Is this New Zealand’s Most Innovative and Diverse Farm?

Published 25th October 2018
New Zealand

Are you getting the most out of your farm? Recently we visited one of the most innovative farms we’ve been to (yet) to help with their livestock feeding system. Where innovation plays an integral part of their operation to ensure they perform at optimal capacity, find out why they chose Hustler’s CF1250 silage wagon.

We get the opportunity to visit a Maori Trust farm in Central Plateau, on the North Island of New Zealand where pastoral farming is a core activity operating on 3,410 ha land producing beef, lamb, and milk from its dairy herd. They also have their worm farm, nursery and honey production as part of its operations.

Also, they’ve even built their own state-of-the-art geothermal heated and powered, milk powder processing factory – the first of its kind! The power station currently produces 113 MW (enough to power the city of Hamilton) of electricity and is supplying the National Grid. 

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With a concentration on producing premium quality beef, this farm has established its auction facilities on site as a new channel to market, and feed strategies and stock management are continually evolving. Proving that they run a tight ship with no time to waste in managing their livestock feed effectively.

Running numerous Hustler farm machinery on their farm such as a Chainless X5000 bale feeder, 12 ton Hustler Tip Trailer and 2 of Hustler’s Super Duty SwiftHitch‘s, It’s no wonder, when they needed the toughest silage wagon on the market, they again turned to Hustler investing in the low maintenance Centre Feed CF1250 silage wagon!  With many innovative features that will save themselves hours maintenance and downtime over the course of its lifespan. The purpose of building the Hustler’s silage wagons is for large farms who simply cannot afford downtime and want to get the most production from their silage.

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Feeding up to 60 ton a day in the height of the season the CF1250 is reliable and is able to handle the rough countryside. The safety of the operator being of upmost importance, lead them to add the patented Comby Spread attachment which is fitted to their silage wagon and has been designed especially for spreading causmag, lime flour or minerals directly onto the row of feed. This is a great way to evenly distribute the minerals to the cattle in a safe way so that you don’t have staff climbing up on the back of the wagon or breathing in the abrasive mineral.

Farm Manager, Justin Conway was impressed with the strength of the design, and it’s compact size when compared with other 12.5 cubic metre silage wagons. Justin had already had a taste of the trouble-free life Hustler gear provides with a few Hustler bale feeders on the farm. 

Watch the CF1250 in action:

 

 

One option Justin chose on the CF1250 wagon was its brakes. “They’re an absolute necessity when they have up to 4 ton of wet grass silage in the wagon at one time plus the weight of the machine, and once again safety being of utmost importance.”

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