Crystal Rivers Farm Increased Milk Solids After a $500,000 Herd-Home Investment
Crystal Rivers is a 196-hectare dairy property, including 150 hectares of effective milking area, near Te Papakura o Taranaki, also known as Egmont National Park. Equity partner Paul Kuriger manages the farm with Tony Riley and Jessica Gower. The area receives heavy rainfall, creating difficult conditions for maintaining pasture and managing livestock.
The purpose-built herd home provides covered accommodation when wet weather makes grazing unsuitable. Moving cows off the paddocks during the most intense rainfall has reduced soil compaction and pugging, while helping retain pasture cover and soil structure. The farm says this has improved the efficiency of rotational grazing and allowed grass to recover more quickly.
Crystal Rivers milks 360 cows. Inside the building, a transitional feeding system supports the herd during wintering and calving. The farm reports improvements in body condition and reductions in lameness, mastitis and livestock deaths during calving. According to the operation, these changes allowed milking to continue for another month into late autumn and contributed to the additional 30,000kg of milk solids.
The infrastructure is also used to manage effluent from the herd. Several freshwater streams cross the property, and the herd home directs animal waste into concrete storage bunkers rather than allowing nutrients to run off during periods of heavy rain. Manure and slurry are later applied to the paddocks in drier conditions as organic fertiliser, reducing the farm’s need for synthetic fertiliser.
The investment formed part of the farm’s approach to combining covered housing with pasture-based dairying. The operation has received several sustainability and risk-management awards from the New Zealand Farm Environment Trust. The awards recognised aspects of the farm’s environmental and operational management.
Kuriger’s farm used the herd home for both production and weather management. By sheltering cattle during severe rainfall and returning stored nutrients to the land when conditions were drier, Crystal Rivers altered its wintering, calving and grazing practices while continuing to operate as a pasture-based dairy farm.
