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An introduction made through Dairy Connect is helping the owners of a family farm near Cambridge make good decisions around feed and stand-off pads.
One of the owners of the 200 cow farm, Ele Duncan, says the information gleaned from Hauraki Plains dairy farmer Steve Ball, has been invaluable.
He provided advice over the phone and also invited Ele and family to see the facilities on his farm.
"We were debating between a basic concrete rubber covered hard stand versus soft litter, so we were looking at people who had those facilities themselves and could share some ideas," says Ele.
Ele has done a lot of research and having someone to talk to has complemented that.
"It is always best to talk to someone who has been using it [a feed pad] and are past that honeymoon period of a new construction," says Ele.
"He actually ended up taking us to three other properties, each of which had used different concepts. It was brilliant and he was very generous with his time.
"The feedpad on his farm has an effluent bunker at the end and he'd come up with a weeping wall system, which isn't necessarily new, but the way he'd done it was quite interesting and particularly relevant to us. It was just that practical side of it which was brilliant."
Ele would recommend the process to others.
"Dairy Connect has great potential and I would really encourage people to get involved."
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