Grandfather George Herbert started this farming dynasty in 1875. Doug and Lorraine are third generation with Doug taking over from his Father in 1972 when they were milking 300 cows through 12 bails. Shortly after, Doug built a rather unique 20 bail Rotary. A gate opens in front of the cows and as they reach the exit point, the cow walks forward down a steep ramp, through a tunnel under the platform and out. Now Grant, part of the fourth generation is still milking through this same dairy, only now the farm has grown to 600 cows!

These people epitomise the Kiwi spirit of hard work and instead of complaining they just get on with it. "I had ACR's that didn't work, teat end damage and was looking for any way I could find to speed up milking. I rang Dairymaster who seemed to have the answers. Sure enough everything they told me came true, ACR's worked, no more teat end damage and best of all I took 20 minutes off milking time." comments Grant.

The Herbert's have now installed a Dairymaster fully automated Swiftflo Revolver in order to have the dairy ready for the next generation. The whole family are involved in the farming business with Dougy also working in IT and Danielle currently doing a PhD at Queensland University. In the old parlour it used to take up to 6 hours to milk where now it takes 2 hour and forty minutes to milk in the morning and 2 hours and thirty minutes to milk in the evening. That is taking nearly an hour off the milking time.

Milking is carried out at 4.45am and at 4.00pm with just one person being present for the milking. When we asked Grant why he choose to go with Dairymaster he commented "I tried Dairymaster products in my old dairy and the products did what Dairymaster said they would do, their equipment is reliable, improved milk out, milked faster, and my teat end damage and cup slip disappeared". On the new parlour the Herbert's decided to install Auto ID, Milk Meters, ACR's, Autowasher, Drafting, Sound Messaging, Farm Messenger, Auto Weighing, Diversion line and Feeding linked to production.

When we asked the Herbert's would they recommend Dairymaster to family and friends they replied that they would without hesitation as "Dairymaster are the best", Grant commented "the whole package allows me to control the entire milking process on my own and still enjoy it. Every aspect from the planning to the installation phase of the project was well managed and Dairymaster are always there when I need them".