Only a brief newsletter this month due to the focus being on making sure we keep up with the orders. It has been another record breaking month for us and we have been able to keep up with the demand through having extra staff and working longer hours. Our peak production has climbed 30% from last year.

It is has been helpful that most farmers order their meal about 2-3 days ahead which gives us targets to work to and also makes it easier for the freight company to do a number of deliveries together in the
same area.

Don’t wean too soon

At this time of year some farmers will find the temptation to wean the calves off the meal too great to ignore. However often we find those who stop the meal too soon will buy more meal in the autumn as they suddenly realise their calves aren’ t at target weights. Make sure all of your calves are up to weight before weaning off meal and monitor their weights closely. With heifers in particular the financial penalty for not meeting target weights is considerable over the lifetime of the cow.

Returned Pallets

Thank you to those customers who have returned the empty pallets back especially if they have been returned in one piece. It has become like a tractor skill test on each farm as to how well they can unload the calf meal. Most tractor drivers are great however some either need more practice or training or better forks on the tractor. If you do have empty pallets please return them ASAP. For the customers who send them back via the freight company please contact me if the truck driver is reluctant to pick them up.

It’s happened again! We have run out of printed High Octane bags and
are still waiting on our next shipment from China to arrive. Until then e will be using plain bags with some blue stripes sprayed on.

Even some of our strongest pallets don’t survive!

And a special thank you to Peter and Helen Gilder who brought back 50 pallets all the way from Waitepeka (south of Balclutha).

Prices

Barley prices have moved up by $10 per tonne in the last month and soybean prices aren’t being very kind either, however we have decided to absorb these price increases for November and review it again for December. We have reduced the amount of peas in the meal as they are still hard to find and increased the wheat and soybean meal to compensate. And over the last couple of months we have been replacing some of the barley in the diet with wheat as wheat is now cheaper and more readily available then barley (plus its a higher quality grain).

High Octane Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $734 + GST and Delivery
Low Protein Aoraki Calf Meal 40 x 25kg $694 + GST and Delivery

Aoraki Calf Meal can be delivered to your farm, or you can uplift it directly from our Feedmill in Waimate

Cheers

Ken Buckingham