14 | Stock ramps pass muster The unloading of sheep, lamb and bobby calves is now done in one area and reduces a lot of physical handling. South Canterbury: Silver Fern Farms - Pareora REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT T T Richard Loader Certified plumber & drainlayer with 16 years experience in the industry. We are well known in South Canterbury for being reliable & honest with quality workmanship. Contact us today for all your plumbing requirements. Proudly supporting Silver Fern Farms Pareora 027 207 7274 nick@strachanplumbing.co.nz Newly commissioned stock load-in ramps at Silver Fern Farms’ Pareora meat processing facility just out of Timaru is gaining positive feedback from staff and truck drivers alike, who cite significant reductions to unload times, reduced manual handling and improved animal welfare. Site Manager Bruce McNaught says the Pareora plant is one of the few, if not the only plant in New Zealand, capable of processing goats, sheep and lamb, bobby calves, beef and venison, and had a holding capacity for 14,000 animals in its ovine / bobby calf yards. “Pareora used to be a four-chain plant and we’re now down to two, as a result of the reduction of the national flock, and had sheep yards capable of holding four chains worth of livestock. Also, we now only do sheep, beef and bobby calves. Two years ago, I visited our load-in ramps and saw that they were showing signs of deterioration, and the harsh environmental effects of the neighbouring Pacific Ocean.” From this initial assessment a consultant was engaged to look at the integrity of the structure and load-in ramps, ultimately resulting in the design project, with a view also to reduce the footprint of the holding yards. “Because we’re now down to two chains, we only need a holding capacity of 8000 animals. When we processed bobby calves we had a separate un-loading ramp, which was essentially two forty-foot containers joined together. We wanted to integrate the unloading of sheep and lamb, and bobby calves so that it could all be done in the one area in a very modern and safe environment. As with all animal species, there’s a lot of animal welfare involved, but particularly with bobby calves because they’re only a few days old and take a lot of physical handling. One of the things we FIRE EXTINQUISHER SERVICES 0800 347 392 Fire Equipment Sales & Service Fire Suppression Systems Fire Extinguisher Training Marine • Industrial Commercial • Domestic Rural Insurance Approved Supplier Locally Owned & Operated - IQP Registered • FPA Member Firewatch South Canterbury Ltd www.firewatch.co.nz wanted to concentrate on was reducing some of that physical handling.” The design solution was a bobby calf unload ramp that is effectively a conveyor. The calves come off the truck and onto a conveyor, and onto an 80-metre-long travelator that takes them well into the yards, to be penned for processing. “The travelator takes away a lot of the physical handling. We also looked at the human safety side, and built a lot of interlock switches into access points on the moving conveyor. Sensors on the pad in front of the unloading ramps prevent the ramps from operating unless there is a truck backed up to them. From the unloading point of view, the truck drivers reverse their vehicles up to the conveyor, and must go to the back of ramp to raise or lower it. Everything is guarded to prevent access under the ramp. That all applies to both the sheep and lamb, and bobby calf processes.” While Invercargill company km-mec was engaged to develop a conceptual design for both the load-in ramps, SSF Pareora yard staff were involved in reviewing the designs and providing feedback based upon their hands on experience. The fine-tuned designed load in ramp designs were provided to Christchurch based Southern Engineering Solutions for fabrication, while Menzies Engineering did a lot of work reconfiguring the actual yards themselves and the installation of a new belly wash system. “The reduction in yard size has enabled everything to be brought onto site,” says Bruce. “The old unloading ramps came straight off a public road and this project has enabled the whole thing to be brought within our boundary fence, giving us better control. While it always takes a while for people to adjust to change, there has been very positive feedback from staff and from truck drivers who all appreciate the new safety measures. It had previously been such a manual way of unloading calves that it took a lot of time. We had trucks backed up for quite some time just waiting to be unloaded.”
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