Thursday, 05 September 2013 16:07

Gas halves dairy’s hot water bill

Written by 

A NEW dairy shed hot water system running since June on a Bay of Plenty farm is reducing costs and ensuring adequate quantities of hot water are available when needed.

 

The system was installed at the beginning of the season at Rowe Farms Ltd, Pongakawa, near Te Puke. So far the owners, Grant and Ngaire Rowe, are satisfied. “It is working well and I am amazed how quickly it can heat 600L,” Rowe says. 

The Rowes, Fonterra suppliers, have farmed here for 25 years, on 140ha (eff.) flat land. The soil is peat over ash which “hangs on well over the summer”.

They have a 52ha run-off 6km from the farm that grazes young stock and is used for winter grazing for the herd. They recently bought the 120ha (eff.) farm next door, to run as a separate unit.
Both farms will be managed by the same lower-order sharemilker.

“At present I am helping with calf rearing, overseeing and filling in where necessary,” says Rowe.

The combined farms will milk 830 kiwi-cross cows mated to LIC bulls and tailed off with Hereford bulls. Rowe says the season has started well with great weather, plenty of grass and the cows calving quickly.

The home farm has not had grades but Rowe knew he needed to improve his water heating for the CIP system in his 40-aside herring bone shed.

Featured

Big return on a small investment

Managing director of Woolover Ltd, David Brown, has put a lot of effort into verifying what seems intuitive, that keeping newborn stock's core temperature stable pays dividends by helping them realise their full genetic potential.

Editorial: Sensible move

OPINION: The Government's decision to rule out changes to Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT) that would cost every farmer thousands of dollars annually, is sensible.

National

Machinery & Products

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Cuddling cows

OPINION: Years of floods and low food prices have driven a dairy farm in England's northeast to stop milking its…

Bikinis in cowshed

OPINION: An animal activist organisation is calling for an investigation into the use of dairy cows in sexuallly explicit content…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter