| 3 nzdairy DAIRY PEOPLE » Victor Rutherford Luck, halter system saviours in a storm Russell Fredric Victor Rutherford considers himself extremely lucky on at least two counts,despite having a big clean-up on his hands in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle. “We can’t complain because there’s a whole lot of people whose lives have been ruined in Hawke’s Bay and there’s Plenty of people here in the Kaipara who’ve been affected worse than me, so I consider myself extremely lucky really.” Despite this, his 480 hectare dairy farm had a considerable number of trees down across races; many were 100 years old and about 40 metres high and came down in “inconvenient places”. “Once again, we were really lucky; we had four come down on our tractor sheds and they all missed the machinery and the tractors in the sheds. How that happened is beyond me. I’ve had a man on a chainsaw since the day after Gabrielle [for about a month] and we’re not even a quarter of the way through yet.” Despite these challenges and combined with a slow start to the season, Victor’s decision last year to fit Halter collars on the cows has been an absolute saving grace in the once-a-day milking and pasture management for the farm’s 700 cows. Operated from an app on a portable device, the Halter system eliminates the need for fences, electric wires, motorbikes and gates by training cows to understand and respond to sound and vibration cues from the collar. They quickly learn to recognise these cues and the prompt to walk to the milking shed or to remain within virtual fences. If they have crossed over a virtual fence,the cues will gently guide them back. The collars also send a notification if there are any potential health issues. Victor has high praise for the system. “It’s fantastic. The problem is, with the size of the farm, most paddocks are between four and fiveand-a-half hectares and it’s just not practical to run 200 metres of fence reel out every time you want to split a paddock, whereas with Halter we split every paddock, we just do it on the phone.” “It has helped us incredibly with pasture quality. The cows are a lot more interested in eating because they don’t just walk into a four-and-a-half hectare paddock and decide what they want to eat. They walk into a paddock that’s divided two or three times by an invisible fence.” One of the issues with cows is that whenever they hear a motorbike they stop feeding and stand “Once again, we were really lucky; we had four (trees) come down on our tractor sheds and they all missed the machinery and the tractors in the sheds. How that happened is beyond me. I’ve had a man on a chainsaw since the day after Gabrielle [for about a month] and we’re not even a quarter of the way through yet.” at a gate expecting to be moved on to fresh grass, but the Halter system has eliminated this behaviour. Cows can also do a lot of pasture damage in really wet weather while waiting for a break fence to be moved, Victor says. “With the Halter you just activate it on the phone and 12 minutes later they all get a message that says you can move; there’s no anticipation so the cows don’t punish a paddock in anticipation of the fact they’re going to get moved.” The farm’s milking regime has also radically changed. With the Halter system prompting cows to move to the shed, super-early starts are now history and because gates can be kept open, moving around the farm in a tractor is also infinitely easier. “It’s phenomenal. It’s life changing.” Kaipara farmer Victor Rutherford had a big clean-up on his hands in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle. Proudly supporting Victor Rutherford and his farming endeavours NORTHLAND Spreading Northland The precise way to grow Call us today: Jason Williamson 027 499 2530 Ravensdown Customer Centre 0800 100 123 • We apply what you need, where you need it • Ravtrak advanced guidance • Proof of placement maps • Application history stored online • Experienced local operator • Options for all terrain
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