Country Life

Who knows what goes on in a herd of cows as they walk to the milking shed? Plenty, according to Inglewood vet Neil Chesterton, who has made this his life's work and become a world-renowned expert on lameness in dairy cows.

Neil Chesterton has seen quite a few sore feet in his time.

He's spent 50 years as a vet in the Taranaki town of Inglewood, and has a deep understanding of why New Zealand's pasture-fed dairy cows go lame.

Listen to Neil Chesterton talking to Country Life

Chesterton travels the world sharing his knowledge with other farmers and at conferences and seminars.

It all comes down to patience and farm design, he told Country Life during milking time at Bryce Hunger's farm, where he had conducted some of his research.

Hunger's 500 cows have a walk of less than 1.5km to the milking shed, a good track surface, spacious yards with carefully calibrated automatic backing gates and a herder who's not hot on their heels as they make their way to milking.

Chesterton's interest in lameness started early on in his career, when he noticed some farmers had a third of their herd lame over a season.

As well as impacting the health of the cow, lameness leads to a dramatic loss in milk production.

Lameness can lead to dramatic drop in milk production.

Northern Hemisphere cows, which are housed in concrete-floored barns, generally go lame from sole ulcers, which was less of an issue in New Zealand, he found.

As New Zealand cows are "walking cows", there was a gap in research, so Chesterton set about doing his own.

With the farmers' consent, he had spent plenty of time hiding in bushes, observing from his car and even climbing under a milk vat to collect data and study cow behaviour - all without alerting the curious and sometimes fearful animals.

One farmer had hardly any lameness in his herd, and Chesterton discovered he would stop his motorbike well behind the cows on the stroll to the milking shed and smoke three cigarettes - not that he was encouraging smoking!

Good "cow flow" is part of the recipe for healthy feet.

The worst case he had attended was at a farm where a whole herd refused to budge after milking.

They lay down in the yard, their soles thin and worn-out. It turned out they had walked more than 10km a day for the previous five days.

According to Chesterton, it is important to let cows follow their own order, both on the track and in the waiting yard - which is where cows can easily slip and injure themselves if they're rushed in.

Chesterton advises tracks to the milking shed be no longer than 1.5km…

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Have you ever wondered where all the food for Wellington Zoo's 500 animals come from? The answer might surprise you... Gianina Schwanecke meets with the zoo's animal science manager to find out more and joins a group of otters for dinner.

Imagine trying to feed a horde of 500 animals on less than 15-hectares of land.

Now imagine, if each of those animals required specialised diets. From the carnivorous meat eaters, to the plant-loving herbivores, mixed-tastes omnivores and seafood-loving piscivores.

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Tucked into the hills surrounding the city's suburbs, Wellington Zoo is home to more than 500 animals comprising close to 70 species. They include lions, tigers, giraffes, lemurs, lizards, insects, native birds, red panda and otters.

It's a challenging task catering to so many different dietary needs. Overseeing the zoo's nutrition team, is animal science manager Simon Eyre.

"Every animal has a very, very different diet. From the stick insects that only eat Eucalyptus browse, to the tigers and lions that eat meat, to the meerkats which have a very very different diet to our otters," Eyre says.

A second-generation zookeeper, he's spent 20 of the last 30 years working at Wellington Zoo.

The nutrition team starts most days at 7.30am alternating between preparing food for that morning - things like cooked eggs or cooked potato - and prepping meals for other days. They process between half a tonne to a tonne of animal feed each week.

"We use a lot of fresh fruit and vegetables, they come from the same suppliers that your cafes and restaurants would get them from. We get the same food you do."

"Because the food is as fresh as you get, if not fresher, it actually keeps really well," Eyre explains.

Inside the freezer, there are buckets filled with pre-prepared meals, a label on the lid telling the keeper which animal it's for.

The zoo's otters are fed five to six times a day due to their high metabolism.

Rows of crates filled with supermarket-grade fruit and vegetables line its shelves. The freezer will be topped up with three pallets worth of produce each week, and emptied out about twice a week.

"The welfare of our animals is paramount. We should not be feeding them sub-par food so they get just as good as you do."

Meat for carnivores like the lions and tigers is sourced from the South Island, and stored in a separate freezer.

