5 years of Cell Grazing with the Kiwitech System
Customer Case Study - Stephen Thorne
Steve, along with his wife and parents farm approx. 330 acres on the Devon/Cornwall border, farming Beef and Sheep with small amount of arable for own use. They were one of the first farms in the UK to use the Kiwitech electric fencing and mobile water equipment in their cell grazing system.
5 years on we have caught up with Steve at the farm just as they finished installing their 4th system.
When correctly set up all Kiwitech fences can be pegged down to allow stock to move to new paddock.
Why we adopted a managed grazing system.
“About 5 years ago we had just gone down with TB and were stacked with stock, the system seems to fit with what we wanted to do, which was to keep that number of stock and avoid having to sell them at markets. We were so pleased with how they (cattle) did that first year we expanded and put in a second system for the following year. We have now branched out and are also rearing dairy heifers for a neighbour and have put in a further 2 more systems to allow us to keep a greater number of cattle on a smaller area.”
How we sub-divided the fields .
Steve’s system design uses the Kiwitech Arrow posts to create the permanent electric fences dividing the fields, Kiwitech HyperSprings are included in each fence, these add elasticity to the fence allowing it to absorb impacts and bounce back without damage. At either end there is a gate made using the Kiwitech Integate for 2+ wire fences or bungy gateways for the 1 wire fences.
“In each field we have 3 permanent electric fences which create 4 lanes, we then subdivide with Kiwitech temporary electric fences to create the paddocks. We always have 3 fences in the lane, two in front and the one behind protects the regrowth.”
“When we first started using the system we sought advice from grazing consultants (Precision Grazing) on how many cells to let them have a day and now that I’ve been doing it for a while can make the decision myself, we currently are moving them every other day”.
Benefits of the Kiwitech Fencing Equipment
“The Kiwitech geared winder for reeling in the temporary fences is brilliant, only have to have one winder for the farm but can have as many Kiwitech spools as you like and then you can use them wherever you need and leave the spools at the fence, that works really well.”
“Moving the fences doesn’t take any longer than if you had your cattle in a big field and had to drive around checking they were all there. Fencing erecting is quite quick, we can do that within 2 or 3 minutes. We let the cattle through onto their next break, we then pick up the back fence from the day before and set that one in front again so if they should break through they only get into the next days paddock.”
Kiwitech permanent fibreglass posts have an expected lifespan of 25+ years, with the added benefit they can be moved to new ground during that time if needed, with only 5 years under the belt so far these still have a long life ahead of them on Steve’s farm.
“We have found the arrow posts stay in the ground very well, we had an occasion when the fence was challenged when a herd of cattle initially charged the fence, the posts stayed put! The Hypersprings allow movement in the fence but keeps the fence tight and we’ve actually used a few of them in other temporary fences around the farm, really pleased with how they work.”
Kiwitech MicroTrough
Freedom of the Kiwitech mobile water troughs
Steve uses both the Kiwitech MicroTrough and the Kiwitech Drag Trough on the farm across his different herds.
“We have found that being able to use one drinker for the whole field, and moving that trough to where the hydrants are in our main waterline worked really well, we are really pleased with that!”
“We use a gravity fed system to supply water to all the drinkers on our farm, we started initially using water bowsers, then soon decided that was lot of time and effort and we would be better to invest in putting the pipework in. We have Kiwitech hydrants through the main water line in the fields so we can plug in the trough wherever we want to, then just pull it to the paddock”
“We are pleased with the MicroTrough, last year we had 75 young stock on the one drinker and it coped fine, never came out to find any calves thirsty. We’ve had no issues with animals getting used to this type of trough, for example we turned out weaned calves in paddock, first time they had seen a trough like this, filled it with water and calves came over to drink straight away.”
“We would definitely recommend Kiwitech!”