Leeston Pastoral

01/08/2026

29/07/2026

Thought I’d share a little home-made one-pass compaction renovator we put together.
We mounted a 180 L Iris spreader on a Great Plains Sub-Soiler 300 and ran custom drop tubes from a seed collector down to each shank. The result is a machine that rips the compaction and drops seed straight into the rip lines in the same pass.
It’s been a simple but effective way to tackle compaction while getting pasture regeneration happening at the same time.
It’s done its job on our place, so it’s time to move it on and hopefully let it keep renovating somewhere else.
Happy to answer any questions about how we set it up.

29/07/2026

Great Plains Sub-Soiler 300 + Iris Seeder – One-Pass Pasture Magic 💪🌱
This beauty rips the hardpan and drops seed straight into the rip lines in the same pass. Soil compaction sorted + pasture regeneration started – job done.

🌿 Great Plains SS0300 Sub-Soiler
⌛ Low hours, excellent condition
💦 180 L Iris spreader with custom seed delivery to every shank
🚜 Ready to hitch up and go

$12,000

Contact Adam
0437 949 510

25/07/2026

Observations on forage maturity and cow behaviour 🤓🤠

Last week after weaning we moved the breeders onto some less recovered, very leafy immature pasture for a few days as it was extra well fenced.

Dad noticed the cows were unsettled, had poor rumen fill, a rough looking coat, and weren’t cleaning the breaks up properly.

The Halter collar data confirmed exactly what he was seeing:
- Grazing dropped
- Rumination fell hard (down into the low 300s)
- Animals were clearly not content

As soon as we moved them back onto more mature, 6-month rested feed, the numbers recovered quickly.Rumination climbed back over 420 minutes and the mob settled down again.

It was a good reminder that pasture maturity (not just quantity or “greenness”) has a big impact on how the cattle feel and perform.

The behaviour data from the collars confirmed all of our visual observations.

25/07/2026

Anyone else observing blackberry die back with grazing pressure only?

21/07/2026

Day four of weaning/training with Halter collars.
As you can see all the animals are very content.
We are have been yard weaning days 1-3 with lucerne silage. Today they we given access to a small grass break and a little crushed lupins.

18/07/2026

C'monnn! Moving these boys over our rocky hills couldn't be much easier 😁

We have 2 mobs with very different production goals running in 1 paddock with our Halter collars.

The 2 mobs are:
Bulls - grass only efficiency.
Steers - maximum daily gains.

To increase daily gains of the steers we have a lick feeder in the paddock with crushed lupins. The steers are allowed to access that area of the paddock, but the bulls aren't. This way we only pay to supplement the steers while the bulls need to prove themselves on grass only.

Simple but effective 🤠
Map in comments.

18/07/2026

Yard weaning and collar training for with our Halter vitrual fence collars.

We wean inside the yards, with the virtual fence boundary just inside the yard rails. This way the weaners can test the virtual fence, learn the audio cues and progress out into the paddock asap.

We have been doing some pretty cool things with priority animals being able to receive extra nutrition while the rest of the mob continues to graze non selectively.

29/06/2026

With the implementation of Halter virtual fencing collars, we have been able to move from a single daily shift at 10am to four times a day.

By shifting later in the day (10am, 1pm, 4pm & 7pm), we’re trying to better align grazing with when pasture sugar levels are highest. So that we can harvest more energy from every hectare grazed.

The early data is really positive. Our breeder mob have averaged +0.8 kg/day over the past 14 days (Optiweigh data), which is really outstanding for us especially in mid-winter.
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Curious whether others have seen similar responses when adjusting move timing around diurnal pasture energy patterns.