Peter and Marianne Muller farm 231 hectares near Otorohanga in the King Country where they milk between 680 and 700 cows.

Peter always felt rotary was the way to go.

Peter and Marianne run the property, which Peter's parents originally bought when he was just eight years old, with the assistance of two farm labourers. Apart from a few years sharemilking at another farm in his youth, he has been there ever since. The farm was originally about 65 hectares but over the last four years Peter and Marianne purchased the farm next door and another across the road.
The couple share their home with six children aged from 10 months to nine years and Marianne has another five from a previous marriage. The eldest of those helped with their sharemilking last season.
Stop and start
Last year Peter and Marianne came to the realisation that they were going to have to spend some money on fixing one of their two older herringbone sheds.
'We had to spend money on the old shed and it was a matter of where do you stop and where do you start, so we decided to build new and do it that way,” says Peter.
The couple chose to build a rotary shed despite quite a few people suggesting otherwise to them, but Peter and Marianne felt that as they were going to be milking around 700 cows to start with and possibly more later on, a rotary was the best solution for them.

Choosing the main contractor was no problem for them. Peter has known Peter Gray all his life and Dairy Tech, the locally based firm that he and his wife Diane own, already had a fine reputation from the many sheds they have built around the area.
The Mullers have chosen a standard shed; one that is not maximum hi-tech. Apart from the computerisation of the milking machine and the water system, which are standard these days, they have no other computers running the shed.
They haven't had a full season with their new shed yet, and so far it has been a bit of a learning curve. Peter reckons by October 2009 he will have had a good chance to assess how much he has gained from the new shed.
Extensions
Three years ago Peter and Marianne bought the next door property and part of the build involved putting in new races and an underpass. Their effluent system had to be extended and they also put in a new feed pad.
'So now we're just like everybody else – growing our debt,” quips Peter. 'Now over the next few years we've just got to make sure we can pay for it all.”

Milk & Pump Systems installed the milking plant for Peter and Marianne. Manager Patrick Haden says it was a special customised set of components that he put together for the shed.
'Not all of it was our product; some was from other suppliers.
In this case, Peter and Marianne had chosen the plant they wanted, and we matched it all together for them and installed it.”
The system includes what Patrick describes as a ‘quite automated' C200 autowash unit, which enables the wash to be set up and left to do its thing and Patrick installed MPC130 cup removers.
'We don't ever insist on all our components being used; we are more than happy to work with what our customers want,” says Patrick.
'This job was an excellent job for us. Peter and Marianne were great to deal with and we have worked with dairy Tech before and we are always happy to work with them.”

Numat Industries from Oamaru supplied the rubber matting that was installed in the Muller dairy shed. To date the Agrimat has been installed at the entry area of the bails, but the Mullers are so impressed with it they are now getting it installed at the exit as well.
Dairy Tech was the lead contractor for the job. Peter and Diane Gray were responsible for the overall design and build of the shed and they saw to it that the project ran as smoothly as possible with good communications between each of the sub-contractors.
Milking plant was supplied by WestfaliaSurge.