Much of the fresh produce is sourced from the same providers that stock our restaurants and supermarkets…

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This week Country Life is at the last day of the kumara harvest in Northland, joins a quartet of otters at Wellington Zoo for dinner to learn more about where the animals' food comes from and speaks to Inglewood vet Neil Chesterton about a lifetime of treating lameness in dairy cows.

This week Country Life is at the last day of the kumara harvest in Northland, joins a quartet of otters at Wellington Zoo for dinner to learn more about where the animals' food comes from and speaks to Inglewood vet Neil Chesterton about treating lameness in dairy cows.

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It's the last day of the kumara harvest at Dunsmore Gardens, a farm on the outskirts of Dargaville. It's also time to celebrate after the grower lost 99 percent of his crop last season.

It's the last day of the kumara harvest at Dunsmore Gardens, a farm on the outskirts of Dargaville. It's also time to celebrate after the grower lost 99 percent of his crop last season.

He spoke to Peter de Graaf.

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This week Country Life meets a young couple who left their city life to set up a mushroom farm and heads to the maimai with a hunter at daybreak at the start of the duck shooting season half a century ago.

This week Country Life meets a young couple who left their city life to set up a mushroom farm and heads to the maimai with a hunter at daybreak at the start of the duck shooting season half a century ago.

Listen to Country Life

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On the rural outskirts of Taupō a young couple have started a mushroom venture far removed from their previous life in Auckland. Maggie Tweedie took a trip to a small block of land amid the green hills of Wairakei to meet Benson Thomas and Hattie MacLennan.

by Maggie Tweedie

In a large warehouse, not far from Taupō, a young couple is busy bagging gourmet mushrooms.

Their established vegetable garden and loyal Jack Russell terrier make it difficult to imagine the pair once lived a city life in Auckland.

Benson Thomas and Hattie MacLennan took the plunge into a new food production venture in January 2023 using the Thomas family's earthworks company to clear their farm paddocks.

They transformed four hectares into land suitable for mushroom growing and the result is Forage Mushroom Co.

They produce several varieties of oyster mushrooms - Italian, Phoenix (which are native to New Zealand) and Pink - selling them at farmers' markets, to online customers and to local restaurants.

Listen to how Hattie and Benson grew a mushroom farm

Forage was born during the pandemic when the pair began brainstorming a new way to make a living.

Thomas had a background in agricultural and applied science and was interested in horticulture and in 2020 he unearthed an obsession with mycology, the study of fungi.

MacLennan, meanwhile, was working in HR and realised she could work remotely when they made the switch to rural living.

She calls Wednesday her "forage day", harvesting and bagging the mushrooms for customers across the region.

Forage's HQ is a 600 square metre warehouse brimming with shipping containers and climate-controlled, purpose-built equipment and mushroom grow kits which the pair sell online to those who want to grow their own in just six days.

Starting a business from the ground up hasn't all been smooth sailing though.

Thomas wants to see more regulation as he says their small business has battled to compete with so-called New Zealand mushrooms, which originate in China at a cheaper price and are sent here to "grow".

Earlier this year Thomas made the difficult decision to pull 300 kgs of his produce from Asian food stores in Auckland because it was being undercut.

The volume drove the price down and it wasn't viable for Forage to continue with that market, he said.

Oyster mushrooms are famous for being able to handle high cooking heat without losing their volume.

"We whack them on your plate, Bob's your uncle," MacLennan said, cooking up a plate of Forage fungi for Country Life, with fresh elephant garlic from Hawkes Bay, homegrown thyme and chilli oil…

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In 1973 Alan Wilkes was out with his Labrador Zara and comrades at the opening of the duck shooting season. This story from the Spectrum archives was recorded on Kohangatera, a network of lagoons along the Palliser Bay coast.

In 1973 Alan Wilkes was out with his Labrador Zara and comrades at the opening of the duck shooting season.

In this story from the archives of Spectrum, a long-running RNZ documentary programme, producer Jack Perkins records a slice of life in the maimai with Alan on Kohangatera, a network of lagoons along the Palliser Bay coast.

