.

“We narrowed it down to people that offered the total package from the planning to the finished shed. Then it was the little things, details that added up to a clear decision to go with GEA.”

Cow platform

GEA Farm Technologies have vast experience in designing and building in the dairy industry, especially milking sheds and dairy factories. For the Shaws, they installed a Yarroweyah cow platform, manufactured in Australia exclusively for GEA Farm Technologies, and a WestfaliaSurge Dematron milking system with

ICAR milk meters and automatic plant wash. Austin Heffernan from GEA Farm Technologies says that they build sheds of all sizes from 40 to 80 units. In theory, he says, they could go bigger, but they have found the most efficient size is 50-54 cow units.

Austin used Jack Thorburn Builders Ltd to build the Shaw’s shed. Jack Thorburn has 35 years experience in building milking sheds and had previously built seven or eight for GEA Farm Technologies with excellent results. Jack himself has recently retired and handed over to his son Mark, but he came back to help out with this job. They specialise in milking sheds and, working from their base in Huntly, have built sheds from the far North to the deep South. They prefer working on ‘turnkey operations’ like the Shaw’s, starting with developing the plans and working through all the phases up to handing the finished product to the farmer. They even pour their own concrete.

“We found we couldn’t get the quality of finish we wanted with subbies,” says Mark, who is a young man proud of his work and keen to maintain the high standards set by his father.

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Page 67

Efficient and comfortable shed To ensure these standards are kept in all areas, the Thorburns employed GEA dealer Peter Ellmers from Peter Ellmers Farm & Electrical to install all the milking machines, water systems and electrical work. Peter has been in the electrical business for 19 years, 7-8 of those specialising in milking sheds.

Planning and attention to details are essential, says Peter.

“We make it easy for the farmer,” says Peter.

“We will install it all, pipe it, wire it and make it go. There’s no grey areas between who does what.”

Packed with extras

Stainless steel piping is used throughout, overhead (conduit sags over time) and under the concrete where it’s all threaded and bent so there are no joins. And there’s lots of extras, such as a skirt wash controlled by a solenoid to keep the skirt wet and clean during milking that are much appreciated by the Shaws.

The Wetit teat sprayer Peter installed that only works when the platform is going (no chance of a pipe blowing off when there’s no one around) is an example of his attention to detail. And it says a lot for the quality of the teat sprayer that it was the only piece of equipment brought over from the old shed. Brian Sexton from Wetit Teat Sprayers explained, “Our product is simple, effective and reliable. This one had been recently upgraded and worked well, so there was no reason to

replace it.” Wetit are specialists that have been manufacturing teat sprayers for 16 years and have exported their product to Australia, the UK and a couple to Europe.

The emollients and water needed for the teat sprayer are provided by an automatic mixing unit installed by Cleantec Ltd, which supplies all the detergents and mixers for all the sheds cleaning and sterilising needs. This Australian company is growing its New Zealand business very rapidly on the back of quality products and excellent service. Phil Dayson from Cleantec says farms that employ them have had a general improvement in cleaning results and an enhanced milk quality.

Refrigeration Refrigeration is supplied by DTS (Dairy Technology Services) from Hamilton. Area manager Dave Gray says that forward planning and working in with the builder and electrician is a must.

“We worked in with the builders and electrician with the prepipe, getting all the pipes to come up underneath equipment so there’s nothing to trip over,” says Dave.

“We supplied the control box with a digital thermostat and installed a basic refrigeration unit, an energy efficient 10hp Pattons connected to an 11,500 one silo, a configuration that meets all Fonterra specifications and gets the milk down to 70 within three hours.”

Although the Shaws haven’t used it as yet, all DTS units have a heat exchange

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Right: Peter Elmer from Peter Elmers Farm & Electrical beside the shed’s massive switch board. Above: Graham (L) & Murray (R) with Austin Heffernan from Westfalia GEA Farm Technologies.

fitted with provision to provide 600 water to the shed.

And to finish the shed off Bruce Cameron from Specialised Coatings applied an Acraflex Hi-build acrylic with a solvent glaze. This New Zealand manufactured product is used widely where ever clean, hygienic and hard wearing surfaces are needed. The clean, bright finish tops off a superb product – a milking shed that’s efficient and comfortable for both the cows (all 500 of them) and the milker (all one of him).

By Graeme Dobson

Page 68

BEN ALPIN

Coast & Country

Born and raised for dairying Danny & Pauline Garrity have been farming in the Hawkes Bay for eight years. Since moving here they have converted four farms to dairying.

By Lois McKinley

Looking down on the new dairy shed from the hilltop. Inset: Randall Whale, Dan Garrity and Brent Milne.

All four farms are located in Patoka, which is a small community on the outskirts of Napier.

You would think one conversion would be enough of a headache, but quite clearly Dan enjoys the challenge and stress of it all.

Dan Garrity was born and raised in Wairarapa, where he started his sharemilking career, before moving to the Hawke’s Bay in 2002.

He has three children from a previous marriage, and Pauline had two children when they met.

Ben Alpin was previously a beef and sheep farm. The farm consists of 310 hectares and also includes a 130 acre QE II Trust, which is a

native reserve. The Garritys feel it is important to work with the environment. Another 51 hectares was purchased next door to Ben Alpin to incorporate into the conversion.

The ‘home farm’ was originally owned by Dan’s parents, and Dan and his business partner Bob McVitty purchased the ‘home farm’ at auction. Dan could not afford to buy the farm on his own, so a week prior to the auction he was approached by Bob, and they formed an equity partnership. “The rest is history,” says Dan. The ‘home farm’ was converted back in 1996, with the Nelson block also just finishing its second season. Trig Downs, which is the third

farm, has just finished its first season. Ben Alpin was the first of the last three conversions. Dan was fairly adamant he would not be doing any more conversions.

Cows or mountain goats?

The Garritys and their team milk Jersey crosses, and a few black and whites, which they breed back to Jersey crosses. Dan feels that the Jerseys do better on the hills, and reckons they are like mountain goats, whereas the Fresians will just stand at the bottom of the hills. The intention is to milk 730 this coming season.

This area is where Mount Taupo landed, so there is a good pumice soil. Coupled with the

high rain fall means there is excellent grass growth on Ben Alpin. “This is such a beautiful part of the country,” says Dan. The farm had P levels in the low 20s, so Dan had a tonne of super to the hectare applied to kick-start the farm, and thereafter it has been just standard fertiliser applications.

The flats of the farm have been turned over and two thirds sowed in a rye clover mix and the rest was rye grass from the technobull system that the previous owner set up. There was already a lot of rye grass on the farm, and the remainder of the farm was sown with rye grass and crops.

Taupo

BEN ALPIN

PH 07 578 0030

Page 69

Working with the environment

Clinton Humphry, Randall Whale, Brent Milne, Pauline and Dan Garrity.

Well set up Roughly 25 hectares a year are under-sown out of the 270 hectares, and out of that there is about 50 hectares of which you cannot get a tractor over.

As well as the fours farms there is a support block down at Rissington, which is just 14km down the road. Dan feels he is well set up to have a high producing dairy unit, and his aim is to get lots of money in the bank.

The goal for Dan is to get to the stage where each unit has it’s own manager, thus reducing his stress levels. He would like to be more of a business manager, and spend more time with Pauline and the family.

I was given a tour of the farm from the newly grassed paddocks to the paddocks with the best view, right down to the pond with the maimai on it. The views out across the tops of the hills to Cape Kidnappers was astounding.

The shed is a sight to behold, especially from the hilltop. It is just lovely.

Dan & Pauline purchased Ben Alpin in

2008 and brought it with the intention to convert to dairying.

The altitude of this farm is 600 metres above sea level and because of this the farm is termed as ‘summer safe’.

Because of the altitude and weather conditions, the Garritys do not winter milk on this farm, although they do on the Trig farm and Nelson Block.

“We’re up about as high as it gets,” says Dan. Prior to making the final decision on his new shed, Dan visited about six to eight new sheds in the Hawke’s Bay and Manawatu areas, and picked out the bits that he wanted in his shed.

There had been three or four different sites picked out for the new shed in the months leading up to it.

“One of the most important decisions is where to locate the shed,” says Dan. Dans’ main advisor for the water and effluent was Ian Howatson from Agfirst Engineering in Gisborne.

“Ian was absolutely invaluable in this whole process,” says Dan, “he was my main advisor, and before I made any decisions at all I ran them past Ian.” Ian was used to design the farm water reticulation system, and dairy effluent land application system. Ian’s design ability was critical to determine the required pipe sizes and pressure rates to ensure sufficient water was delivered to all water troughs ensuring cows always had sufficient water during peak demand periods.

As an added bonus Ian was able to organise all the required pipe, and components at very competitive rates.

As he is an engineer, Ian was able to undertake the testing of the clay soils, which the effluent pond was constructed within, to ensure they complied with the Hawke’s Bay Regional Council minimum infiltration rates requirements.

Bells & Whistles

All of Danny’s new sheds have been kept basic with no bells and whistles. It was important to Dan that the shed was cow friendly, and people friendly, and at the end of the day Dan felt it was there to put milk in the vat. It is a very roomy shed with fantastic staff quarters and a more than adequate shower and toilet block.

“If I want bells and whistles that will come later down the track,” says Dan. “It was all about start up costs so we had to

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Ben Alpin

get it right.

“The one thing that was important to me was that I have a concrete platform.

“I had a shed built in Wairarapa and the steel platforms were so noisy.”

The Garritys decided on a DeLaval system as they had been servicing Dan’s for a long time.

“We priced up around the place, but service was an issue, and Patoka is in a part of the world where everyone has to travel to get to us.

“We decided to stick with the locals, as travel is not an issue,” says Dan. Danny Garrity chose to install one of the new range of DeLaval’s rotary milking solutions a concrete 60 bail PR1100.

This new range of concrete platforms has a new bail design which is both low profile and very robust.

The low profile design enhances the rapid exiting of the cow from the bail area.

The track system has also been redesigned with changes depending on the duty level that each customer has requests.

The platform itself is made of reinforced concrete with the steel reinforcing totally enclosed by concrete, thus eliminating any possibility of corrosion.

The milking machine is totally integrated with the platform offering customers a total design solution.

With the type of farm management, Danny chose a milking system without automatic cluster removers but the design allows for the addition at a later date if required.

Danny also chose an automatic plant washing system so to wash the plant, the only job staff have to do is push the wash button. This allows staff to focus on other activities around the dairy while the plant is being washed.

The yard for the shed was built 10 metres wide, more as a forethought for regional council requirements.

BEN ALPIN

Page 70

Coast & Country

Geared up for winter conditions

manager, and his wife Yvonne Milne assists with calving. Randall Whale is the 2IC and there is another junior.

