In 2010 We Decided to increase our commercial cow herd from 300 Angus cows to 1000.
In order to enable us to carry this number of cows on the same acreage, we started the construction of a feedlot. The idea was to wean the cows onto the feedlot in mid March and feed them there for five months. While they are confined there, the feed they would have been eating out on the hills would accumulate, providing a large bank of saved pasture for the cows to calve on.
The Stud cows never go near the feedlot as it is important that they are evaluated on grass
Work started in October 2010 and took two and a half years using our own labour and a digger contractor. Builders built the implement and hay sheds and helped us with the large areas of concrete.
The first cows went on to the feedlot in June 2012
Last spring (2018) we calved down 1120 cows
Huge Macrocapas covered the site
A large Chipper was brought in to turn the logs into bedding chips
Macrocarpa Chips 1m deep provide ideal bedding
Placing feed troughs.
Loading Sweetcorn silage into the
feed mixer
Feed pad & dung collection area finnished.
Landscaping
Crushing quarry rock on farm.
Placing one of the water troughs
Processing crushed metal for concrete
aggregate
First load of concrete for feedpad
Mixing concrete in 3cu m mixer bought on TradeMe
Placing one of the water troughs
These butt end logs had to be blown up to reduce their size for chipping
Building the silage bunkers
View of feedlot from nearby hill
Pouring the silage
bunker floor.
Building the bridge
Commercial Waimata cows waiting to be fed
Handling the effluent
This pump is used to pump effluent to the top of a nearby hill using 6" galvanised pipe bought 2nd hand on TradeMe.
The vertical lift is 140m.From there it is gravity fed down to the maize paddocks.
No.3 Effluent pond 140 metres above No.1 Pond
No.1 pond just about finnished.
Winching concrete up the
hill to pour thrust blocks
Digging No. 2 Effluent Pond.
We struck Papa rock while building No.1 effluent pond - at least it won't leak!
The Pump Shed by main pond - No.1
Mud has proved to be a major problem in winter. Wood chips worked very well for a while but soon began to deteriorate. The under pad drainage system soon blocked and the chip pads turned to deep mud. Each summer we had to dig out the old beds and replace them with new bedding. This was a very expensive exercise and after several years of this we decided to "bite the bullet"and concrete the pens. Getting ready mix concrete trucks in would have been far too expensive so we opted to use Waipaoa river shingle instead of conventional builder's mix. Bulk cement was imported from Thailand which was considerably cheaper than local cement. We used a digger to mix the concrete right where it was going to be placed.
Waipaoa river shingle
Mixing 1 ton bag of cement with a measured amount of river shingle
Dave Thornton placing the mixed concrete
A non slip surface was created by driving an ATV over the wet concrete
After a couple of years we decided to increase the carrying capacity of the Feedlot
The new area was designed to accommodate another 200 cows. It became known as AREA 51
Simple mistake - could have happened to anyone !
