Cow Housing Segment on Seven Sharp

Cow housing featured on Seven Sharp recently (Wednesday 6th September) with one of their reporters visiting a farm near Rakaia in Canterbury to find out more about what could be the future of New Zealand farming.

This particular property only allows very low levels of leaching so they saw this an opportunity to test taking the cows off pasture. One of the farm owners grew up in The Netherlands where this kind of farming is nothing new.

Those cows calving are inside 24/7 with the high producing cows spending 6-7 hours per day outside, with the rest spending a fair amount of time outdoors. It is noted however, that the cows will choose to come inside when the weather is bad or when they want some of the supplementary feed on offer.

The article covers how indoor cow housing helps to protect the environment by touching on effluent management and a reduction in fertiliser use on the farm.

The segment kicks off around the 6 minute 30 mark and runs for just under 3 and a half minutes. Check out the video here.