Closer than they thought Prior to working at Ben Alpin, Brent used to live in town, mainly for family reasons while the kids were growing up. Although he had lived next door to Dan for a while, they didn’t really get to know each other until they were at the Classic Motorbike Club in Hawke’s Bay. They both have a passion for the classics.

Randall grew up in Otorohanga, and moved closer to Hawke’s Bay where he lived on a sheep and beef unit. Randal has been working with Dan for 12 months now.

The yard has been built with the intention of erecting a plastic roof if needed in the future.

With the hazardous winter conditions at Patoka, the Garritys have their own portable generator, which is more than adequate to run the sheds if the power is down because of snow or just in general.

Effluent is spread with the use of a travelling irrigator. There is a primary pumping station at the shed that pumps directly onto the pasture, then the pond as a backup.

Ross Construction from Taupo constructed the shed and erected the portals.

Economical design

An economical design was important, and the lightweight structural steel frame roof offered a wall structure that could incorporate precast concrete panels.

The architectural drawings were moulded around the structural design and Ross Construction soon had the concept priced up and the clients giving the green light.

The 600sqm shed features 1.8m high precast panels to walls, large plant room storage, staff/office and ablutions with shower and stair access under the platform to the inner pit.

The build time was tight with 16 weeks to complete the shed and yards. The project was project managed by Mark Ross of Ross Construction Taupo Ltd, three carpenters and a site foreman.

Randall Whale, Brent Milne, Dan Garrity, Pauline Garrity, Clinton Humphry.

The Ben Alpin shed was the first dairy shed that Ross Construction had constructed, and since then have built two of Dan’s other sheds as well.

After the site prep had been done Ross Construction from Taupo came in and erected the portals, roof and walls, then put in the plinth, which holds the milking platform. The platform rollers are then put onto the plinth followed by the platform.

Ross Construction also did the yard.

Hotter Engineering from Inglewood manufactured and installed the platform. It took approximately seven to eight days to have it fully installed. Danny chose a concrete platform because the concrete one he had in the Wairarapa convinced

Calf rearing veteran

him that they were the way to go. He had previously milked in sheds with steel platforms and the difference in noise between the two he felt was huge. The cows and staff are far more relaxed in the quieter shed.

Strong and durable

Hynds have supplied troughs for all four of the farm conversions. Hynds manufacture a huge variety of stock troughs in all shapes and sizes to suit the modern farmer’s every needs.

Their troughs are strong and durable, manufactured in quality-controlled factories from steel reinforced precast concrete and incorporate such features as ballcock protection.

Hynds also manufacture and supply single and continuous feed troughs,

concrete killing and dangerous goods sheds, as well as tools to compliment their extensive range of rural infrastructure products. A complete range of environmental systems; from stone traps, effluent and septic tanks and pumps, to effluent pipe systems, cattle grids, loading races, underpasses & wingwalls for all of your stock control needs.

Clinton Humphry clocks up 20 years service with FIL in November.

He used to work for Alpha Laval in Manawatu prior to coming on board with FIL. Clinton has been supplying Dan with his FIL chemicals for the entire time he has been with FIL. Dan employs three staff at the Ben Alpin farm, Brent Milne is the

Pauline is an accomplished veteran at calf rearing. She rears 3000 calves every year with only one assistant.

This is a marathon task with a smaller number, but this really takes the cake. They keep all the black and white bulls. She also keeps as many replacements as they can. There are four barns set up for the calf rearing, and in the peak of the season Pauline and her helper spend eight hours a day feeding calves.

The calves are quickly progressed to outside feeding to take the strain off indoor feeding. All four farms have the calves delivered every few days to Pauline. The calf milk is tapped out to the barns to make the job easier. Some days says Pauline “There are 70 new calves to feed.”

By Lois McKinley

BEN ALPIN

PH 07 578 0030

Page 71

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WILLOWFORD FARM

Page 72

Finding a hidden gem Driving to Willowford Farm was quite lengthy, but once found, was a well-hidden gem of a farm. The dairy shed is located towards the middle of a very long and picturesque farm.

By Lois McKinley

Dean Wright manages the farm for Mark & Susan Levett of Sherenden Dairies. He has been managing the farm since about November 2009. Dean is assisted by his brother Geoff, and two other labour units. Dean hails from Pirongia in the Waikato, but had previously worked for Mark and Susan and was keen to return and work for them again on their new conversion.

Willowford Farm was previously a sheep and beef farm, and was converted to dairying

back in 2008. The farm is situated out the back of Hastings just off the main Road to Taihape. Prior to my visit the rain had been bountiful, which meant that the ground was very well sodden.

Willowford Farm will be milking 670 Fresian cows this season with the aim of attaining 3000 milk solids per cow.

Trial farm

The main stay of this conversion is the extensive Herd Homes® Shelter set-up, and the Herd Homes® Dairyard that has been erected. These look magnificent from the hilltop as you manoeuvre your way towards the farm.

The herd feeding is done in the Herd Homes® Shelters, two of which have been erected behind the new dairy parlour. Dean says that the

Looking down on Willowford Farm after copious amounts of rain.

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cows just love the Herd Homes®.

Willowford Farm is a trial farm for the new Herd Homes® Dairyard system.

Herd Homes General Manager, Ian Gillingham, travelled all the way down from Whangarei to guide me through the design and concept of the new Dairyard® system and Herd Homes® shelters.

Hose-less yard

The basic concept is a hoseless dairy yard, of which there are currently five throughout the country. All five are trial yards.

The Herd Homes® Dairyard is basically a raised open sided yard with a concrete slatted floor over effluent storage bunkers.

Coast & Country

Dean Wright manages Willowford Farm.

PH 07 578 0030

WILLOWFORD FARM

Page 73

Using the power of the sun All this is covered with a clear plastic roof. A sign off from NZ Food & Safety and Fonterra is required before this Dairyard® system will be commercially available to other dairy farmers.

Herd Homes® currently has an exemption from the rule not to store effluent within forty-five metres of the milking platform. This ruling is presently exempt for these trial farms.

What NZ Food & Safety and Fonterra want to see is drying effluent, and not just an effluent storage bunker where the slurry is all wet and smelly. Herd Homes® believe that they

are close to meeting the required minimum standards needed for sign-off. As the effluent has to be seen to be drying, Herd Homes® have installed a liquid extraction process which takes place under the Dairyard® bunker. This allows the liquids to be taken off and allows it to flow down into storage tanks which can be pumped straight back onto the pasture. If the effluent doesn’t all get used on the pasture the remainder will then gravitate to the effluent ponds.

The Dairyards bunkers are partitioned from the sides so the slats can then be removed for the bunkers to be emptied. Down the sides of the yards there is a trial type weeping wall system.

The outlet for the urine is at the base, and as the effluent rises, the urine can get through the screen. This is to assist with getting the effluent as dry as possible as quickly as possible.

The roof over the yard is made of clear plastic, which allows for the sun to assist with the drying of the effluent and also keeps the majority of rain out. During the hotter summer months a shade cloth system in the ceiling

gets unravelled and set up to give the cows the shade they need at that time. This drops the inside temperature by about ten degrees.

The roof is vented at the top which open and closes automatically depending on temperature and weather conditions.

The concrete slatted flooring is wider at the bottom than at the top, and is made from pre stressed concrete panels. This makes them impervious to the corrosive effects of urine. The slats have been tested for ten years now with no sign of urine penetration.

The floor itself has never been hosed and, whilst to a person who has a nicely hosed out yard this looks a bit messy, this farm is saving up to an hour a day in hosing time, plus the power and pump savings and the 90% less effluent volume they have to deal with. No hosing, no huge effluent ponds, no moving parts or electricity.

The Herd Homes yard.

WILLOWFORD FARM

Page 74

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Coast & Country

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“We believe our main market for the Dairyard® will be in areas where they have effluent disposal problems or water supply problems,” says Ian. “We already have several farmers waiting who have issues that they believe will be manageable with a Dair-

yard®.”

The Herd Home® shelters are a similar system to the Dairyard®, except they are bunkered lengthways. Each shelter has two bunkers running the length of the shelter. There is no smell because the drying system cuts down the greenhouse gases that are released. A mat of dung and fibre that builds up on the slats makes them comfortable for the cows to stand or lie down on.

The use of a solid muck spreader can be used to spread the effluent after collection. Water is not added prior to spreading, as the effluent is broken down into tiny bits to flick out onto the pasture. Each of the 200 cow Herd Homes® shelters bunkers contains approximately $18,000 worth of nutrients when full. This makes up a substantial part of the farms nutrient requirements.

rlour

There are currently around three hundred Herd Home shelters throughout New Zealand, which are primarily used for feeding and for standing off, when the outside conditions are poor, thus preventing the pugging and trampling damage to soils and pasture. Through animals being cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter they require less feed. Combine this benefit with the extra grass being grown and utilized, through reducing pugging and trampling damage, and it’s not hard to see how this system will improve the productive capacity of the farm.

One big advantage over feed and standoff pads is that you don’t have to spend copious amounts of time cleaning which therefore allows time to get on with other more important jobs around the farm.

Tom Pow, who designed and invented the Herd Homes® systems, believes the Dairyards will potentially be more in demand, and have a greater impact on the dairy industry, than has already been achieved by the Herd Home® shelters.

This dairy parlour is a Barfoote Construction designed and constructed shed. This is a lovely roomy shed, with the usual staff, and storage areas to accommodate the requirements of the milkers.

The milk silos were supplied and installed by DTS systems.

“The new shed is the Rolls Royce of sheds, but did need a bit of fine tuning to get it up and going properly,” says Dean.

A Wetit teat-spraying system has been installed in the new shed with Wetit waves on the platform to keep the legs spread for even teat spray.

By Lois McKinley

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PH 07 578 0030

WILLOWFORD FARM

Page 75

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WAIPAPA TRUST

Page 76

Coast & Country

Designed for future expansion The milking platform has been fitted with Wetit Waves in each bail section.

By Helen Wilson

Waipapa Trust

These help in making the cow stands with her back legs apart so the teats can be sprayed completely, speeding up the milking time and improving teat sanitising.

The interior dairy shed walls have a washable durable acraflex coating supplied by Modern Coatings. Owner Roger Farley guarantees his work for 10 years and sheds he has coated 18 years ago still look as good as new. The special surface aids in keeping the walls clean and up to hygiene standards.

Environmentally kind systems

Dealing with effluent from a large dairy shed like this needs a system that is both kind to the environment and works efficiently at the flick of a switch. Morrinsville company Hi-Tech Enviro Solutions had exactly the right solution.

