Agrodome

It was Labor Day weekend last week in New Zealand, and like in America, we had a three-day weekend from Saturday to Monday. To Celebrate, I traveled once again with my Cousin David and his wife Sue to Rotorua. This time we hooked up with David’s and Sue’s daughter Sarah and her family, James her husband, and Hamish and Penny her children.

On Saturday, we all traveled to the Agrodome to see a sheep shearing and herding demonstration, and a tour of the Agrodome farm. 

The sheep shearing demonstration was part of a show inside the Agrodome’s main building. The show consisted of a brief description of each type of sheep they had on the premises with live models. They had trained the sheep to run up to their specific spot on the podium for a food reward. They started with one of the most famous breed of sheep the Merino and went down the line covering first the wool breeds and then the multipurpose and finally the meat breeds.

This was followed by a sheep brought on the stage for the sheep sheering demonstration. While this was not mentioned in the show according to Steve Sheep sheering is known as shagging in New Zealand. Apparently he was joking and I believed him. Grrrrr

To my surprise, a lactating Friesian cow was brought on stage next for a milking demonstration. People drawn from the crowd were given a Certificate of Udderance for successfully getting milk into a bucket. 

A milk-drinking contest then ensued between five lambs being fed by audience members.

New Zealand herding dogs were introduced next. One herded three Pekin ducks around the stage. The others demonstrated their jumping, parking and standing on sheep’s backs prowess.

The Show ended with a real sheep herding demonstration outside followed by a carding machine demonstration. 

 

Our second adventure involved boarding a luxury hay wagon, a tram pulled by a tractor, for a tour of the “working farm”. I say “working farm” because supposedly, they do raise and sell animals at this farm, but I would be surprised if the money they raised from the animals could pay for the upkeep.

We stared by going to the emu and ostrich pen. This pen, right next to a giant swing where a family of three were being hoisted up by a cable and dropped right in front of us. 

Feeding the emu’s amused me. You held our your flat hand and their beaks down on your hand with the hardest peck.

I held Hamish’s hand out flat so that he could feel how it felt. Considering how hard and fast they move I was amazed how well he responded.

It was then on to the Kiwi fields were we stopped by the education center to look at a fruit press and to try some Kiwi juice, honey and wine, for those over 18. Of all, I thought the honey won overall because, it had a distinctive but pleasant taste. The wine tasted identical to the Sutter Home Moscato and the kiwi juice tasted like generic juice.

 

Off we went again on the wagon to a field filled with a lama, many alpacas one emu and many sheep. The highpoint of this event is that Penny, got crowded by brown sheep and broke down, declaring that she didn’t like brown sheep because they were overly aggressive. 

At the second to last pen we visited, I got to hold a baby lamb in my arms. David held it too. 

 The last pen held the bovine. We were not allowed out of the wagon, because due to being hand fed the cattle were too tame and rather pushy including the two bulls, one Friesian and a Hereford. One well over 1000 lb. Included with the bulls were a jersey, Frisian, and Angus cows, and a miniature Angus. 

With that, the tour ended. After lunch, I took a picture of Penny on top of a statue of a Kiwi. She asked me if I had meet Lighting McQueen. I did not realize until later that she meant the main character from the movie Cars.

Back at the Bach I went kayaking on the lake and lost my watch swimming to shore.

Week 4 Rotorua continued

David, my cousin once removed, and his wife Sue have a Bach, a cabin, on the edge of Lake Rotoiti, the lake next door to lake Rotorua. The Bach has a small harbor and palm trees on the shore. 

Rotorua is a city on top of geothermal springs. Steam can be seen rising from gutters and vents in the ground. Also the air is sulfuric on the day we arrived however their was only a faint smell of rotten egg in the air. 

After my skydiving episode, Sue and I went to the geothermal village, Whakarewarewa, a Maori community living among geysers and thermal hot springs. Maori children in the river welcomed us, they earn their pocket money by diving in the cold water after coins thrown by tourists. I got to experience some of their dances which were very similar to Hawaiian dances, and toured their home. They cooked their food by either submerging it in the hot springs or placing them in wooden boxes over steam vents. For $2.50, I bought some exothermically steamed corn. It was not bad. 

Sadly, I did not bring my camera to Whakarewarewa, instead I have pictures from my visit to a public park in Rotorua. In that park is a wading pool for people to soak their feet in. Sue and I spent our time there. We then walked around the park observing steam rising from open hot springs and bubbles bursting from mud pools.

