Herd homes on show
An agribusiness roadshow on high profit/low environmental impact farming systems will continue through the country from this month with two events at Waikato, says HerdHomes company founder Tom Pow.
The two companies have worked together for 20 years delivering advanced farming shelters and effluent systems to dairy farms throughout the country.
HerdHomes founder Tom Pow says the new joint venture company will capture “the best in cows and concrete”.
“The new company will help farming developing systems to meet environmental and welfare demands while improving productivity,” he told Dairy News.
HerdHomes was started by Pow after he noticed the impact of bad weather on cows and milk production.
“On our farms at that stage we were working with several farm advisors. We where noticing changes in milk and its components during a rough spell of weather and the milk dockets sat on the table with the coffee,” he says.
“If we live and farm in the perfect outdoor farming area of the world then the question is, what changes caused these production drops?
“Weather impact on cows can use a lot of their day fed energy…and that was the start of finding a way to look after the herd differently.”
HerdHomes has also helped many farmers manage effluent on their farm. Effluent deposited within the shelter by cows simply falls through the slats into below storage bunkers.
“With so much time in and out on the paddocks, the effluent created on farm is so high in farm soil nutrients and soil bacteria that 80% of the farm can be maintained on this effluent,” says Pow.
He is happy to see Busck Concrete take a stake in the company.
The need of new technologies and infrastructure drove HerdHomes to a 20-year working relationship with Busck Concrete, he says.
Busck started in Northland over 70 years ago building a wide range of precast and prestressed concrete products, including bridges, power poles, high rise, farm infrastructure and rail sleepers.
Pow says it is now one of the top pre-stressing concrete companies in NZ with seven manufacturing facilities from Whangarei to Invercargill.
Busck recently manufactured the new Hobson wharf structure for the Americas cup which was barged from Northport to Auckland.
