Posted on 2020-03-17 10:13:00
A low cost, ad-lib milk feeding system that warms milk on demand is gaining interest from New Zealand with 150 units being exported this week.
Alan & Gill Dickson of Pyon Products Ltd, based in Canon Pyon near Hereford designed the Heatwave Milk Warmer system with their son James (Mech Eng) after a family dissucsion about feeding cold ad-lib milk in winter months, and how to keep milk intakes when temperatures drop.
With help from the DIT, Pyon Products launched the Heatwave Milk Warmer at the New Zealand Fieldays show at Hamilton in 2017. Demand there has been increasing steadily ever since.
The UK has adopted many great products and systems from New Zealand which has helped our livestock industry, particularly with grazing management. It’s really great to see a UK system being adopted by New Zealand.
The Heatwave system can be used with whole milk or calf milk replacer and is suitable for lambs, calves and goat kids. A cold barrel of milk is positioned outside a pen. When a calf/lamb sucks on a milk bar, the cold milk is sucked along a pipe and through a heat exchanger, which warms the milk to feeding temperature.
Heatwave won the RABDF Livestock Machinery and Equipment Award at The Livestock Event 2015 and has numerous benefits:
Cost effective - One Heatwave unit feeds 30 calves. To feed 100 calves ad lib would be one tenth the cost of a fully computerised milk feeding system with similar results.
Helps labour efficiencies - Removes the need to mix warm milk at specific times of the day. The milk can be stored and fed at any time of the day, freeing up labour.
Welfare friendly - An ad-lib, warm milk feeding system is as close as you get to feeding off mum, making it very welfare friendly.
Maximises intakes - A calf needs around 6 litres of milk a day for maintenance and to grow 700g/day. Calves prefer to drink warm milk, rather than cold. They also don’t need to direct energy towards warming milk in their stomach and can partition it for growth instead.
Aids growth rates - Calves tend to grow quicker on an ad-lib system. For example, a two week old dairy calf taking 8-10 litres a day will achieve a daily live weight gain of about 1kg.
To find out more visit, pyonproducts.com or call the Pyon Products team on, Tel: 01432 830409.
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Press enquires
For press enquiries, please contact Gill Dickson on 01432 830409
Notes for editors
Co-founders of Pyon Products, Gill and Alan Dickson, have a background in dairy farming and calf rearing. They set-up and ran, animal health and nutrition business, Westhope Livestock Supplies for 25 years, before it was acquired by the Wynnstay Group in 2007. The Dicksons worked for Wynnstay for several years, before developing the Heatwave milk warmer as a means of feeding lambs and calves warm, ad-lib milk. After the system won the RABDF Livestock and Equipment Award, they set up Pyon Products to help promote the product. Since then, they have developed other livestock management systems, including Store & Thaw, which can also be used to pasteurize colostrum and also won the RABDF innovation award in 2016.