Many farmers have begun installing new milk cooling systems and have found the change has improved their operations on-farm. Take John Gregan, for example, he farms at the foot of the Hunter Hills, near Waimate in South Canterbury. He has 650 cows on 260ha. A year ago, his old system was leaking gas and not doing the job. It was becoming a bit of a nightmare, he says.
"The HFC gas was leaking through an old weld pipe joint. This is a very bad gas regarding global emissions, so I was doing no one any favours."
The HFC class of gas systems have very high global warming impact and they are being phased out. Costs for them are expected to rise over the next five years, and this is one of the key drivers for change.
John has now installed a new system, Varivat, using a Coolsense vendor and with support from Farm Source when it came to organising finance. He says the new distributed cooling system has made a big difference. "The milk is much cooler and the worry of whether the system would work or need more repair is gone as it is remotely monitored. My old system had a pre-chiller 30,000L water tank, as well as the refrigerator unit, so it took a bit of sorting. The new unit is much smaller and tidier."
John would highly recommend the change to other farmers, although it's a capital outlay, the value from the change is certainly worth it. As always, Farm Source advises farmers to focus on the full lifetime cost of the system, not just the initial capital cost. "Over time it will certainly pay for itself and my old system," John says. "The energy savings and the hot water by-product help with the value and the removal of the old global warming gases is a real bonus too."
Jason Ham also changed his system a couple of weeks ago. He now uses a DTS 8hp self-contained unit, which replaces an older, smaller unit and means he can cool his milk down more efficiently in summer.
"The decision for putting a bigger unit in was based on a longer-term goal, making sure we've got at least one vat we can cool quicker during the summer, so we can make sure we're adhering to milk temperature requirements enforced by MPI."
He now has two vats - one 5hp chiller and the new 8hp unit. He says milk in the new vat will be at least 4℃ cooler by the end of milking.
Jason, who milks 480 cows on 156ha in Horsham Downs, says the unit is going really well so far and was easy to install.
"We had a suitable space to put the unit, on the outside of the cow shed. A refrigeration expert helped install it and had it up and running in about three days. I was very happy they were able to install something quite quickly. It was really good, because we use two milk vats and I needed the capacity, so Fonterra put us on a day and a night pick-up while the unit was put in. We didn't have enough storage and that's how we got through. I'd definitely recommend looking to upgrade if you have an old chiller unit that's starting to give you problems. It's a lot of money to outlay but so is reject milk."
Farm Source partners with key suppliers to give farmers great deals on milk cooling solutions designed for specific needs that suit a range of requirements. This includes professional milk cooling assessments to help farmers determine what they need.
For more information, visit nzfarmsource.co.nz/milk-cooling.