“This system is designed for future expansion,” says general

The centrally located dairy shed.

manager, Brian Nicholson.

“They can increase the herd to 2000 cows and our system will still be able to cope.”

Hi Tech has designed the effluent disposal unit with two kilometres of pipe so when switched on it can irrigate over 90 hectares at any one time.

Dairy effluent is worth over $30,000 a year in terms of fertiliser value. It is a short payback time in terms of the investment made.

The effluent pond has a 90 days holding capacity which means the farmer can irrigate at the optimum times avoiding rainy days.

All of Hi-Tech Enviro Solutions effluent disposal units are environment compliant so farmers can be assured that the effluent is not causing any environmental damage.

Laser Electrical Putaruru has again had the pleasure of working with the Waipapa Trust.

Director Chris McKillop says, “The dairy sheds are get-

ting bigger and more technical with the shed loading increasing in recent times with bigger effluent systems using larger motors to irrigate more pasture and larger refrigeration units used to chill the milk.

“Not long ago a 50kva transformer could handle the loading of most sheds. Now it is very important to do loading calculation to get the right transformer installed. We have found PLC’s (programmable logic controllers) are the best tool for integration and gives flexibility for various milking plants, wash systems and associated equipment.”

A mob of calves.

Future standards

Cow identification, milk monitoring and automatic drafting will be the standard in the future and Laser Electrical have made provisions for these in this new installation keeping in mind other advances in technology using automation and control using computers.

To improve and make the understanding easier of fault diagnosis for the farm management they have included a coloured touch screen panel view which will show up the faults and state of the shed operations.

The automatic backing gate.

Refrigerated milk holding tanks.

PH 07 578 0030

WAIPAPA TRUST

Page 77

Left: The well formed raceway.

Right: The well constructed effluent pond.

Waipapa Trust

Building right with high standards of workmanship This will eliminate unnecessary callouts.

The electrical installation included refrigeration wiring, a fully automated effluent system, submersible and pressure pump installation, wiring to the workshop and calf shed and of course the wiring and installation of the main rotary shed and plant wiring.

Head electricians Darryl Karl and Tim Haughey and the team completed the installation in the time frame required.

Enjoyable project

Chris McKillop says “It has been enjoyable working with Bob Cottrell from the Trust as he sets high standards of workmanship and has definite ideas of what is required but is open to suggestion like the implementation of the Programmable Logic Controller which we pro-

vided and programmed for this installation.”

Any cows that come in lame are dealt with efficiently in The Race Wrangler installed by Wilco and Waverley. This keeps the animal constrained and is used primarily for hoof trimming and vet work or during calving.

Right the first time

Clients of Reporoa Engineering 1982 Ltd believe in doing something right the first time and only doing it once.

This is the reason why Waipapa Trust No. 9 Farm chose to build their dairy shed using Reporoa Engineering 1982 Limited’s premium Herdflow Dairy Shed Design and Construction. They build to the specific needs of the client and ensure they are closely involved in all aspects of the design, choosing

of technology and construction updates.

This is the philosophy behind all Herdflow products and services. The client’s needs are paramount to a successful outcome.

The Waipapa Trust No. 9 dairy shed project contains a 60 bail rotary milking platform and has 1.22m high concrete tilt panels on all walls with insulation panel above the concrete tilts. Construction steel is of galvanised RHS portal construction for premium strength and durability. The yard includes the well-known Reporoa High Lift Gate with an auto yard washing system.

An office, staff room, vet room, crèche, pump room and store/electrics room are part of the design footprint, which creates a perfect environment to get on with the job at hand with ease and efficiency.

Ensuring optimum cow flow and including exceptional animal handling facilities, the Herdflow team has covered all the needs of the farmer and their animal handling requirements. Loading race, drafting pens and improved vet facilities with an AB drop down platform off the raised vet room, are part of this premium Herdflow Dairy Shed Design and Construction project delivered to Waipapa Trust No 9 Farm.

Ease and efficiency

The efficiency of this rotary dairy shed means a milking time of two and a half hours with two milkers.

As the cows settle down after calving they expect this time will be reduced even more.

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Page 78

WAIPAPA TRUST

Coast & Country

Smooth transition from sheep and beef to dairy Imagine one thousand cows arriving on the farm in one day! All in truck and trailer units and all glad that the end of their journey had come, to be off-loaded and sent out to fresh, green pasture.

Waipapa Trust Farm no. 9 is nestled in the rolling hills at Mokai, 20 kilometres north from

Taupo. It can be a cold harsh climate during winter and it is not uncommon to have snow on Christmas Day. The 700 hectare property used to be a sheep and beef unit but Anthony “Dawson” Haa, chairperson of the Maori Trust that administers this and the other four farms that make up the trust, could see there was more profit to be made in dairy farming.

There was a transition period of about seven months when the farm changed from sheep and beef to dairying.

Restructuring of the farm started in December 2008 and the fencing and raceways were completed in time for the cows to arrive on June 1. The new 60 bail rotary dairy shed was under construction and due to be finished on August 1 when the first of the cows would start calving.

The dairy shed was centrally located near the old historic wool shed, making use of some of the old raceways and buildings.

The woolshed is now being used as a calf rearing facility, with young calves kept in pens inside and the older bigger mobs in small paddocks around the woolshed, making efficient use of existing buildings.

The rolling pumice land was split up into five hectare paddocks with electric fences,

Waipapa Trust

another economical and efficient way of containing dairy cows. Fourteen kilometres of new raceways constructed by Mid Island Contracting completed the project. The raceways were all formed and topped with pumice which is freely available in the area, is cheap, durable and easy on the cow’s feet.

“There must be millions of cubic metres of pumice on the farm,” says Bruce Nickalls, owner of Mid Island Contracting.

“It will never run out. The raceways will have to be topped up now and again but will last for some time,” says Bruce.

Farm Manager Craig Jackson; one touch does it all!

Left: An apron waiting for the next milking.

POND LINERS

WAIPAPA TRUST

PH 07 578 0030 The dairy shed sits nicely amongst the rolling hills.

Page 79

Left to right: Steve Taylor, Adam Franklin and Paul McGill.

Savings from enhanced performance systems but decided to go back to farming mainly working on farms around the South Waikato/Taupo area. Having mechanical skills has been a real plus during his farming career.

“If any of the vehicles or machinery breakdown I can usually fix them and save time and money,” says Craig.

“It’s just one of those skills that are useful on a farm.”

Mid Island Contracting levelled the dairy shed site, two house sites, dug out and formed the effluent pond and put in the tanker track.

“We have done other jobs for the Waipapa Trust, so this was basically straight forward work making sure there was a solid base to put a construction of this size on.”

Mid Island Contracting employ 15 staff and specialise in rural work covering the mid North Island area.

Farm Manager, Craig Jackson has farming in his bones. He was born on a farm and decided to do a mechanics apprenticeship when he left school.

He worked at this career for 12 years

Organising herds

Another one of Craig’s skills that came to the fore was the organising of one thousand cows into their different herds.

“We kept the cows together as much as we could,” says Craig.

“This helped to settle them down being with animals they were familiar with. Although it was a big job it all went smoothly and we made the transition from a sheep and beef unit to a dairy farm, virtually overnight!”

The dairy cows Coral Burns Wood feeding a mob of calves.

came from farms all around the North Island, some were used to rotary dairy sheds but some had to be trained. The Waipapa Trust is still looking to buy more dairy cows to increase the herd next year. This farm employs a staff of five including Craig and they all live on the property. That many more staff meant providing housing quickly. Taupo House Removals came to the party and transported liveable accommodation to the farm.

Reliable installations

An efficient milking machine system and reliable platform are a must for the smooth running of any large rotary dairy shed.

For this installation Waipapa Trust no. 9 farm chose Hamilton-based company Waikato Milking Systems.

The Trust had previously installed Waikato Milking Systems equipment and was familiar with its reliability and operational integrity.

A 60 bail Waikato rotary platform has been installed. The platform sits on precision steel rollers and is driven by two drive units.

A stainless steel skirt encloses the

underside of the platform and is continuously cleaned during milking by an automatic skirt washing system.

The milking machine is fitted with “Ultimate” electronic cup removers and “Bailgates” and twin “Maxi” top loading filters filter out any impurities in the milk.

Waipapa Trust in that Glycol is used as the secondary coolant in conjunction with a Mahana Blue heat recovery system. A 60kW glycol water chiller is installed at Waipapa Trust no 9. The Glycol chiller ensures the milk enters the vat at between two and four degrees.

At the same time the chiller cools the milk it is producing four litres of water per minute, heated to 85 degrees. Savings produced using this technology is considerable and not just limited to the cost of electricity.

Qubik Taupo, Waikato Milking Systems dealer for the region and their team made sure every component of the system including the automatic vat washing system was fitted correctly and worked as planned right from the word go.

Qubik is an established Taupo company and this is the second dairy conversion in two years that they have completed for Waipapa Trust.

System savings

The milk cooling system incorporates a Glycol chilling unit and the milk passes through a double bank industrial plate cooler.

Vacuum is supplied by a BP 400 blower pump and milk is pumped by a Fristam 2.2 kw milk pump. Both systems are controlled by Waikato variable speed drive controllers.

NT24 2+2 pulsation was chosen for its precise operation and low maintenance requirement. The pulsation system is connected to filtered air that further enhances overall pulsator performance and service life of the system. Waikato 320 claws complete the milking system offering high flow and excellent vacuum stability during milking. The refrigeration system installed at the farm is unique

By Helen Wilson

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Page 80

WAITUHI KURATAU TRUST

Trusty sheep milk is a success

Coast & Country

By Helen Wilson

This is a dairy farm with a difference. Instead of a lot of dairy cows on the turnstile in the dairy shed, there are bales full of sheep being milked.

The Waituhi Kuratau Trust farm is at the southern end of Lake Taupo near Tokaanu. The climate can be quite severe in the winter with strong southerlies blowing off the mountains.

The 2100 hectare farm was a sheep and beef unit and to some degree,

still is, except some of the sheep are now being milked.

The trust has between 150 and 160 owners with one family having a 93% share. Chairman of the trust is William Konui. He has an entrepreneurial nature and is always looking at ways to improve the profitability of the farm.

Free potential

“I saw all these sheep running around with big udders,” says William, “and decided there must be a way we could turn this freely available product into profit. So the idea of milking the sheep was born.”

Farm manager Ali Reid and William set off to find out as much as they could about milking sheep.

“After all,” says William, “sheep cheese is eaten in most countries of the world and has been for centuries.”

Their travels took them to Blue River Farms in Southland, the biggest manufacturer of sheep milk in New Zealand, as well as goat milking operations in the North Island.

