Karl and Ro McDiarmid farm at Gorge Creek Flats, Ranfurly running 5000 ewes, 1500 hoggetts, and doing bull beef as well, finishing 700-800 bulls a year on the 1330Ha Maniototo property.
The McDiarmid’s are always looking to test their farming practices, experimenting with feed crops, breeding, irrigation to see what will lead to healthy animals and improve their already high-performing operation.
Karl says they invested in a Stockade ST400i cordless stapler tool eight months ago, to speed up work around the installation of two pivots and conversation of 150 Ha to a calibrated grazing techno-system.
“We have turned nine paddocks into 17. It’s more subdivision, smaller paddocks. We have re-fenced two pivots, taken all the fencing down from existing Keyline and replaced it for pivot fences.”
Other than a very small section, all the new fencing, repairs and maintenance are done on the farm, no contractors.
“We are always doing a lot of fencing on the property. Obviously, we have had a few projects around the place in the last few years and a bit of maintenance has been delayed. But on average, I would say we are replacing between one and five kilometres of fence line a year as a standard renewal. We mainly use seven-wire fences, or for completely new fences we’ll put in netting which is a bit more secure.”
“We bought the ST400i cordless stapler to speed the process up. It’s lived up to that promise. It’s quick and light. You don’t get a sore arm after doing a kilometre of staples, you can go all day.”
Where they can, the McDiarmid’s are installing more power around the property with a single electric wire. The insulator attachment that fits onto the front of the ST400i have proven useful to speed up the process of fixing insulators to posts and battens quickly, consistently and with no fuss. “It works awesome.”
Karl says the ST400i is so easy anyone can use it, and they do. The tool has been around the tracks with the whole family.
“You don’t need to be a contractor to get value out of the ST400i. I can definitely recommend it. You’d be silly not to have one.”
