À la carte dining for cows

MAIZE and grass silage, palm kernel and minerals are now on the menu at Kelvin and Rita Cutforth’s dairy farm in Waikato, thanks to the purchase of a high performance Trioliet wagon that rapidly and thoroughly mixes and feeds out all types of rations.

Kelvin and Rita, together with daughters Taylor and Georgia, milk about 200 spring-calving cows on their 70 hectare property at Te Awamatu in Waikato. Annual production is about 80,000 kilograms of milk solids. “We don’t want to get more land or more cows,” Kelvin says. “Our goal is to become more productive and more efficient with what we already have. This is some of the most expensive dairying land in New Zealand, so you have to get the most out of it.”

Cows are fed about one tonne of farm-grown maize or grass silage and 400 kg of palm kernel a year, peaking at about 8 to 10 kg/cow/day over summer. “Currently, we’re only feeding maize silage and palm kernel, but the plan is to include other concentrates or food waste into the ration once milk prices improve,” Kelvin says. “With a wagon, we can feed according to what’s in the paddock and what supplements are available. This year we decided to plant just five hectares of maize because there’s been so much less wastage.”

The Cutforths bought a Trioliet Solomix 1200 VK mixer wagon last year. The top-loading wagon features a single vertical auger and a capacity of about 12 cubic metres. “I wanted a vertical mixer because I’ve heard they mix better, particularly when adding whole bales, and I didn’t want to buy a bigger tractor,” Kelvin says. “It cost about $60,000, but it’s paying us back quickly. It only takes 20 minutes to load and mix, and less than half that to feed out."

"The Trioliet really makes a primo feed and it stops our cows from preferentially eating the palm kernel.  Likewise, it’s replaced the vitamin and mineral drench we used to give the cows in the shed, so that’s another saving. An in-shed feeding system would have cost us about $25,000 but it still wouldn’t have done the job. Over summer, our cows need up to four or five kg of dry matter a day and you simply can’t feed that amount in the shed.”

Kelvin prepares and feeds out one load each day before the afternoon milking. A typical mix includes 1600 kg maize silage, 400 kg palm kernel and 600 litres of water to improve digestibility. “If the cows are hot and bothered, then giving them more dry matter just makes it worse,” Kelvin says. “Without water, the cows get too dried out and then they rush for the troughs. The water really settles them down.”

The Trioliet features a simple design for easy operation and minimal maintenance. The stairs, viewing platform and window in front of the mixing chamber allow the operator to easily and safely monitor operations. “With our old feed-out wagon, we could only guess what was going in and what the cows were actually getting,” Kelvin says. "By having scales, we can mix and feed out exactly the right amount. The window is handy to keep an eye on what’s going on – it’s important not to turn the ration into a mush.”

The mixer wagon incorporates a special low ratio reduction gearbox that enables the unit to be easily started and operated by a low horsepower tractor. “I was running the wagon with a 55 hp tractor for a while and I never stalled it, Kelvin says. “We’ve since upgraded to a 80 hp tractor, which was a planned purchase.”

Mixed rations are discharged into the feed bunks via the hydraulically-controlled discharge chute and height-adjustable conveyor on the right hand side of the wagon. “Our old feeder wagon couldn’t chop the silage or incorporate other ingredients, so we used to feed the silage out in the paddock, which was terribly inefficient,” he says. “We were wrecking the paddocks, wasting feed and on some days, bringing silage back.”

Kelvin and Rita have extensively developed the farm over the past 15 years, including an extension to the dairy shed, plant and yards. “We’re now at the stage that this is an easy ‘one person plus one’ operation,” Kelvin says. “Our goal has always been to employ a full-time worker to take one of us completely out of the equation so that we can concentrate on what we want to do. “We love farming but we’re looking forward to more travelling in the future. To attract good staff or a sharemilker, you have to have good facilities and good gear, which is where the wagon and feed pad fits in.”