“We looked at their milking systems and then came up Chairman of the trust, William Konui, Farm Manager, with our own Ali Reid and Dairy Manager Chubb Dale.

design which was best suited to our situation.”

The milking shed was built in 2008 and the first year they milked 2400 sheep and this year (2009) the numbers have increased to 4000 with the option of increasing that again next year.

The breed of sheep is predominately East Friesian, known for their lactating qualities, with a few cross breeds from the farm’s original 10,000 flock.

Once the ewes have had their lambs they are put into the milking herd after two weeks. The lambs are taken off them at night so the ewes have full udders for the morning milking and then reunited with their lambs on the way to their fresh paddock. To allow for a consistent supply of milk, lambing is spread over five months, starting in August and finishing in early December.

In just minutes

The lactation time for a sheep is four/five months and they can be milked from hoggets through to six year olds. The average ewe takes two to three minutes to be milked and can yield up to 1.6 litres per day.

They are all electronically monitored by a special ear tagging system, so each ewe’s milk flow is recorded for quality and quantity.

Hamilton company, TCS, have developed a milk yield

tracking system using high frequency (13.56Mhz) RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) to allocate animals to the bails during milking. The ability to read multiple tags simultaneously group animals based on their producmakes bail allocation more foolproof tion and lactation cycle throughout when dealing with animals that are the milking season. The top producin close proximity of one ers can be determined to and other. This high breed from and the frequency RFID lower producers technology also can be culled. allows data The informaencryption tion gathered directly will allow onto the a genetic tag allowing breeding information program to be to be stored developed thus directly onto improving the the animal ear tag herd. In addition A vi e . m r o w f of th e p la t as well as being stored to detecting milk yield in the management database. the sensor is fitted with control The TCS milk yield tracking system hardware to automatically remove records the yield from each milking cups from the animal at the complefor each animal via TCS milk yield tion of milking. sensors, specifically developed for low volume milk flow such as sheep Half a spin and goats. This data is used to build The dairy shed has been espea milk yield trend for each cially adapted from goat animal and allow the milking dairy sheds. farmer to

Looking from the yards with their low solid fences.

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Page 81

Using top of the range equipment

Great service

Andrew Meek of TCS checking the milk sensors. at one end, another will be exiting, beside her, separated by a low corrugated fence.

To entice the sheep on to the platform they are fed a mixture of palm kernel and molasses. “Not too

plant installed so a Milfos milking system was chosen. “We had installed milking machine systems for goats before,” says Milfos area sales manager Mike Prendergast, “and with the help of our Taupo

Mainland Dairy Systems and Mainland Engineering are run side by side by Daniel Gorton and his team. They provide a 24 hour seven day service to their clients around the Taupo area. The company specialises in fitting out dairy sheds with milking plants, up grades, plant maintenance, water systems, machine testing, rubberware to fit a large range of plants and general engineering work on dairy sheds and yards. Working with Milfos they can provide the best

h

es

Th

Milfos is a New Zealand owned company based at Hamilton. Milfos provide the very latest in plant technology and this system is a low line one with variable speed drive for the vacuum pump and milk pumps.

It has silicone liners and light weight teat cups to aid in fast and clean milking with little or no cup slip. It has an automated plant and vat washing systems running through a seven day cleaning cycle. The automatic cup removers hang down below the platform out of the way of the milkers. An extra neck rail had to be added to stop the sheep jumping out. Everything is operated with a touch of a button on a console right at the milker’s fingertips.

m.

Left: Making sure things are going smoothly.

Latest technology

for

The lightweight cups hang down out of the way.

and located in that area to accommodate 5000 milking sheep. Even then some earthworks were involved.

Jilesen Contractors of Taumarunui Wiring expertise have been contracting in the area for Electrical wiring is the key that over 20 years. “My Dad used to e r makes sure the right switches h ot ar on t y p come down here and disc p do the right thing on any l a lot of this land in the ee dairy shed. Taumarunui early days,” says Tony company Lyndon Jilesen, “and now my Jones Electrical have brother, Martien wired up more and I have taken cowsheds than they over the busicare to remember ness and we are during their 25 back levelling the years in the busiground for these ness. Partner Glen large projects.”

Mulgrew says, “We Jilesen Contrachave done many tors employ 24 dairy sheds but this staff and as well was the first sheep as farm work can milking dairy shed. be seen putting in It was similar to a conroads and other general ventional dairy shed earthworks. with just a few The milk is adjustments.” stored at 2°c and The wash picked up by down system, tanker every milking plant, second day. The backing gate, trust has bought lights and a factory at Matarefrigeration toki near Thames were all wired by where the milk goes Lyndon Jones to and they Electrical. will be It is not just Mike Prendergast of Milfos, Chubb Dale and producing dairy sheds Craig Mitchell of Mainland Dairy Systems. their own that make up special sheep cheeses, as well as other their business but also industrial and products. They also have contracts domestic work. They provide farmto supply fresh milk to other cheese ers with a 24 hour 7 day service. makers.

The site for the dairy shed was chosen for easy access to the road,

By Helen Wilson

technology for the farmer with an excellent back up service.

dealer, Mainland Dairy Systems we tweaked this one to best suit the client’s requirements.

at

It has an 80 bale rotary platform with and exit and entry at both ends. This means the sheep are only on the platform for half a rotation.

The sheep are kept in multiple mobs for manageability and the dairy shed has two circular yards, one at the front and one at the back of the dairy shed. As a ewe enters

much though”, says William, “as we don’t want them to stay on there for too long. Once they get used to the platform we will cut out the extra feed.”

The automated system was installed by PPP industries of Tuakau. It dispatches a serving of 100 grams of hard feed per animal per bale. The quantity can be adjusted at any time the farmer requires it.

It was critical to have an efficient milking

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BRINHIL FARMS

Page 82

New look brings a new flow Brian and Hilary is representative of the very latest milking technology. The 101mm (4”) milklines ensure better milk flow and greater vacuum stability. Ultimate electronic cup removers offer flexibility and have features that can be adjusted to suit the milking characteristics Brian (left) and Hilary Power with their team, sharemilker of the herd. Pre Corey Sanson, and Dion Cavey (right). and post milking delays are just two of the many My first visit to a new farm dairy was settings available to a milker through an easyto-change control panel. Auto-start is fitted to Brinhil Farms on the Rangitaiki to the cup removers making cupping a much Plains near Whakatane, owned faster operation.

by Brian and Hilary Power. Innes Richardson was the Bay Milking Equipment Ltd representative on-site and Dave Tebbutt, the area sales manager for Waikato Milking Systems, came from Hamilton.

By Christine Donehue

I was very appreciative of their patient explanation of how the new shed works, and the ins and outs of milking machines.

The herringbone dairy at Brinhil Farms has undergone an extensive upgrade and extension from 21 to 44 sets of machines. The old milking machine was removed and a new Waikato Supa 4 installed.

The Waikato milking equipment chosen by

Proven to work

Knowing the critical nature of pulsation, the Powers chose Waikato NT24 Electronic Pulsators for their dairy. Proven over many installations this 24 volt system offers consistent, reliable pulsation. It is robust and able to withstand the demands of dairies all over the world. One pulsator operates two sets of cups in 2+2 configuration. A filtered air system helps protect the pulsators from environmental contamination and reduces their overall need for maintenance.

Cleaning a 101mm milk-line requires a powerful wash system. Waikato Milking Systems developed the Hurricane slugwash system specifically for this purpose. It is now considered the benchmark within the industry.

Using a powerful and adjustable electronic

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air injector, the wash system can be set-up to ensure a repeatable and reliable cleaning regime, says Dave.

A Waikato compressed air ‘milk-recovery system’ clears the delivery lines after milking, recovering most of the milk typically run to waste at the start of washing. The system can be activated at any time during milking, or when colostrum milk needs to be flushed.

Perfect temperature

The importance of milk condition and temperature is well known. On this farm a 150mm Maxi filter removes any unwanted particles in the milk and an industrial plate cooler ensures the milk temp into the vat is right on target.

The vacuum system in Brinhil Farms is similar to that now supplied as standard equipment in almost every modern installation. Waikato Blower vacuum pumps have a universal reputation for reliability and long service life. The BP400 installed at Brinhil Farms is

Coast & Country

capable of producing upwards of 7550 Lpm @ 44Kpa. Blower pumps built for Waikato Milking Systems are unique in that they have been manufactured to a very tight “dairy specification,” says Dave Tebbutt. These pumps have been specifically engineered to manage the temperature variations present during the milk and wash cycles.

Controlling the pump is a Waikato SmartAir ACS550 variable speed drive unit. Not only does the SmartAir maintain a constant vacuum level throughout milking, it saves up to 47 per cent of the power cost to operate the vacuum pump motor.

At 44 bails, Brinhil Farms’ dairy is considered a big herringbone, but it’s also simple, clean and uncluttered. The Waikato Supa 4 is fast and easy to use. It requires very little maintenance and has the support of New Zealand’s largest manufacturer – Waikato Milking Systems NZ Limited.

Worldwide reputation

Dave is technical manager at the Hamilton head office and is currently responsible for sales in the Bay of Plenty area. Waikato Milking Systems has earned a reputation New Zealand wide and throughout the world, for their work in research, design and manufacture of milking equipment. The company, incorporating Stainless Innovations Limited and Rotary Platforms New Zealand Limited, designs, manufactures and supplies a comprehensive ed Hilary and array of state-of-the-art milking systems and nt ese pr t) gh on (ri Innes Richards et of goodies, compliments of components, a range of products known for sk being reliable, robust and cost-effective.

Brian with a ba ing Equipment Ltd. A clear focus, soundly based on grassland Bay Milk

BRINHIL FARMS

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Time to milk the success farming principles, where milking speed and machine efficiency are paramount, coupled with the need for low capital cost, are key elements to the success of the Waikato Milking Systems product range.

Dave says he enjoys working with farmers to meet their needs. He grew up on a farm and is an electrician by trade. He says he has found a good position between the two, in technical support. He likes the industry and the people in it as, “You know where you stand.”

Combined passions

The team responsible for the new farm dairy at Brinhil Farms.

Waikato Milking Systems has a network of distributors, installers and fitters. Bay Milking Equipment Ltd, of Whakatane is their agent in the BOP. Innes Richardson and his team installed the plant and wash-down system. He first met with Brian to discuss the farm’s requirements, making sure the installation would be future proofed for future extensions or an increase in herd numbers. He and Brian discussed installation options and what he expected from his new plant, the specifications and equipment required and then worked out a budget and price.

He took Brian to other farms to show him installations that would look like his.

