Cow Power Farm

08/06/2021

https://youtu.be/mLblB04UfUo

Trials and tribulations of compressing biogas, had to film this over several days due to set backs and no time due to work but, we got there in the end. I ap...

11/07/2020

An East Coast community is reeling after landfill breach.

11/07/2020

Water monitoring (and monitoring of fenced restoration of local streams/rivers), land run off and soil quality monitoring, and animal welfare monitoring.

Oh, and transparent results from the monitoring --- and farmers held responsible where necessary and fix all issues accordingly. Especially around methane.

Doesn't sound like too much to ask, right..? 🤯🤩

Fresh farm animal abuse comments surface, animal rights supporters want an independent watchdog with more teeth than MPI.

02/07/2020

NZ govt ignores expert advice, of course. We obviously very much need a new management structure if China is doing better with river quality.

Of course they will ignore the huge elephant in the room (METHANE) and decry intensive stocking rates as the future of farming. Unfortunately, that's called Factory Farming, even on a large scale with dairy farms. And the poor condition the pastures are run to is paid for by our rivers, our waters, I say "our" but will anyone take responsibility for this mess??

At Cow Power, we strive to keep our cows happy and healthy, but MORE IMPORTANTLY all of our rivers and streams within our paddocks have been fenced off and slowly replanted. And we don't just aim for perfection within our four boundary lines.

We want to hold the standard of water quality to sensitively high, so the govt can call on farmers to DO THE RIGHT THING, then enforce that when they don't bother, then enforce really expensive fines so they consider bothering.

Every year wasted, those idiots still trying to throw ferts into conventional farming do more and more damage to our waterways. Is it really up to only a few loud voices and a non functional government position to try and make a change?

New Zealand’s government has been praised for 

14/06/2020

Starting planning on food supply containers and found this cool video!

In light of recent events transpiring around the world, its now more important than ever before to have an disaster preparedness...

07/06/2020

Getting into 18650, not for DIY builds yet, but it is on the horizon! I'm looking at buying and testing them. But each 3.7v cell gets charged and discharged 7x to see if it can perform well. Interestingly the discharge would be a whole lot more fun off grid but I don't have enough torches yet!!

After having a friend ask several questions regarding a solar generator project he was working on, I decided this would be a good opportunity to build my own...

15/05/2020

Someone suggested eating less red meat. Smart, until you keep reading and they realise if it's only methane we can breed it out of them. Is this REALLY the way they plan to tackle methane worldwide?!? Geez.

Or we look really carefully at how many cows are being bred. And stop breeding them. Full stop. Cows or their waste DO NOT HAVE TO BE WASTE PRODUCTS. Ever.

In a sanctuary, ideally the cows have enough training to be halter led and safe to handle in what the cow considers a more stressful environment with children and adults around. Their poo is collected into a biogas digester which creates enough methane for the sanctuary's LPG needs. The slurry is then sold as a value added byproduct - liquid organic fertilizer.

Cow guts are quite the factory. Grass goes in, microbes help break it down and make hydrogen, then other microbes start converting it to another gas. In

14/05/2020

How fun! I like that he hasn't changed the creek flow at all. Working symbiotically with natural systems always works out better than the alternatives!

Old washing machines have given Marty Todd free power for 12 years - he shares his genius.

11/05/2020

Paddock rotation explained, for regenerative grazing. NOT including proper water access - a yucky pond! That would get trampled down too fast. Best to use troughs.

With any grazing program it is essential to not graze plants that have not been allowed to grow back from the previous grazing. Come to our spring grazing sc...

11/05/2020

THIS IS AMAZING

Is "natural sequence farming" the secret to restoring our water-starved continent? For more than a decade, two farmers have shown that parched landscapes can...

10/05/2020

I've just read three articles on how farmers will tackle methane in NZ. Basically going to try and breed it out. I'm sorry but no. That isn't a human responsible system.

Here we have a RESOURCE that is not only useful but in plenty of supply AND we will be changing the history of NZ farming. Vietnamese government funds pay for pig farmers to build their own methane generator, so they can use clean fuel to burn instead of rubbish.

Through rewards based training, proper fencing and feed designs, as well as strip grazing, the cows get fresh poo free pastures daily, all poo goes to the biogas generator.

I'm also considering a smaller 50L slurry system for human and dog poo, just so I can say all waste is properly dealt with. This will be dug into the ground as the overflow of this system won't be used as liquid fertilizer for food crops like the main system will do.

New Zealand's government has released a bill that sets targets to bring long-lived greenhouse gases to net zero by 2050 and reduce emissions of the shorter-lived methane by 10% within a decade.