Quiet and safe cattle handling in Wales
Written by Aimee Johnston
Chris Edwards farms 1800 ewes and 700 head of cattle in Vale of Glamorgan, Wales. When he decided it was time for a new cattle crush he looked at various options available in the UK. He went for the Te Pari Titan Crush in the end because of the build quality, the galvanised finish and the general quality of the crush.
Pwllywrach Farm, in the Vale of Glamorgan, is run in a family partnership with Chris, his father Richard and his mother and grandmother.
It is a 330 hectare property, and they run 1800 breeding ewes and 700 head of cattle. The farm is predominately grass and they grow some spring barley for winter feed and some root crops to carry the ewes for the winter.
“We bought our Te Pari Cattle Crush to help with regular weighing, vaccinating, worming and bolising the animals. It just makes life a lot quicker, safer, easier, yeah it works well.” says Chris.
“I like the Te Pari because of it’s build quality, it’s very quiet when it’s working, another reason is that the load bars are integrated into the frame, so it’s a lot lower to the floor so it’s easier for the cattle to step in and the squeeze and headbail keep the cattle very still once they’re locked in the crush.” said Chris.
The reason for Chris upgrading to the Te Pari Titan Cattle Crush was his previous crush was nearly 20 years old. It didn’t have a squeeze facility and the load bars were quite slow settling to an accurate weight. Chris says “the Te Pari has just sped up the whole operation and made everything a lot easier and quicker.”
“Since we got it, we’ve found that the squeeze part of the crush has really improved safety, especially when we’re clipping bellies pre slaughter. The animals are stood a lot quieter and don’t tend to kick so much. And then the improvement with the weigh cells has speeded up the weighing, it settles to weight a lot quicker and seems to be a lot more accurate.” said Chris.
“The neck access gate helps with vaccinating in the neck area, nice and easy, very safe it’s a good facility.” said Chris.
“The crush has helped our decision making, it’s easy to weigh so we weigh regularly. We are keeping an eye on our daily live weight gains and the performance of the cattle ultimately selling the cattle at the correct weights to the right markets, hitting the specifications that the supermarkets demand. So eventually coming through to more profit.” said Chris.
“When we bought the crush we looked at various other competitors, went for the Te Pari in the end because of the build quality, the galvanised finish and just the general quality of the crush.
Everything works as it should, it’s easy to use, it’s self-explanatory and it does what it says. The cattle crush is quite quiet in operation, the gates and the squeeze and everything are quite quiet so then the cattle then are quiet and quite relaxed in the crush. We don’t see any bruising or any reports of bruising from the abattoir so I’m presuming the crush is doing its job and is handling the cattle gently and securely.” said Chris.
Chris bought his Titan Crush through the Te Pari agents in the UK, and he says, “they were great, they took me to their farm to look at the crush before I bought it, I actually got to speak to Patrick himself in NZ and he talked me through the crush and since then I’ve spoken to him twice, so yeah the back-up service is really good.”
“The Te Pari crush is very safe to use, quiet, the cattle are very quiet when they’re in it, especially once you’ve squeezed them up. The integrated load bars make for weighing and monitoring the cattle very easy, so we’re really pleased with our purchase.” said Chris.