Alterations and extensions

ical manager of Dave Tebbutt, techn tems NZ Ltd. Sys Waikato Milking

Bay Milking Equipment Ltd then had the job of removing the old existing plant, alteration and extension of the shed and installation of the new gear.

“We had a small window to work in.

All the work had to be done between when the cows dried off and before they started to calve again. We came in after the builders had finished,” says Innes.

“We had to consider liaison with the

Page 83

it. In 1981 they builders and electricians.” had an opporBay Milking Equipment Ltd also provided the two large Aqua Water Tanks and has a large tunity to buy a small dairy farm. Since then they have bought range of water pumps in stock, able to be used the two smaller farms either side, making up for farm water supply.

Brinhil Farms’ 135 hectares.

Wilco Klein Ovink fitted ‘The Wrangler,’ a safe and secure cattle restrainer for the trimming of cows’ hooves. Billy (or bully?) straps raise and lower the cow.

It is mobile, allowing it to be used as a calving pen in the paddocks and for caesarians. Invented in New Zealand in 1995, it is now used nationwide and the company, based in Whakatane, employs five staff.

“I wanted the Wrangler to be comfortable for the cow. Even if a cow is upset the first time in, she becomes more relaxed with each visit. That saves a lot of stress,” says Wilco.

In 1948 Jim Dippie’s father had a Innes Richardson (bl car garage and later moved into farm Milking Equipment ue collar) of Bay Ltd with farm ow machinery. Jim bought his father out in ner Brian Power.

1977. W.J.Dippie Ltd built the original cowshed and fitted the first Ruakura Milk Harvester 20 years ago. Jim has returned to do the pipe work and building frames for the refit and extension. His son Bill started working for him two years ago and is learning on the job, the third generation to do so. Jim says he will keep on while he is still enjoying it. The workshop based at Taneatua employs four.

Brian Power and his wife Hilary came from Auckland where he was an A grade mechanic and Hilary worked in banking.

Brian grew up on a farm and when the chance came to go sharemilking they took Milking on (left) of Bay Innes Richards r with the we Po n ia Br and Equipment Ltd filter pump equipment. wash down and

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BRINHIL FARMS

Page 84

Coast & Country

Adapting as progress is made Now 480-500 cows are milked and they have a sharemilker, Corey Sanson and his assistant Dion Cavey.

They also have a stand alone run-off up the road for beef and young stock.

Their three children grew up on the farm. Daughter Sheree is a radiographer in Hastings, Michelle is doing an engineering degree at Massey and son Hayden is in Perth doing electrical instrumentation.

Steady growth

The new farm dairy project was lined up and booked two years out.

It was needed because of the growth in numbers and the need to have quicker through-put for the staff.

After the builder Maurice Savell died, Steve Smith of Smith Build-

ers took over, but planning had to start again from scratch as Steve was classed as a new builder. The overall plan was followed, but some alterations were made as they went along.

As it was an add-on, not a totally new project, paint had to be stripped off and all the pipe work taken out, to be replaced with a more modern design. “As soon as the cows dried off, the digger went in the next day,” says Brian.

Luckily there was good weather in early winter, so there were not too many delays. In July 2004 all the paddocks were under water for two weeks.

“It was challenging, with nowhere to manage stock without a cowshed.

It helped that things were done on time, despite contractors having

other jobs on the go.”

Early calving cows could have been a problem but a kind neighbour milked them to help out.

Winter brought the challenge of short days and wet weather. Tracks Concrete of Whakatane sent a big team, essential to get the job done quickly and expertly.

Saving time

The advantages of the new shed are that two herds can be milked, one after the other in less time. The new set-up of the bales and the new pipework design is more comfortable for the cows in the bale. The auto cup removers mean two people can do 44 cows at once.

The Protrack Drafting System sup-

ks

ss the paddoc d the view acro Young calves an Whale Island. to

The new farm

dairy and Aqua

tanks.

Brian Power with the new automatic drafting gates. plied by LIC, allows drafting of cows automatically, a big plus. Ear tags are read by Protrack and drafted accord-

ingly. If the farmer wants to separate out a cow, he just keys it into the on-site computer.

There was no winter holiday, as Brian and Hilary had to be around to manage the project. “Communication is the key thing. With cell phones it is easy to talk to team members. One depends very much on another,” says Brian. Hilary’s role was paying the bills. “It went brilliantly. The whole operation was very smooth,” says Brian.

By Christine Donehue

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Page 85

KILWAUGHTER FARMS

Page 86

A truly family farm

Coast & Country

By Ken Usmar

Kilwaughter Farm is an unusual dairy farm in some respects, but according to farm manager and partner Jamie Lanauze, we are likely to see a lot more like it in future.

Located just out of Opotiki on largely flat land at the entrance to the Waioeka Gorge, Kilwaughter Farm is an 11 person equity partnership.

Jamie Lanauze and his wife Ange are running the farm.

The rest of the partnership are members of their family.

Ange’s grandfather Dick Anstis is one partner, while the others include Bev and Allan Bouchard, Alison and Allan Macdonald and Denise and Ross Moody who are Ange’s aunts and their respective husbands. Natalie and Dave Wilson are the remaining two partners. Natalie is Denise and Ross Moody’s daughter and a cousin to Ange. Jamie says the equity partnership is a great way to be able to afford a first farm and predicts we will see many more farms owned under such arrangements in the future.

View of the yard.

A good team. (front) Builder Stephen Smith, Jamie, Jim Dippie. (rear) equity partners Dave Wilson, Dick Anstiss and Ross Moody.

1096738-Cridge Seeds:Layout 1

19/03/2009

2:03 p.m.

When asked why he would undertake such a project during a ‘recession’, Jamie smiles and explains that the farm they bought was very run-down, and he had always felt dairying was a strong industry and it was bound to come back strongly again.

Testing for production

Currently they milk a herd of 185 naturally mated Friesian cows at Kilwaughter which they bought with the farm.

Joining forces

Page 1

Actually Kilwaughter is an amalgamation of two farms; the first belonged to equity partner Dick Anstis, on which his son, the late John Anstis (Ange’s father) used to milk and in the last five years grew maize and wintered dairy cows. The remainder was a deceased estate over the road from Dick’s land that the partners purchased with the house and old cow shed to make it a more viable operation.

Jamie says there was a 12-aside herringbone cowshed with the other farm but milking in that was not a viable option. “It took three and a half hours to milk the herd in there, so that was seven hours a day tied up milking.

And it would have been too expensive to bring it up to Fonterra’s standards anyway.�

A textured coating on walls in the main body of the shed helps a lot with the clean-up.

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KILWAUGHTER FARMS

Page 87

Something that little bit different The top 100 were AB to DNA proven jersey and the rest AB with Hereford that had never been herd tested and Jamie says this affected early production.

“In our October herd test we identified over 20 per cent of the herd doing less than one kilogram with some as low as 0.4. They looked the part but they were there to look after themselves so 15 of the fattest all over a six cs were culled in early December.

We are still on twice a day and doing just under 1.2ms/cow in mid March.”

Jamie has plans to dramatically increase his herd’s production over the next three years.

“When we bought the farm it was only doing 45,000 kilos.

We’re hopefully going to do 65,000 this year and we’re hoping to hit 70-75,000 next year with a three year goal of 80,000.

And we plan to do that without increasing the herd size beyond that 200 figure.

They plan to milk through to the end of May using maize.

About a quarter of this they grow on farm with just effluent no fert or urea; and the rest is from Ange’s uncle Peter Anstis.

Kilwaughter has an effective milking platform of 63 hectares with a further six hectares of stock banks covered in wild fescue which will be brought in over the next couple of years and become part of the effective area. A further hectare is used to grow the maize and all stock is wintered on the farm. Jamie says they have another 50 hectares of run-off which is very run down with no water or fences and the majority of which is covered in secondary growth such as wattles and bracken.

They hope to milk on it in future.

“That’s one of the reasons we built a slightly larger shed.

We’ve got the land and we might want to have a twice-a-day herd and a once-a-day herd later on the runoff so we have made allowances for that with the larger shed.”

Saving options

Jamie explains the shed they built is a 26 a-side herringbone with a difference. “It’s at 900 centres. We bought a secondhand milk plant to save a bit of money and in order to make it bigger all we have to do is change the milk line and it goes out

to a 36 a-side with no extra fuss. And that could be done between milkings.”

The shed has also been aligned (after much debate) to run North-South which Jamie says avoids the curse of sun strike for both morning and afternoon milkers. The yards cell pit. have been located to The load the South because a cool wind comes up from the gorge and in this configuration the cows will have their backsides to the wind. They also get good shelter from the southerly thanks to a macrocarpa shelter belt.

Jamie had panels put into the roof to allow more light in the shed.

Looking down the AB race.

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Page 88

KILWAUGHTER FARMS

Coast & Country

Clever railing for safety Among other points of difference at Kilwaughter Farm are the single breast rail in the shed and a straight bum rail, both of which fold down when not in use. Jamie chose the single breast rail to avoid the danger of cows trying to jump over and getting their legs caught.

A separate AB race flanks one side of the shed which has a breast rail that can be folded out of the way and fold down bum rail which is one side of the vet race. A double vat stand has been put in so they can later supply colostrum and a separate exit race to another paddock makes it easy if they want to draft some cows from the herd.

Cleaning made easy

Jamie has drum tippers which he got from C&F Industries to help keep the yard clean. The drums are mounted on an angle and fill up during milking until they reach a tipping point. They then tip their contents and Jamie says they normally do this two or three times during each milking and keep the yard pretty well spotless.

“It was also a cheaper alternative for us. Some people put in a big $20,000 backing gate with dungbusters and stuff like that on them. We put in one of Jim Dippie’s gates and the drum tippers and it works just as well for us and at about a quarter the cost.”

A small insulated office area has been built into the shed which Jamie says they will carpet and furnish with a TV and a couch. “It will be a kids’ room for times when me and my wife are both working out here.”

The Kilwaughter shed also features a roof that lets the light in. Coralite has been installed two sheets wide for the entire length of the shed, naturally lighting the main milking area.

Jamie says he was extremely pleased with the team who did the build.

“The communication between Stephen and Jim was very good and they kept me up to date all the time. They went out of their way to make sure the shed was done the way I had pictured things. They worked well as a team and Stephen made several trips back over to make sure that everything was finished to a high standard after all the other contractors had finished which is just one of the reasons why he came strongly recommended by numerous Fonterra representatives.”

A big build up

Jamie demonstrating the drop down rail on his AB race.

Waiotahi Contractors took care of all the earthworks which involved a fair bit of work raising the shed site.

