The month of August is when we finish our feed mill maintenances and we get to test out our changes that have been made since last season and to do extra fine tuning. I am pleased to report the addition of the new calf meal bagging line is working very well and certainly will help us increase production. This new bagging line is where we used to mix and bag pig and poultry meal. We still have pig meal and layers mash available however we no longer use meat meal or dried blood in those diets or in any other diets. Interestingly changing the layer mash diet resulted in a $1 per tonne saving (meat meal prices have risen significantly in recent years) and the eggs off our own hens have actually increased slightly
in size.

Prices remain the same this month

Prices remain the same for September, on the free market there has been significant rising in soya meal prices while locally there is evidence of easing in grain prices..

High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg - $750 + GST and Delivery
Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg - $710 + GST and Delivery

Another change during August is the regrooving and refluting of the grain crushers. We use three roller mills, two for grain and one for peas. We have two quite different roller mills for grain crushing, one I had made locally using rolls from my first roller mill that was built in Poland. We get these rolls lathed down and regrooved once a year. I regroove them using a small angle grinder with thin cutting discs and using the old grooves as guides (if you leave it too long these grooves disappear making it much more difficult). I then get a local engineer to lathe them and true them up. They only take the minimum off and the grooves are left in place. If you lathe them first and groove them second you risk losing the old grooves. What I have learnt is that it is better to do it more often rather than leave them that long that the old groves are gone or deep wear lines have developed.

My other roller mill is a precision made mill from Australia. The rolls of this mill only get done every third year and we send them back to Australia for refluting. In the past we have had these rolls fluted with 18 flutes/inch, a saw tooth profile and 10% spiral on the rolls. This was to crush it fine enough for the pigs. This time we have gone with having 12 flutes/inch, equal angle profile with a sharp tip and 5% spiral. This is designed to break the grain with not much flour. And it has made a noticeable difference to the amount of fines present in the meal.

I often get the comment about rats and mice causing damage to the bags of calf meal on farm. At the feedmill we use poisoned wheat that's designed to give birds hypothermia. I like it because the cats and dogs are less inclined to eat it and if they do eat it or the poisoned animals you just need to keep them in a warm area for an hour or more for recovery. Another reason I like it is the rodents can't carry the bait away. Sometimes I will also coat with some vegetable oil to make it extra attractive. However it works best in colder temperatures and if the temperature is over 15 degrees at time of ingestion it will be less effective.

Often I get asked "what do I do in the off season" perhaps the answer is too much! Although we only have 100ha, during the off season we have to play catch up with the other farm work and this year amongst other jobs we were still working on wind damaged trees. More recently I have started grazing what I call Barbers Block (35ha at the top of Waimate Golf Course) with 150 bulls so the need to get a hot wire around that block become urgent.

I also have various roles off site and took on another new project this year which has the intention of building a shared use trail with a 5% gradient from the edge of Waimate up to the Whitehorse lookout (approx. 7km). We have formed a new club called Whitehorse MTB Riders Incorporated (for some reason I ended up as President). It has been very challenging and time absorbing, with sorting out a club constitution, access agreements with various land owners as well as helping to design and mark out the top 3km of the trail. A special thanks to lawyers Ken McKenzie (RSM Lawyers) and Tony Tweed (Hope & Associates) for their free assistance and guidance, Rooney Earthmoving and Rotary Club of Waimate for jointly funding the cutting of the top section, and Roger Small for flying me over the site so I could take some aerial photos. If you are interested like us on Facebook – Whitehorse Big Easy.

Cheers

Ken Buckingham