ADVERTORIALS

Advertorials are a form of writing in their own right, but I didn't discover this until I got a gig to write articles on new milking sheds for a rural publication in NZ. The difference between these and regular articles was the instructions I was given, which went something like this - the contractors building or supplying the new shed each paid the publication for advertising, so I was to include each one in the article. Depending on their advertising spend, each one got a short paragraph, long paragraph, or several paragraphs. Sounds simple, until you have to write four long paragraphs on a water tank! The length of each article was precisely proscribed - 1000, 2500, up to 5000 words.

Apparently these reviews were essential reading for any farmer contemplating building a new shed, so I guess they filled an important role.

It was a challenge, very good for discipline, and I enjoyed it. Barb came along as my photographer and we got paid to travel the length and breadth of NZ which, for a couple of travellers, was a major bonus. And we got to meet some very interesting people. We'd both grown up on dairy farms, me milking cows before and after school for a couple of years, so we new pretty much what we were looking at, but I have to admit that those sheds were about as far from what we'd known as biplane is from a Jumbo jet. Most were worth upwards of a million dollars and many had more computer power than Skylab.

I've chosen one of those advertorials for inclusion here. It's on goats, simply because I took a fancy to the beasts.

Incredible as it may sound, the facts suggest that dairy goats are a strong alternative to cows for the New Zealand dairy industry.

Rising near vertically out of the plains just south of Te Aroha, the Kaimai Ranges form a dramatic backdrop to Kevin and Robyn Wade's dead flat dairy unit, and the dark green—almost black—of the bush on the hills contrasts sharply with the lush emerald green of the rich pasture. The farm belonged to Robyn's parents and she and Kevin worked it with them until Rogernomics and rationalisation made the arrangement impractical. That was when they started K.R. Wade Ltd, drainage and earthworks contractors. The business blossomed and after Robyn's parents passed away they found they had two sizable businesses to run—fortunately they also had two capable sons, the older, Klinton, took over the contracting and the younger, Gary, gave up being a diesel mechanic and took over the farm.

But the same rationalisation that had made it uneconomic for Robyn and Kevin to share the farm with her parents was still at work—the family farm was becoming too small to be an economically viable unit so they bought an 18ha runoff, then a neighbouring 60ha dairy unit with the intention of combining the two dairies into one central modern milking shed. But, as good business people, they looked at the figures and struggled to justify the million plus price tag.
"Then one day I was operating a digger on a client's goat farm," said Gary, "and he suggested I look at goats instead. The idea kept going round in my head so I did a little research and discovered it really stacked up. Took it to the financial advisor, accountant and the bank manager and they agreed."

A large part of the information Gary gathered was supplied by the Hamilton based Dairy Goat Co-operative NZ Ltd (DGC), an organisation that was started about 25 years ago by goat farmers to process and market goat's milk. In 1988 they developed the first goat milk infant formula and today collect milk from the Waikato, Northland and Taranaki and export infant formula to some twenty countries. Goat's milk has found such a ready market because of its unique properties—the casein protein structure is closer to human milk than cow's milk and may be drunk by those people who have a low tolerance to cow milk protein. So popular has goat's milk infant formula become DGC can't keep up with demand so they're more than happy to hear from any prospective farmers in their area.

So with advice and support from DGC the decision was made to convert the 40ha block to a goat operation milking 600 – 700 dairy goats, leaving the 60ha to milk 300 cows, with the runoff supporting both units. In February 2013 K.R. Wade Ltd, which now boasted four diggers, three trucks, three tractors with trailers and a scoop, a roller, a grader, muck spreader and a laser guided box blade (which levelled the site to within 10mm), began work on the foundations for a 4200m2 goat house and 40 aside herring-bone dairy.

Theirs is a typical modern goat farm with a starting herd of 600 does housed all year—housing goats permanently has several health benefits, especially for breaking the worm cycle. Gary provides them with fresh cut grass each day but they're quite picky eaters (which belies their reputation for eating anything) and Gary collects up the rejected grass and feeds it to the cows next door.

It's vital for their health and production that the goats eat properly so Gary employs the Dairy Business Centre to analyse what's going in and coming out of his goats and monitor the nutritional value of his pasture. Rensinus Schipper, Senior Consultant Nutritionist with Dairy Business Centre (NZ) Ltd, advises him on the supplements he needs— mostly kibble maize and dried distiller's grains (DDGS)—and regularly reformulates specific mineral supplement pellets to make good any deficiencies.

Dairy Business Centre is a consultancy company established in 2006 in Canterbury by a group of farmers and rural industry professionals to provide farmers with a range of services, including budgeting, cash-flow and farm monitoring, feed and grass production tracking and dairy feed commodity trading. They also tutor their clients so they can take over the monitoring themselves within a few seasons.Fresh rye grass or lucerne and a little molasses are premium fodder for goats, with mineral supplements and dry food during milking. For both practical and ethical reasons the Co-op has a strict policy that all feed for their supply herds be sourced from within New Zealand or Australia, so there's no palm kernel on the menu. Rensinus, says that generally a milking goat will eat about 1.5kg of green grass or 1kg of grain and 2kg of grass per day and convert it to milk more efficiently than a cow—meaning a 20-30% higher return/ha.

The goat house is open-sided for ventilation and has very good natural lighting from several clear roof panels. The impressive structure was designed and built by Aztech Farm Buildings, a family owned business that has developed an ethic they call The Aztech Way—a people oriented view that emphasises the mutual respect that they see as a solid base for maintaining client relationships and future growth.

Aztech also fit well with the goat farmer's environmental ethic by stressing sustainability through balancing economic, environmental and social responsibilities. Environmentally goats have a very small footprint. Rather than a slurry they produce pellets so the shavings in the pens only need removing by K.R.Wade's grader and muck spreader a couple of times a year—a service they also provide for other goat farmers. Wash down from the dairy still needs to be pumped to pasture, but it's minimal. Sustainable timber is used throughout the goat house, including the virtual forest of poles that support the massive roof and the wood used by Jamie McIntyre to neatly fence the series of pens that run down each side of the two internal race-ways.

"It's a long way when you look down the shed and we didn't want wavy lines of fencing, so we got Jamie to do the job. He's done a lot of other work for us so we knew from experience he'd do a top job and he hasn't let us down," said Gary.

The dairy and associated yards (which are connected to the goat house by a roof so the pampered darlings don't get wet, they hate the rain) were designed and built by Morrinsville based farm dairy specialist Don Chapman Builders and Tatuanui engineers Leask Engineering. Over forty years of experience Don has accrued a formidable reputation for workmanship, quality and a hallmark refusal to compromise on his standards—standards that are obvious in this elegant, well finished and highly efficient dairy.

As he does on many jobs, Don worked closely with Leask Engineering—they've got over fifty years experience in farm dairies in New Zealand and overseas and, like Don, have built themselves an incomparable reputation in the field.
"We've done a few goat dairies before, but not very many and you learn something new every time," said Leask's Design and Construction Manager, Rom Stellingwerf. "The Wades had their ideas and Don and I worked closely with them. Kevin and his boys sorted out the lay-out and did all the ground work, we took it from there."

Don and Rom did their first goat dairy about six years ago and momentum built from there until now they've got several on the books this season, and more next year. But they still find goats a challenge,

"They're too intelligent," said Rom. "They don't follow blindly like cows, they work things out—if they had hands they'd be lethal. They learn very quickly to open gates—it took one twenty minutes to work out how to open a sliding bolt, then they teach each other.