Testimonials
Sheldon Keech
“Service is worth a lot to us”
Being greeted at the door by a J Swap Stockfoods Hat should have been a clue to how the rest of the interview with Sheldon Keech, a 50/50 Sharemilker on a recently converted Carter Holt Harvey farm was going to be.
Milking between 520 and 530 cows on a farm only into its second season of conversion offers different challenges to well established dairy farms. Sheldon says “The biggest thing on a conversion is that feed shortages come into play more often and stock food fills the gaps in those feed pinches and until the farm is established. For this reason we need to be able to turn it on and turn it off. This is what feeding PKE does for us”
Originally from Taranaki, Sheldon and his family, wife Sarah and three young children, made the move north to Whakamaru to grow their cow numbers. Not having fed stock food in Taranaki, Sheldon is still a firm believer that grass is the first priority in making money and then use Stock food to ‘top up’.
Sheldon milks in a 50 bail rotary with an in-parlour feeding system. He believes this is the best system ever with the only cost being power. Additionally there is very little wastage of feed. While this is his primary way of feeding Sheldon also chooses to trough feed in the paddock to maintain good grass coverage. Therefore Sheldon requires a stock food company to be able to deliver in two ways. An auger truck to fill the silo but additionally bulk trucks to dump into a covered bunker.
This service is where J Swap Stockfoods excel. Sheldon talks to Arnie every 4-5 days to plan deliveries. The auger trucks come to his farm every 5 days. At times this delivery has occurred within 24 hours of talking with Arnie. Something which in Sheldon’s mind is hard to beat quoting that “when we need it, we need it, 24 hour delivery from Swaps with that auger truck…..good service will still outweigh price and quality PKE is a big one for us”.
All this would be nothing of course if it wasn’t for the relaxed relationship with Arnie. Sheldon seeks nutritional information from three sources, one of which being Arnie. As one of 29 Carter Holt Harvey farms in the area Arnie is also invited to the regular discussions groups that Carter Holt Harvey run for their employees. This is a chance for Arnie to solidify relationships and Sheldon firmly believes “you can’t get a much better salesman than Arnie”.
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