Join Alan Wilkes and Jack Perkins on the opening day of duck shooting 50 years ago

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West Otago farmer, Adrian McIntyre, says the late grain harvest down his way means there are plenty of ducks around for the opening of the duck shooting season. The first weekend is a bit like Christmas, he says

West Otago grain and sheep farmer, Adrian McIntyre, is on the Otago Fish and Game Council and a keen hunter, looking forward to the opening of the duck shooting season this weekend.

Listen to the interview with Adrian McIntyre

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Many drought-declared areas have now had some rain, but farms still have very low pasture covers going into winter. There's been superb weather for the gold kiwifruit harvest in Bay of Plenty which only has a couple of weeks to go and the Hayward variety is underway. Lamb prices remain depressed making some question the future of the sector.

Dairy herds are being dried off and cull cows are off to the works.

In Northland farms are turning green and grass is starting to grow, now there's been some reasonable rain. Farmers have been re-grassing but pasture has been slow kicking into gear because soil moisture levels were low. Dairy herds are being dried off and cull cows are off to the works.

Pukekohe vegetable growers have been motivated by last season's higher prices and good weather. They've planted extensive areas of brassicas, lettuce and other green crops and now there's oversupply. Prices to growers have been very low on the whole.

In Waikato the warm wet April has pushed grass growth along nicely. Re-grassed paddocks are growing really well.

Bay of Plenty dairy farmers have nothing to complain about, with cows in good condition, grass coming along well and the OK payout. Eighty percent of the gold kiwifruit harvest is now in, and it will be completed in the next two weeks. Most of the green kiwifruit's yet to be picked but there are plenty of workers around for picking and packing. "It's all tickity boo", our contact said.

Thursday was a cracker of a day in King Country, after temperatures plunged last week. Lambs are off to the works. Normally they're sold as store lambs to be fattened up elsewhere, but with such low prices farmers have been trying to do that themselves. There's plenty of grass around. The ram's nearly done his job and is starting to hang out by the gate. Ewes were in good nick for mating.

Most of Taranaki's had a good autumn but the southern coastal area has been very dry and drought was declared. It looks green, but there's been no rain and dairy herds have been dried off. Milk production figures for all parts of Taranaki are a few percent down on last year, but last year was a cracker…

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Steve Muggeridge's beloved Clydesdales have returned to Taranaki. Not far from the original family stud, at the base of the maunga, he chats about the changing use of the heavy horse and hitches a pair up to a vintage wagon for a ride along the mountain's flanks.

The Clydesdale horse has been a life-long passion for Steve Muggeridge. Now, he's returned with his small herd to the place that passion first kicked in.

At the age of 12 he began ploughing with a pair of Clydesdales under his father's watchful eye at the family farm and Clydesdale stud at Te Kiri in Taranaki.

Since then, Steve has grazed, worked and shown the heavy horse breed all around the country.

Recently, he and his five horses moved back to the district, to graze on pasture in the shadow of Mt Taranaki, sparking plenty of memories for the 63-year-old.

Hop aboard Steve Muggeridge's horse-drawn wagon with Country Life

Steve loves nothing better than to hitch up a pair of the draft horses to one of his vintage wagons, which is where I found myself sitting, on a bag of chaff, one early autumn evening.

It was a pinch-yourself moment, as we rounded a bend through a cutting on the rough gravel track, seeing the perfectly conical mountain ahead.

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The breed, which originated in Scotland, is known for the long hair over its hooves - known as feathers - and strong physique, perfect for hauling ploughs and other farm equipment.

"You breed the horses, you break them in, you get them working and you have them all your life," Steve told Country Life, over the sound of clopping and clinking metal.

"They just become your mates."

In his father's day, the horses were all they had on the farm. Lou Muggeridge had the same passion as his son for the breed, Steve said.

"1988 was the last year that we ever stacked hay, did everything with the horses, mowed it, rowed it."

He'd love to see the horse and plough more in use.

"Everything gets rushed in this day and age that we live in.

"We always ended up with good crops - there's no doubt about that."

Steve is the president of the Clydesdale Horse Society of New Zealand and has seen the breed's popularity grow as a horse for riding among small blockholders.

Some shows this year saw a doubling of entries in the Clydesdale class - although he'd like to see more young people get involved with the breed.

"People are keen, but from the Clydesdale Society point of view we've got to look and see if we can sort out some more classes for these people that have got one horse."…

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