On the way back we stopped at a tourist stop for ice cream. Just across the street the information center and a wool shop stood made out of corrugated metal in the shapes of a dog and a sheep.

Week 3 Rotorua

Skydiving

Hi everyone, I am proud to announce that I skydived successfully in tandem from 15,000 feet.

I did it on Saturday at the Skydive nzone in Rotorua’s international airport

I was lucky because the weather for that day was iffy, cloudy with a few showers, and the pilot was not allowed to fly solely by instruments therefore there had to be a break in the cloud cover.

I got geared up in a skydiving suit harness, I honestly don’t know why I needed the cap on my head, and set off. I took off in the plane with a: sixteen year old boy, two instructors and a cameraman that was documenting the boy’s birthday. We barely fit in. Since I was dropping from 15,000 feet, I got to breath oxygen through a simple clear plastic tube that I could hold a few inches in front of my face.

Once we got to 15,000 feet the door opened my instructor Matt got me to the edge, I crossed my harms shaping my body like a banana and we dropped for 65 seconds through the air until the parachute was deployed. I never felt like I was falling, that feeling you get on roller coasters where your internal organs compact against your lungs never happened during my freefall. All I felt was the wind rushing past me at terminal velocity. What I really enjoyed was the parachute ride down because I did get that roller coaster feeling whenever Matt did a sharp turn to maneuver us to the landing site.

Week 2

Living

             I am staying at the house of Veterinarian Steve Harkness. Who lives in a four bedroom two bathroom single story house in the middle of nowhere. Across the street from us is a small golf course and to either side of us are the boundaries of two separate farms, of which only one is currently in use. We get our water from a water tank in the backyard.

 

Vocabulary

             The Vocabulary as you would expect differs in New Zealand. The one everyone should know is that the restroom is called a toilet, very to the point. What I did not expect was the difference in vocabulary in farming and their reproductive terms. Before I left for New Zealand I thought that words such as: open, AI (artificial insemination) dairy parlor, dairy, Holstein and in heat were universal. However, they are not. In New Zealand AB (artificial breeding) is used more readily. Also, during pregnancy checks the word empty is used instead of open, and when cows are in heat and showing estrus by mounting each other it is known as bulling behavior. The major farming terms that differs are the names of where the milk is collected and processed and the names of the breeds. In America we would milk the cows in the “Milking Parlor”, however on my first day I was quickly informed that I would be laughed off the farm if I used that term. Two days later when I saw were the cows were milked I understood why. The cows are usually milked in more rickety structures than they would in America. Therefore, the term milking shed is more appropriate. In addition, in New Zealand a Dairy is where the milk is processed not where it is collected. If the UC Davis Dairy was in New Zealand it would be referred to as the UC Davis Dairy Farm. Lastly, Holsteins are called Friesians or Holstein Friesians. 

Dairy Farming in New Zealand

The dairy farming in New Zealand is Pastoral and seasonal not intensive and year round as it is in America. The main diet of the dairy cows is pasture grass supplemented with palm kernel and maize silage for extra energy. Probably due to the lower energy diet and pastoral farming practices the cows are much smaller than they are in the United States. The Friesians and Jerseys are about the size or smaller than an American Jersey. They are also narrower around the ribcage than American dairy cows.

Maybe working with Dough Gisi made me have higher than normal expectations from dairy farmers but farmers in New Zealand do not know what progesterone, PGF 2α, FSH and estrogen are and what they do to the reproductive organs. Therefore, it is the veterinarians in New Zealand who do the estrus synchronization, metritis checking and treatment in New Zealand. Farmers also hire outside technicians to do the AI or AB insemination as well.

However, this may have an advantage. The antibiotic resistance in New Zealand is very low. Usually a single dose of penicillin can cure an infection in New Zealand compared to the two doses a day for five day treatment we give to our dry cows in the United States. This could be because antibiotics are not used in feed but it can also be attributed to antibiotic treatment being done by mainly veterinarians.

Anexa

Steve works for a veterinary practice called Anexa and specializes in dairy cattle. What he does is provide veterinary care and management advice to the dairy farmers. Such as, making sure their animal are at an average body score of five before calving and breeding and encourages them to keep up with tail painting their herds. This is important because one of the main goals of seasonal dairies is to get most of the herd pregnant before the sixth week of breeding so all the cows come into calf in a condensed group. He also synchronizes their herds and does pregnancy checks.  He is fast too. It takes him less than a minute to determine whether a cow is pregnant via ultrasound, significantly faster than what I have been used too.