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NEWS MESSAGE
One carousel for 1200 cows
Pöttinger employee reports from New Zealand
| Christoph Schürz, a Pöttinger customer service employee, spent four weeks' holiday in New Zealand. However, it wasn't your typical vacation on the beach in the sun; he went on holiday to combine learning the language with using farm machinery out in the field. He experienced some very interesting things and reported back to us with his impressions. |  Christoph Schürz |
Farming and Contracting with Garry Graham in New Zealand
Garry Graham's farm is on the South Island of New Zealand near Greymouth on the west coast. Garry Graham operates a dairy farm and a contracting business. I spent a month with him finding out what it is like to live and work there. I was working in the contracting team with two men from England who both work as contractors and have their own farms back home. The two of them are at Garry's for a whole harvesting season from the end of October until mid April. Garry usually has two or three people from abroad during the season and employs seven staff permanently.
 The building with milking carousel and feeding ground |
 The cows in the milking carousel |
 Fasten the milking technology |
Garry’s dairy farm consists of 1200 cows. The cattle graze on an area of 480 hectares, which surrounds the milking carousel for 60 cows. The 480 hectare area is divided into sections of 5 – 10 hectares by electric fences, each section used in rotation for grazing and then silage. The cows move from the pasture along a one-way system to the milking station themselves, while a herdsman on a quad bike checks that all the cows have left the pasture. Milking starts at 4 o'clock in the morning and takes until around 9; in the afternoon they start again at 1 pm and are finished around 6 pm. In between the dairy farm employees have a break to look after the pasture. Calving takes place with all cows within two months. This means that in August and September they have approximately 60 calves per day, which are then reared on the farm. I once had the pleasure of helping to mark the calves and we marked 320 in a single day. The cows are kept outdoors in winter too since there is hardly any snow in this region. During this period the cows are fed out in the field with silage, which is brought out to them in a feed mixing wagon.
You can look forward to the continuation of this report in January '08 when we discover how silage is made on Graham's farm.
 Tractors of New Holland |
 Pöttinger JUMBOs in usage |
 Pöttinger mowing technology in New Zealand |
Created: 21.12.2007
