The latest animal handling innovations with Te Pari Products
Farm Trader finds out more about the latest animal handling innovations and a commitment to creating safer farms
With almost four decades of experience under its belt, Te Pari Products is dedicated to continuing to expand its range of animal husbandry and livestock handling products.
It all started with a basic scissor action docking iron. When Ted French developed his docking iron back in 1980, little did he know his son Peter would go on to redesign and refine his original concept, winning a New Zealand Agricultural Fieldays® Invention Award in 1980 and an Equipment Award in 1981.
That same docking iron became the flagship product for Te Pari Products – a New Zealand company that has continued innovating (six other NZ Agricultural Fieldays accolades and one Australian National Fieldays award) and setting standards in the areas of animal handling and health.
With almost four decades of experience under its belt, Te Pari Products is still family-owned today (by the Blampied family). Today, the impressive range not only forms the backbone of many New Zealand farming operations but is also sold offshore to the United Kingdom, United States, Ireland, Europe, and even the Falkland Islands.
The ability to keep moving ahead and produce animal handling equipment that enables farmers to easily handle stock and maximise productivity has long been the focus for the Oamaru company.
A quick look at the Te Pari website reveals a raft of testimonies from satisfied clients whose farming outcomes rely on having strong, safe equipment with readily available backup.
"One of our points of difference is that we manufacture fully integrated equipment that doesn’t have a lot of moving parts. The animal handling technology – scales, load bars, EID readers, and even the dosing guns – are all linked or integrated into the machines. This elaborate data collection is an all-in-one system," Andries du Plooy, marketing co-ordinator at Te Pari Products, says.
Since coming into effect in April 2016, new health and safety laws govern all workplace and farm-related injuries. This means everyone involved needs to keep up with the new requirements. Every year, 15,000 Kiwis are injured in animal-related accidents.
So the pressure is on, but Te Pari is well placed to fulfil its obligations since one of its mission statements is to take safety seriously, and this begins in their own workplace. In 2014, Te Pari was a finalist in the NZ Workplace Health & Safety awards.
"We make everything easier for the farmer, while helping him or her maintain a level of safety. This also helps profitability, since he saves on labour units, and being able to receive more accurate information, he can get more done and be ready to go the next day, especially with sheep handling.
"It’s possible to do 4000 sheep a day and the same number the next day. Eventually, this enables a farmer to keep on doing what he does for longer," Andries says.
Custom-made cattle yards
Te Pari custom-made cattle yards are built from New Zealand steel and include a number of patented design features.
"We create a design according to a client’s needs, taking into account animal type and breed, its purpose, plus the landscape and location – is it close to an access road and the gradient of the terrain, for example.
"We also advise clients about concrete foundations and whether they wish to make their own or have us do it. We then install or oversee the installation of their yards.
"It’s important that equipment is properly used and installed, and we have a strong focus on that. The key driver behind all our products is safety," Andries says.
When it comes to the design element of the cattle handling yards, nothing has been overlooked, and the core design takes into account everything from animal safety to human safety. One person is all you need to operate a Te Pari yard.
Curved narrow pens encourage animals to move to the front of the yard and a circular forcing gate lets you reduce the size of the forcing pen as cattle enter, eliminating the need to climb into the pen – a huge safety benefit.
New releases and innovations
Newly released is the Te Pari bobby calf platform pen and ramp. Designed in accordance with MPI’s new regulations that require loading and unloading facilities be provided when young calves are transported for sale or slaughter. The new rules came into effect on 1 August 2017.
Another recent development is the Super C-force circular forcing pen for large yards. With an ultra-heavy rotating gate designed to absorb shocks while forcing cattle into the race smoothly, this new design also has an auto latch system that locks the gate at any of the lock points.
The circular profile is proven to be beneficial for animals and safer for workers. Another innovation Te Pari is justifiably proud of is its Revolution Powered Dosing Gun.
The world’s first battery-powered, electronically calibrated Te Pari Revolution Dosing Gun makes light work of drenching, pour on, and injecting. Simply adjust the dosage rate on the digital screen and effortlessly pull the trigger to apply any dose.
The battery-powered unit gives exact dosing based on the animals’ exact weight every time. It can be used as a standalone powered doser or be connected to the Te Pari Scale System for auto calibration.
The G20 Smart Gun, when combined with the Te Pari Scale indicators, forms an integrated animal management system. The Te Pari Scale calibrates the dose rate and transmits it wirelessly directly to the Te Pari Dosing Gun. The optional 14ml barrel can also be fitted to this gun for injecting.
From animal husbandry products and sheep and cattle handling equipment to cattle yards and fencing products, Te Pari boasts an impressive array of New Zealand innovations designed to help make farming safer, more productive, and easier. The state-of-the-art 4400 square metre factory continues honing and developing products dedicated to continuing its heritage of innovation and reliability.
Brownrigg Agriculture
There’s nothing like first-hand experience of products as a testament to their efficiency. Brownrigg Agriculture in Hawke’s Bay uses Te Pari products extensively for their operation and are so impressed by the Te Pari-manufactured Racewell sheep handling systems that they own nine of them.
With 12 farms over 9955ha, the team at Brownriggs need to monitor every level of their large-scale livestock finishing and cropping operation closely.
Brownrigg livestock operations manager Hayden Ashby says the Racewell sheep handling systems play a huge part in their lamb finishing programme.
The nine units on-site are all fully automated, top-of-the line systems and their latest model is the Racewell Superhandler with a three-way drafting system.
"These are in constant use when it comes to selecting top lambs," Hayden says.
"The sheep handlers have cut down on the number of labour units required for weighing and drafting sheep plus dagging, if required, and enable us to process between 700 and 900 lambs an hour with just a single labour unit and a dog."
The high numbers of sheep going through the Racewell (20,000 to 36,000 weighings per winter) has tested the machinery to the limit and is a testimony to its robustness that it’s able to withstand this volume of work.
Te Pari Products basics for creating a health and safety programme for your farm
You must:
- be able to show you are managing your work risks
- identify and manage both health risks and safety risks to people in your workplace
- monitor the health of workers and workplace conditions to prevent illness and injury
- include workers and family in planning to make the farm healthy and safe
- train and supervise people who work on farm
- make sure workers and family know how to manage risks
- keep a record of notifiable events
- have procedures for dealing with workplace emergencies
- have safe and healthy facilities
- for workers
- make sure machinery and systems are safe for workers to use
- provide and make sure personal protective equipment is used where appropriate.
- For more information, visit yardsafe.co.nz
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