The Neighbours Call It The Hilton - 250 Cow Composting Barn, One Year On

Willie and Sally Bosch milk 250 cows at Carterton in the Wairarapa. Their hybrid composting barn was built with Agri Construction and finished in 2025. A year on, it has come through a full season and a first winter, and Willie would build another one tomorrow. We went back on an ordinary winter morning. No open day, no crowd. Just heifers standing in the barn, a ripper parked outside, and Willie answering everything Milan put to him. Full write-up, including the numbers: https://numatagri.co.nz/composting-ba... What he covers in this one is the practical detail farmers keep ringing him about. How deep he rips and why he always does two passes. What the bed looks like a year in. How much sawdust goes back in and when. What the airflow is actually doing. Where the sawdust comes from, and what that means if you farm somewhere it is hard to get. 00:00 The neighbours call it the Hilton 00:22 Why he only feeds one side 01:03 Wintering the heifers 02:05 Easing heifers into the herd 03:20 55 degrees in the bed 03:35 The double rip, and why deep matters 04:50 Woodchip and sawdust after a year 05:30 Feed height and the fourth board 07:01 Ten minutes to rip the barn 07:55 The biggest learning, feed into the cow 09:17 A week of 170mm rain 10:04 The bag of grass seed maths 11:49 Production and cow condition 12:15 The discussion group verdict 13:41 Top up, or dig it all out 14:23 Bedding top-ups and volumes 17:08 The airflow question 18:15 Time off farm, and holiday cover 19:24 Feeding less in the barn 20:43 They will not come out 21:27 Doubling the round in autumn 22:38 How the structure has held up 23:20 What he tells people who ring him 24:07 Growing your own bedding 24:55 Extending the barn 26:04 Two and a half months off 27:15 Autumn herd housing and mastitis 29:12 Airflow and the science 30:41 What the neighbours say 32:43 Calving pulled forward ten days 34:26 Where the barn sits, and the troughs 36:36 What Sally says The parts that surprised him are further in. Calving pulled forward ten days, from 1 August to 20 July, because the weather stopped making the decision for him. A 65 day round through the autumn. A week of around 170mm of rain that he did not think twice about. QUICK FACTS Location: Carterton, Wairarapa Herd size: 250 cows Barn size: 82.8m long x 14m wide, 12m centre plus overhangs Design: Hybrid composting, feed faces both sides, 12m central loafing and compost area Roof: Mono-pitch, 5 degree slope Bed depth: Close to one metre Bed temperature: Around 55 degrees at last measurement Ripping: Every second day this winter, two passes, about 800mm deep, roughly ten minutes Bedding top-ups: Around 200 cubic metres of sawdust a season, in two lots Cost: $350,000 including earthworks, concrete, curtains and feed face Time in use: Finished 2025, one full season and a first winter WHAT WILLIE SAYS ABOUT IT On the compost: ripping it deep is probably the secret. The whole barn steams when he rips through it. On the bag of grass seed everyone tells themselves is cheap: at the end of the season, you use a few bags. On what he tells other farmers: he would do it anytime, and he would build another one. On why the barn is worth having: it is a tool on the system. Numat Construction designs and builds composting barns, feed pads, loafing pads and free stall barns. If you want yours costed properly, starting with your site rather than a catalogue, get in touch. Phone: 0800 686 119 Milan Renton 021 571 203 WhatsApp: +64 21 894 565 Website: https://numatagri.co.nz Previous video, the open day and first season results:    • Composting Barn: Real Results After First ...   Full case study from the open day: https://numatagri.co.nz/composting-ba...