Cleaner water troughs and water are proving to be a simple yet highly effective technique for improving productivity
and farm economics. A clever idea turned reality, is about to move from trial to commercialisation, with initial sales
in both New Zealand and Australia.
TroffTop, a cover for farm troughs, was developed by Peter Bunker, who was appalled at the state of the farm drinking
troughs he'd observed through many years of involvement in the rural community,
The TroffTop is a deceptively simple polyethylene cover that has secured development investment for its inventor, Peter
Bunker, from two Auckland businessmen, Roly and Lionel Rogers.
The research into its design has been boosted with a grant of $85,000 from the Foundation for Research, Science and
Technology's Grants for Private Sector Research (GPSRD) scheme.
Following successful trials on 14 farms throughout the North Island, TroffTop is at commercialisation stage and Roly
Rogers says it is destined for use anywhere stock drink from water troughs, or troughs in feedlots.
"It takes a relatively simple principle, a floating cover for troughs, and refines it with contours and indentations to
make individual drinking compartments within the cover. The whole cover floats on the trough greatly reducing outside
elements from entering the trough such as dust, dirt, fertiliser, grass, effluent spread, wildlife and wildfowl. Also,
the chance of algae growth is reduced because the cover completely blocks out the sunlight," says Mr Rogers.
He says there is an element of courtship in wary stock coming to terms with covered drinking troughs, but that after the
first drinking cycle they become blasé about it and actually prefer the taste and smell of the fresher, more palatable
water.
Cleaner drinking water has both economic and health benefits; an outcome that Peter Bunker was quick to perceive when he
noticed that farmers were not as fastidious about troughs as he had observed during the years when his father had been
farming.
He began 'playing around' with ideas based on a floating cover idea and hit on the solution after three years trial and
error, with input from Massey University's animal health unit.
Mr Rogers says clean and palatable water encourages animals to thrive and produce more milk. "The tests are impressive
in terms of the export increase possible from a greater milk output as well as meat growth. Better conversion rates also
mean a saving to the farmer in feed," he says.
TroffTop already has endorsements from on-farm trials, and in particular from horse studs, with its prototype winning an
award in the 2001 Mystery Creek Field days.
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