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DEMETER FARM
Coast & Country
Demeter Farm Looking into Rob and Louise Lyons’ new dairy from the yard. Williams Engineering’s Brook Evans, Precast Concrete Supplies owner Trevor Christensen, Jesse Richardson, Rob Lyons, Don Chapman Waikato Ltd director Shanan White, Leask Engineering’s design and construction manager Rom Stellingwerf and Louise Lyons, plus farm dogs Chops and Mack.
From UK retail job to Kiwi milking dream As a young man, Rob Lyons set off to the United Kingdom for his overseas experience and worked mainly in retail. He soon met his wife-to-be Louise in Bristol, and they decided to return to New Zealand and take over running the family farm at Mangatawhiri in North Waikato. Louise was a city girl but with Rob working at Paerata Dairy Factory she was left to run the farm.
Crash course
“I had a crash course in the day-to-day running of the farm and there were a few incidents, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed it and could not think of doing anything else,” says Louise. After two years Rob was made redundant at Paerata and decided the right time was right to fully commit to being a farmer. “My grandfather came here in 1929 and
milked off 90 acres, it then became a drystock farm with 80 Angus cows and 600 sheep. “When Louise and I first came home on the farm we leased some extra land and did winter grazing of dairy cows and reared calves,” says Rob. In 2002 they bought an adjoining farm with 70 Jersey cows and a 12-aside herringbone dairy shed and started converting completely to dairy farming. In the process they amalgamated other smaller blocks and leased land out for growing onions and contended with winter lambing. “We would finish milking the cows and then start crutching lambs,” says Rob. The 12-aside herringbone was extended into an 18-aside, with a second-hand milking plant installed. This addition eased the pressure for a while and when the herd increased to 360 they took out the herringbone rail so 20 cows could be fitted along each side.
“It was taking five-and-a-half hours to milk in the morning and four-and-a-half hours at night,” says Rob. “We had the cows in two herds and two milkers in two shifts.”
Not disappointed Something had to give and the decision was made to build a new 50-bail rotary dairy shed. “We looked at a lot of dairies and the quality and reputation of a Chapman Dairy really stood out. We got three quotes, two were very close and we then decided on a Chapman Dairy and haven’t been disappointed,” says Rob. Don Chapman Waikato Ltd director Shanan White is the licensee for Chapman Dairy Ltd in the Waikato area and is based at Morrinsville. He’s a qualified builder and had been doing contract work for Chapman Builders since 2006, mainly dairies. “Don Chapman approached me in mid-2013
to see if I was interested in the licence to build Chapman dairies in the Waikato,” says Shanan. “It was too good an opportunity to pass up so I went all out and bought the plant etc and kept all the staff on.” The new dairy was already in the pipeline and Shanan completed the contract. Building started in April 2014 and was completed in September 2014. It is a standard Chapman Dairy design with a few changes such as an extra portal over the bridge to allow more cover at the cups-on area and provides better airflow and light. The walls are insulated panels provided by Insulation Panel & Door for easy cleaning and helping to lower noise levels. A pit runs around the milking platform so any visitors are kept up out of the ‘danger zone’ and the effluent doesn’t splash up the walls. An underpass to the milking pit makes it easier to access if anything needs tending to.