They supplied all loose fill and concrete and made the races and tracks

for the farm. A large race already existed on the farm and it provides good access for trucks taking metal from the river, so Jamie allows this practice to continue and collects a royalty from the trucks which goes some way towards maintaining the race.

Keeping the project running Smith Builders of Whakatane were the builder and lead contractors on the job. They began the job in October and they were finished before Christmas leaving Jamie in a position to begin milking in the shed by January 7.

Stephen Smith says the build went very well considering they were working on ‘river run’. “It makes digging holes hard,” Stephen explains.

Overall Stephen says the build was pretty much standard for the type of sheds he has been building. “But Jamie’s AB race was a first for us. It makes it easier for the vets and technicians because they have no posts in their way with this race. They’ve got a drop down rail and they are still Jamie demonstrating the drop under cover too. It down rail on his AB race. should make things much easier when it comes time for the AI.” Stephen says the equity partnership worked well with Jamie acting as the sole link with the contractors and adds that the contractors on the job were an excellent lot who all worked in very well together.

PH 07 578 0030

KILWAUGHTER FARMS

Making it all work better WJ Dippie did all the pipe and steel work.

Jim Dippie singles out Jamie’s single breast rail and his AB race as highlights he doesn’t usually get to do, but adds that his mission is always to make the farmer happy with the end result.

What you want

“I’ve always said when we build a dairy shed; we build the farmer’s shed, not ours. We listen to him and if he’s got an idea, we try to do that for him. Both the single breast rail and the AB race seem to work really well and Jamie is pleased with them, which is what it’s about.

“Jamie was very definite about what he wanted and what he didn’t want right from the start. And some of the better ideas we have got have often come from suggestions from the farmers we’ve been building for.”

The Dieson backing gate was also supplied and manufactured by WJ Dippie. Jim says he has sold hundreds of them around

New Zealand as well as several into places such as Chile and Wales.

“It was an idea we had seen and saw room for improvement with and it has gone very well for us ever since.”

Pouring the flooring

Jamie says Tracks Concrete did a very good job with the concrete.

“They put a nice slope on everything so it flows the right way and they put a rough texture down to make it non-slip.”

The concrete sides of the pit and also the dairy room floor have both been given a textured coating that resists acid and won’t allow dung to stick to it. This is done by putting a sealant on the concrete and then adding paint flakes and a resin over the top.

A positive contribution

By Ken Usmar

Jayar Electrical did all the electrics on the job as well as plumbing in

with his m Dippie

Jamie reckons his drum tippers are a very cost effective clean-up solution.

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the refrigeration unit. Jamie says they are a local company the family has been using for all their electrical work for many years and they have just recently expanded their services to include installing refrigeration units.

Providing the major electrical supply including all the underground cabling from the road to the site and the new power poles was done by Horizon Energy.

Jamie says they got their water tank from Aqua Tanks who were offering a good deal at the time. “We only wanted a 16,000 litre tank because we don’t need the storage as our water comes from an underground bore.”

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Page 89 The milk chiller at Kilwaughter.

HERRICK

Page 90

Coast & Country

Building for the knowledge generation The AB race is handily located and sheltered from the weather.

The build was undertaken by Carterton firm C&F Industries which specialises in farm, rural and industrial buildings.

Pat Finn says the first stage for him when building a shed is simply to have a meeting with the owners and get a basic outline of what they want.

“Ashton told us he needed a rotary shed to handle a certain number of cows, with a main yard that would also cope with those numbers.

So I then went away and drew up a scheme for him and we added in his particular needs and chose a site that was going to work for him.”

One of the more unusual features of the Herrick shed was a hallway between the ancillary rooms and the work rooms.

“Ashton is the first one we’ve done something like this for. He had noticed they get a fair number of overseas tourists through Martinborough and so he wanted to be prepared so that at some later stage he could put up a sign and the gate and run guided tours through his working dairy shed.”

The build got underway in November 2008 and the Herricks have already had one season milking in the shed.

Pat says the build went without a hitch, but

adds that as he has been building dairy sheds for around 35 years he believes he has encountered most of the snags one can encounter at one time or another.

Bruce Battersby of Delaval says Ashton and Lewis Herrick chose a 50 bail concrete PR2100 platform with a full Alpro herd management milking system installed in their new shed.

“The PR2100 platform has a cabinet bail which houses the electronic herd management equipment in a dry and protected environment. This system is invaluable because everything is measured, and what gets measured, gets managed.”

Animal identification The system has full ISO identification for animals entering the bail area and this same ID system is also included in the automatic sort gate area. The Delaval sort gate is a three way draft system with quiet vacuum operated rams to open and close gates.

Once animals have been identified in a particular bail on the platform, milk yield and in parlour feed allocation can be monitored to individual cows or groups of cows. Planned drafting is done from the central computer

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and unplanned drafting from any bail on the platform.

Milk meters measure individual milk yields, giving early indication of health issues and the platform has individual bail retention, which holds cows that have had an abnormal milking, and returns them to the operator to have the cups reapplied.

The Herricks also installed an RF400 in parlour feed system with one 80mm auger dispensing supplementary feed to individuals or groups of cows.

The herd management system links all the data collection equipment into one central computer where the herd manager can sort and filter it into meaningful information. This enables herd decisions to be made on facts rather than speculation.

Having the milking plant linked into the herd management package also means operators are unable to apply cups to a cow that has been treated for mastitis and recorded as ‘do not milk’ as there will be no vacuum at the particular cluster.

The vacuum for the plant is supplied by a variable speed lobe vacuum pump imported fully built – up from the USA.

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When Ashton and Mary first began farming the property it was much smaller.

“It used to be just 81 acres,” explains Ashton, “and now we’ve expanded it to 167 hectares.

“Mary and I still own the property but Lewis began buying into it last year and he and his partner Liz handle the day-to-day operations.

“They’re doing very well and he’s doing the hiring and firing – so I expect I’ll get fired any day soon.”

Ashton and Mary have bought a section in Martinborough where they plan to build a house and retire.

“This shed will be for Lewis’ lifetime really just like the other one was for me.”

Building the perfect shed

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Ashton Herrick is the third generation of his family to farm his Martinborough property and he is looking forward to the day he and his wife Mary step back from the business and watch their son Lewis and his young family take over the whole operation.

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HERRICK

Page 91

Upgrading for the fourth generation Sophie seems keen to become the fifth generation on the farm.

Cleaning is by way of an automated cleaning system. Simply pushing a button starts it cleaning the milking plant, allowing the operators to concentrate on other activities around the parlour.

Feeding the herd

Agri-Feeds supply the Herricks with bulk molasses and advises them on their supplementary feed system.

Territory manager Rex Turnbull says their part in the project has been to supply the bulk molasses that is added to the dry feed.

“Everything we sell is charged through a retailer; we don’t sell directly to the farmer. We give advice and come and do the initial consultation, but all the inputs that we contribute are charged through the retailer.”

Rex says while Agri-Feeds doesn’t get involved with the actual installation of the feeding systems in shed, the company can arrange for specialised contractors to do this. In the Herrick’s case, he says Central Silo Systems was already doing an installation for another farmer nearby and Ashton and Lewis made contact through the other farmer.

“The benefits for the Herricks in adding molasses to their feed are that it keeps the dust down, in the bins; it helps keep the birds out, plus the molasses is a good source of energy for the cows that also adds palatability to the feed. It can also be used to mask some of the less palatable minerals.”

Central Silo Systems of Ashhurst designed

and installed the feed mill and installed the molasses system.

The feed mill supplied comprises a 100 tonne maize silo and 180 tonne silo for wheat or barley. The grain is cracked through an 11kw (20hp) hammer mill which has the ability to suck grain from either silo and blow it to a 4.5 tonne meal mixer.

Powdered or granulated additives, including lime flour, magnesium, mineral, salts and bloat control products are blended with the mix of cracked grains in the mixer ready for dispensing on the platform during milking. The mixer can also be used for the on farm manufacture of calf meal.

Knowledge is power

Lewis says they experienced big improvements in performance right away with the new shed.

“With the feed system and all the information we are able to get from the system about each cow, we started getting results very quickly. Our production last year was up by 14 per cent and our empty rate dropped from 12 per cent the previous year to just six per cent and the condition of the cows was just great.”

This latest foray into new technology is nothing terribly new for the Herricks. It would seem they have dwelt at the cutting edge of dairying for some considerable time. Lewis says their previous shed, a 32 bail rotary which they built in 1981, was the first rotary in the Wairarapa.

“And the most modern in the region in its day, too,” adds Ashton.

At that time Ashton was in partnership with his brother who subsequently sold out to him and bought a farm of his own in Carterton.

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Page 92

HERRICK

Coast & Country

Expecting big improvements In 2009 following the completion of the new shed they milked 420 cows through it.

Ashton expects they will milk 500 in 2010, and with the new technology they have had installed he is expecting improvements in more than just the number of cows milked.

Lewis says the new shed has also brought them significant savings in milking time.

“It used to take about three hours to milk in the old shed and in this one we are all done in two hours – and that’s just one man milking.”

Lewis says the next step up from their computerised set-up is robot milking.

New developments

Computerisation has changed the entire stock management system on the Herrick farm.

“The whole system here is computerised and it can be added to,” says Ashton. “For example they have a new development coming soon where you can tell if a cow is on heat through its milk. Now that is about to be released and once it is, we’ll just be able to plug it into our system and have it working right away. It will automatically draft that cow out separately when she leaves the platform. The computer will also be able to pick up signs of mastitis.”

Lewis says the drafting system is

particularly useful for him.

“We can identify every individual cow through its electronic ear tag and I can just draft individuals or groups based on whatever selection criteria I might want to use, and send them where I want simply by programming it into the system.”

Ashton reckons one reason they had a better conception rate was that they were able to draft out the heifers from the second calv-

ing separately from the older cows.

“They weren’t having to compete with the older cows for feed, and they produced just as much as the older cows.”

Apart from the molasses, the supplementary food is all grown on the Herrick farm. They have 150 tonnes of barley grain and 100 tonnes of maize grain which were mixed together with the molasses to form a tasty and nutritious feed.

The troughs on the milking platform

Above: The blinking red lights show the milk meters are operating. Below left: Feed is provided for each individual cow during milking. Below right: The workhorse that drives the milking operation.

have their portions accurately measured out to suit each individual cow thanks to the computerised system.

“Because we know what each individual cow is producing, we can increase or decrease their feed according to their needs, so we don’t waste feed on a cow that is simply getting fat and not producing much milk.

Her portions can be cut back.”

Ashton says the computer “took a bit of working out”.

“But Lewis’ partner Liz was pretty good on computers and she helped out a lot and Lewis has got it sorted out now.”

Tanks a lot

Wairarapa Concrete Ltd supplied the large water tanks for the farm.

They have been operating for 70 years in the district making many different concrete products that are used on farms and lifestyle blocks such as septic tanks, water troughs, well liners, cattle stops and feeders.

Keeping it cool Refrigeration units were supplied by Dairy Technology Services, which is a member of the worldwide NDA group with New Zealand branches in Normandy, Te Rapa and Tamara.

The teat spraying equipment was supplied by Wetit Teat Sprayers who have offices in Onewhwero and Australia.

By Ken Usmar

PH 07 578 0030

HERRICK

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Your solution – every day When you’re looking for a rotary system that gives more than just faster milking, think about this: • individual cow ID • automatic drafting • integrated herd management • milk yield recording • automated in-bail feed rations • weigh scales • and a low profile bail for faster cow flow The DeLaval PR2100 rotary does much more than just milk your cows faster.

Contact your local DeLaval dealer or phone 0800 222 228 for information on the DeLaval rotary milking systems.

Page 93

Page 94

LANDERS

Coast & Country

Joining the family farms Lesley and Tony Landers with farm worker Steven Welch and builder Doug Fowell.

When Tony and Lesley Landers of Manaia in Taranaki built their new dairy shed it was on a base of metal from their own pit.

By Ken Usmar

Tony and Lesley had decided to join two farms together. One they owned themselves; while the other was leased by them, but owned jointly by Tony’s mother and his late father’s estate.

Between them the two farms comprise about 110 effective hectares and the couple plan to milk 370 jersey cows in their new 44 bail rotary shed.

Although their previous shed was a herringbone, Tony says some of their cows have experienced a rotary before.

“We had another farm which we sold in June last year and that had a 20 bail rotary on it.”

The couple took a sharemilker on at the other property for a year to give them the time to get their new shed

built.

Tony says what made them choose a rotary was their desire to eventually make milking a one-person operation.

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Their high-tech shed features automatic cup removers, automatic drafting, automatic weighing, and wash down is handled by automatic floodwash. In addition the plant wash is automated and automatic teat spraying keeps the cows healthy.

A good office area and a fold down veterinary platform are also included.

There is also a covered Wrangler next to the yards with easy access from the milking shed. It is situated on the side of the shed away from the prevailing wind so anyone working on the cows is under cover and protected from the worst of the weather.

The Wrangler was used by Tony twice within two weeks of finishing the shed.

“I particularly wanted that as an added extra,” says Tony.” I thought it might lie idle for a long time but I had to use it twice within three days - once for a minor calving and then again for a particularly difficult calving. It was easy to use and both cows just walked in there without any trouble.”

Individually built

Tony & Lesley began planning for their shed in the middle of last year and visited a lot of dairy sheds to get some ideas. They hired Doug Fowell

LANDERS

Page 95

Meeting customers’ requirements of Heritage Farm Dairies for their build.

“At our initial consultation we start from a standard shed design with the choice of round or rectangle yard with standard pens and drafting layout,” says Doug. “From there we work closely with the customer to design a farm dairy that bests suits their farming and herd management practices.”

Doug says consultation with and feedback from the customer throughout the build is central to the Heritage Farm Dairies style.

“We use our experience to ensure no common design faults come into the shed and make sure cow flow and people flow are both well thought out. This approach to farm dairy design enables us to deliver a shed that meets the exact requirements of our customers.”

staff. A built-in, fold down vetting stand is located inside the shed at the platform.

“We also place great importance upon maintaining a close working relationship with specialised and experienced subcontractors to ensure the trouble free coordination and placement of all services.”

Flexibility

The sheds built by Heritage Farm Dairies are constructed from masonry blocks which make for flexibility in design and construction and allows services to be concealed in wall cavities thus avoiding untidy pipe

work and conduits. All block work has a water proof protective colour coating to keep walls free from slime and algae build up.

All the steelwork is hot dipped galvanized and roofing and cladding is G2Z colour steel with the customer’s colour of choice.

“We have provided quick and easy access from inside the shed to the yard, with wide broad gently rising steps that make this transition area easily accessible and manageable with mini-

mum delays to cow flow. The design incorporates a Westfalia Surge AS 3000 automated ID drafting system, and the holding pens and head bail areas were thoroughly thought out and worked through with Tony and Lesley to work in with their farm management practices, with careful consideration to the management and handling of stock movement.”

Seamless operation

Doug says a seamless milking operation is what every farmer wants and to help ensure that, future proofing the design and layout are also important.

Some of the standard features incorporated into Tony and Lesley’s shed include maintenance free sliding aluminium windows to the exterior of the shed and bird proof roller doors allowing good air flow in hot summer months. The roof structure is also bird proof with well placed clear sheeting to minimise lighting changes when stock are entering and leaving the shed, making it a stress free environment for stock and

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LANDERS

Page 96

Coast & Country

Shed virtually maintenance free Doug says Tony and Lesley were very easy to work with and it was a pleasure for everyone to be involved in the project

The mechanical workers GEA Farm Technologies supplied the milking equipment which began

with a 44 bail Yarroweyah platform.

Yarroweyah manufacture all the GEA Farm Technologies WestfaliaSurge platforms supplied worldwide. The platform has hydraulic drives and nylon rollers which are virtually maintenance free. This saves having to do greasing and oiling which is both messy and time consuming.

The Demax 55 cup remover system with advanced

retention arm control is fully programmable and every setting possible can be adjusted to suit an individual farmer’s needs. There are individual pulsators for each cow which shut down when not milking and the system can easily be upgraded to full milk metering.

Tony and Lesley also chose a blower vacuum pump with a VOD variable speed control and a Variotherm auto plant wash.

TheAS5000 automatic drafting system with weighing is attached to GEA’s DairyPlan software which allows for all herd management functions and can have parlour ID, milk meters, individual feed control and heat detection added as a simple upgrade should they want that later.

Connecting the liquid gold New Plymouth based Rural Taranaki installed

all the water systems for the shed.

Tony says they installed two underground ring mains around the shed; one for the wash down water and the other for the farm water with points off them to service the various needs.

“Basically they did anything to do with water that you see at the shed.”

Rural Taranaki was also the contractor that installed the milking platform and plant and all associated equipment including the drafting system.

The bottom line

Gary Wallis of R.A.Wallis Earthworks was one of the first to become involved in the build. The Okaiawa based company specialises in earthmoving and supply of metal and Gary says they have done about 10 previous dairy shed jobs.

Gary says their work involved clearing and preparing the building site, digging the drains, putting in the sand trap, and building a new race to join the two farms together.

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LANDERS

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Page 97

Working on dairy sheds for years “There was quite a lot of prep work. We used at least 1000m³ of sandstone hard fill from Tony’s own metal pit to ready the shed site and make the new tanker circle.”

The site was prepared and left to settle about three months before the build began.

Gary says there were no major challenges on the job and he thoroughly enjoyed working with owners Tony and Lesley Landers and builder Doug Fowell.

Power to the dairy

Brian Sinclair of Opunake electricians, Sinclair Electrical installed all the wiring and made all the electrical connections. Brian says he has been working on dairy sheds for many years and they make up a lot of his work.

“Being a Westfalia style shed, the electrics were pretty standard for us. We always find the Westfalia style sheds good to work on.”

Brian put in a five horse power Heatcraft refrigeration unit with a Mahana Blue combi unit attached for Tony and Lesley. The Mahana Blue fills the water heaters at 85 degrees C and makes up to 300 litres an hour of hot water at its peak.

“The Mahana Blue unit makes enough hot water while you are milking to do two hot washes each day.”

‘The switchboard also contains a useful feature.

“It comes set with generator facilities for stand-by power, which is standard for us now. Every switchboard we do has that facility built into it.”

Furnishing the parlour

DR Gray Ltd of Hawera was responsible for all the paintwork and Jennings Engineering of Manaia installed the backing gate and did all the welding work on the build.

By Ken Usmar

Milk metering.

CLINCE

Page 98

Coast & Country

A water conscious operation It’s not every day you come across a working pelton wheel. But if you happen to visit the Inglewood dairy farm of Kelvin and Marie Clince you will find one in good working order.

Shed from the outside.

By Ken Usmar

And this wheel is not just in good order; it is working as well.

Marie says they had to get the wheel specially made as they couldn’t find one to buy. Kelvin and their farm worker Jonathan Hayman laid 950 metres of pipe down to an artificial lake that was made when the farm races were being built. The water that collects in the lake is fed by gravity down to a pump shed where it strikes the pelton wheel and with the aid of another small pump it is pumped back up to the farm to provide a back-up water supply. Kelvin’s lake is able to feed the water through very efficiently because the pipe coming from the lake starts out 200mm wide and reduces to 30mm with a nine metre drop, resulting in enough pressure to run the pelton wheel 24 hours a day.

Kelvin and Marie are pleased to have been able to put in such an environmentally friendly machine that also saves one of a farmer’s most precious resources; his water.

The Clinces farm 137 hectares in the shadow of Mt Taranaki and on March 1, 2010 they began to build their new dairy shed.

“Basically it all started when we bought the neighbour’s place,” says Kelvin.

“We were offered a deal we felt was too good to miss and so we bought the 74 hectare property to add to the 63 we already owned.”

Up until now the farm had been generating 60,000kg/MS which Kelvin says was a bit marginal and with the new acreage and the new shed he hopes to turn that into 100,000 kg/MS. “That is a much more viable prospect and is really

Owners Kelvin & Marie Clince.

Kelvin & Marie’s pelton wheel in action.

The yards await their first herd. what you need to support two families.”

The Clinces old shed was a 12-aside herringbone which they have not demolished. Instead they are filling in the pit and turning it into a calf pen.

Kelvin says when the opportunity to buy the neighbouring farm arose, his old shed was becoming a bit ‘tired’ and they

Jonathan Hayman with canine worker Jack.

had already had notice from Fonterra that they would have to do some major upgrading of it before long.

A do it yourself operation “We could have got anyone to build the shed, but I decided to build it ourselves. And it was good because

we looked at other sheds and got ideas from people around us.”

Marie who has done a lot of painting and their farm worker Jonathan who concreted in all the posts have had a hand in getting the shed ready, too.

The new shed is a 32-a-side herringbone in which Kelvin and Marie expect to milk 305 cows this season.

But joining the two properties together had its challenges and the couple have had to spend $80,000 on new races to link the farms.

One notable difference with this shed was that the concrete work was done by an overseas contractor. Kelvin’s brother Colin is a concrete contractor in Western Australia, and he hopped over the ditch to give his brother a hand. The concrete walls were poured standing up.

“They are poured into this plywood framing called formply and Colin did all that, but he couldn’t stay for the whole job – he had to get back home, so Stephen Beard of Xtreme Concrete poured the yard concrete for us.”

A small hiccup arose when the engineer working for Kelvin on the shed landed a dream job during the build and had to pull out of the contract. However Nathan Hitchcock from Moa Milking was on hand to install the milking plant and the project never missed a beat.

Some clever touches

One of the unusual features in the Clince shed is a concrete rail on the side of the pit where one would normally expect to find a steel one, and Kelvin says it is this sort of diversity of

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CLINCE

Page 99

Milking others shed knowledge Calf milk vat.

ideas among dairy sheds that is good to share.

Another clever little trick is a winding mechanism on the cleaning jets in the pit.

“They can get in the way when you’re milking, but we put this handle on and you can wind them all up and out of your way and wind them down again when you want to use them. Some sheds have them on a large spring where you pull the whole lot down, but that system is expensive. The jetters alone cost $140 each, but I managed to get some good second-hand ones for $15 each.”

Kelvin says he spent a lot of time talking to other farmers and picking the brains of other people who had been involved in shed builds and got a lot of ideas that way.

“And if someone rang up tomorrow and said they wanted to come and have a look at my shed, I’d say ‘you’re more than welcome and if I can help you, then great’.”

While Kelvin and Marie put in a new chiller unit, they were able to save money on some of the other items through a combination of the work they did themselves and some clever shopping, and as a result, managed to bring their new shed in at about $240,000.

Kelvin says he had hoped to bring it in at under $200,000 but is still very pleased with the outcome.

“We had to get in a few specialist people like Peter Deam, the earthworks contractor and my brother for the concrete and some of the engineers, but we organised the whole project ourselves. It would have been quite easy for us to have gone to a completely brand new plant and we would have added at least $100,000 to the costs.”

The shed was not entirely finished at the time of writing and Kelvin’s guttering was not yet on the shed roof.

“I’m going to have the guttering sloping so that it all drains into a big tank with a pump in it. Not only does it save water, but if it goes on the milking platform it costs me money to pump it away.

Herd Optimisation

An innovative way to muffle the sound of the vacuum pump.

The bails are ready for the cows.

Milk vat.

Earthworks contractor Peter Deam, Jonathan Hayman and Kelvin Clince.

“We’ve also put the vacuum pump out in that other little shed outside,” says Marie, “and it has made the shed so quiet to work in that you can hardly hear the pump now.”

Closer inspection outside the pump shed reveals an additional reason for the quiet milking shed. Outside the vacuum pump shed stand two mufflers which have been attached to the pump outlets

to reduce the noise in the same way they would if they were still attached to a car.

Dig this

Earthworks on the Clince farm were considerable and Peter Deam Contracting of Inglewood was the contractor who did much of the work. Peter is very well known around the ‘Naki’ – he’s been driving bulldozers there for 30 odd

years and he has also travelled to jobs from Manawatu to Northland during that time. Peter did all the cowshed site work while another contractor made the new races and tracks to join the two properties together.

Peter’s job involved filling in a lot of holes and evening out bumps in the main site area and he says he had to dig down quite a lot on the site to get it all on the one level for the shed. He also made the silt trap, the effluent tank and then lasered the entire yard and got the levels correct before the concrete was laid.

“You only get one chance to get those levels right because once the concrete is laid you are stuck with what you have got. So it was important to get it right first time.”

Livening things up

Herbert Electrical of Inglewood was the contractor who wired up the shed. The firm has been carrying out all sorts of electrical work in the area for 21 years and this year opened a new branch in New Plymouth.

By Ken Usmar

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Page 100

BISHOP

Enjoying the view

Sue, Kelvin and Robert Bishop enjoy a moment with builder Brian Shewry.

Electrician Ben Richardson putting the finishing touches to the wiring.

Robert Bishop reckons he insisted his family build their new dairy shed with a north/ south orientation so he could look at the surf out one end and Mt Taranaki out the other.

By Ken Usmar

In any event the Bishop family’s new 24 a-side herringbone is certainly an improvement on their old east/west sited 18 a-side. For starters the new shed has been future proofed to the extent it can easily be increased to 30 a-side if needed later on. But even more importantly it makes life easier for both cows and milking staff alike.

The old shed had a sharp turn for the cows to negotiate, milking was taking between two and two and a half hours and there was a lot of work needed to bring the shed up to scratch, so the new shed is a big improvement all around.

Coast & Country

The new pit is ready for its first milking.

Stu Cook of Farm Dairy Services installed the milking plant.

Kelvin and Sue Bishop and their son Robert farm 91 effective hectares on the eastern side of New Plymouth where they hope to milk 240 cows this season.

“It was getting to the stage where we were going to have to replace concrete and pipework,” says Sue, “and the pit was very shallow which made things difficult with us all being tall.”

The Bishops began farming in this location 15 years ago and Sue says they built now rather than later so she and Kelvin could get to milk in it before Robert takes over completely.

Kelvin says they were able to retain their existing milk room which had been built comparatively recently and so all they had to do was build the shed and upgrade their yard and their machinery.

“It’s also given us a chance to upgrade the effluent system at the same time,” adds Sue. The Bishops describe their upgrade as ‘mid-tech’, with pulsation arrest and a Protrack drafting system.

Care has been taken to ensure the farm doesn’t run out of water with two large rainwater collection tanks installed which Sue says gives them a back-up supply that should tide them over for about a week if their farm water system fails.

The new yard has been designed with a good fall which makes for a more economical use of water during the high pressure hosing down during clean up and the AB and vet race has been constructed somewhat differently from many sheds. Both the back rail and the front rail can be dropped according to the needs at the time, an innovation sought by Kelvin who, as an AB technician has visited many sheds.

The yard can be used in two different directions, allowing the Bishops to run two herds if they want to later.

“We don’t want to at the moment,” says Kelvin, “but with the ability to swing the backing gate either way, it means we won’t have to change anything if we do take on another herd.”

“The job has been really good,” says Sue. “Everybody has helped one another and we have done quite a bit ourselves which has saved us a bit of money and made the whole job go better.

Rails on both sides of the AB race drop down.

Backing gate and washdown facility.

“It was also good for us to be onsite because if we needed to change anything, it was easy enough to do right away.”

Handy construction

Experienced builder Brian Shewry was the man in charge of the project.

Brian is very experienced with over 30 years of building dairy sheds.

Brian builds all kinds of structures and usually only builds dairy sheds during the off-season.

The Bishops worked closely with him throughout the build and Kelvin says it was good having Brian on the job because he is so experienced and he was keen to get the job done.

Sue explains the old shed was used up until close to the beginning of the new build and so the build had to be done in two stages.

“We built the first stage which was the yard and pit up to the front gates, then when we finished milking in mid May the old shed was demol-

ished, we then did the entrance and drafting area which was the second stage.”

Brian says he started work on the build in late February and that made life a lot easier for him.

“It was good; it made it easier to be doing it in the warmer weather. Cow sheds at the wrong time of the year are just concrete steel and mud. It was a very happy work environment too. Also it was pretty handy for me because I just live about a kilometre down the road. ” Brian says the practical design they used for the shed helped ensure the job was trouble free and meant the shed has very good cow flow and will stand the test of time.

The hardware

Milfos area sales manager Mathew Williams says they were first approached by the Bishop family about two and a half years ago.

Herbert Electrical Ltd

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All top notch stuff Plantings surround the new effluent pond.

Fitter Stu Cook with Milfos area manager Mathew Williams.

The crush in the yard.

“They wanted a 24 a-side herringbone, which is what you can now see, and their initial specs were pretty basic, but as ideas developed the level of automation also increased and now the plant has a very high level of automation compared with most other herringbones. It has also been built with the ability to add new technology to it later if it’s wanted.”

Mathew says the Bishops chose a Milfos iXpress IA milking system with Intelscan pulsation arrest. A key feature of the vacuum system is the variable speed drive on the pumps which is designed to make the pumps run quieter, last longer and use less power.

“In the pit area we have the swing arms and they are there to achieve good cup alignment and to keep the pit nice and free for the operators

to work in. They also have automatic milk metering in the pit that measures volumes from each cow and gives alerts on ‘kick-offs’ and low yields.”

Mathew says the whole system could be linked into a management system at a later date if required.

“The milking system has pulsation arrest, which prevents over-milking.

When the cow finishes milking the pulsators stop, preventing any further milking which makes it more comfortable for the cows and easier for one operator to take care of more clusters.”

The system also has a variable speed pulsator which varies the rate and the ratio of the pulsator dependent upon the rate of flow from the cow.

This leads to cows being milked out cleaner and faster than with conventional pulsation.

“Each cow is basically treated as an individual and the system customizes its pulsation rate to each individual animal.”

Mathew says he also liked the owners being on site. “Because often the farmers go away during the build and it can make things difficult for us to get a decision on something that might crop up.”

Everything in its place

Local Milfos agents, Farm Dairy Services of Inglewood, supplied and installed the milking equipment for the shed.

“They are local so it is very handy, if we have a problem they can be here very quickly,” says Sue. Fitter Stu Cook says he helped Robert Bishop with some of the water systems as well.

“Yes, we installed press flow which is a dry running protection. It gives a fully automated system. You just turn on the hose and away she goes and should they run out of water; there’s no damage done.”

Stu says his main job was to install the first 24 machines and make provision for the other six that might be called for later.

Herbert Electrical from Inglewood

Inside the pump room.

Cluster washers are in place. wired the whole shed. They have been providing electrical services for 21 years in the region and just recently opened another branch in New Plymouth.

Electrician Ben Richardson says when they first came out to the job it was to install the wiring and lighting in the first half of the built shed and run cables underneath the site for the effluent system.

“We then waited until milking was finished and the old shed demolished before returning to hook up the new shed, the old storage area, the new vacuum room and the milk room.”

The finishing touches

All the pipework, gates, railings and steelwork at the Bishop shed was done by Buckthought Engineering of Inglewood. Sue says Buckthought also made up the Protrack drafting system

which came from LIC as a flat-pack.

“It has to be put together very precisely because it’s very important it is level and square for it to work efficiently.”

Adim Pumping & Engineering of Bellblock installed the effluent system with a travelling irrigator. The challenge here was siting the pond. It had to be put pretty low down in the ground to get the fall from the deeper pit and a retaining wall had to be built around it.

Fritz van Echten of Surfatex put a protective coating on the sides of the pit to make it easier to clean and to make the surface more durable. The system is paint based and Fritz put on an undercoat, then put two colour flecks through it and finished with a glaze which is guaranteed for 10 years.

By Ken Usmar

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