Summary
Chris and Sam dive into the world of teat spraying technology with Matt and Trevor from Wetit at the Fieldays event.
We learn why teat hygiene is crucial for dairy cows, how automation is changing the cowshed, and what makes Wetit’s solutions unique after 30 years in the industry. There’s chat about field days antics, technician woes, and even a random fart song from Spotify.
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Show Transcript
This transcript was generated by an AI and may not be 100% accurate. If you have questions about any of the information found here, please reach out to us.
Chris [00:00:21]:
All right, so longtime listener Quentin Weber has put us onto the WETIT guys and they’re just absolutely dying to talk to us about whether at field days today. And I don’t know their name, so I’m gonna get them to introduce themselves. So what’s your name? Matt. Matt and Trevor. Matt and Trevor. Okay. So Quentin told me, he says, oh yeah, no, if you’re going in, we got some clients where WETIT . Great.
Chris [00:00:53]:
You should go and talk to them. Okay. All right. He gave us the, the number. We didn’t know what WETIT was. And I’m like, is that a house? You know, washing houses, you know, soft wash houses. Like I don’t know anything about, but it might be better if you put two teas in the middle and it’s WETIT . Cuz it’s a teat spraying technology.
Chris [00:01:14]:
So.
Chris [00:01:17]:
So Matt’s going to tell me what teats sp spraying technology is. Remembering you’re talking to a, a townie that knows absolute crap.
Matt [00:01:24]:
That’s me too though. I’m a townie. That is, that’s basically automation for your cow shed. Sprays the cows so you don’t have to pretty much it saves time in the shed. It’ll, it’ll do the job for you really. It’s just, just makes life easier.
Chris [00:01:41]:
So that, how do they, how does that work? Do they walk over it and it’s spraying up like a sprinkler system or does it stop at some point? How, how does that work?
Matt [00:01:51]:
Well, there’s a lot of variations. Depends on your shed setup. If you’ve got an exit race one, then, yep, they’ll walk over, it’ll track the cow through just for speed and then spray the cow as it passes over it. There’s rotary mounted ones with like wand arms that’ll shoot underneath the cow. We’ve got fixed point sprayers that’ll mount to your bridge and spray the cow from behind in a static position. So it’s all, there’s, there’s a, a spray for every, every sort of situation that you can think of really.
Chris [00:02:24]:
And so you guys just focus on the spray aspect of it. Yeah. Okay, so there’s so many questions. So there’s a lot to do with the cow shed thing. Like there’s the, the milking side is obviously it, I guess. I’ve got two main questions. One, why is spraying important? And two, what are the other things. So I’m gonna, what I’m gonna do is I’m gonna ask you why spraying is important and then I’m gonna ask you, and you can think about the other question, about where this fits in the ecosystem of all the other cow stuff there and what makes you different.
Chris [00:03:04]:
All right? So Matt, why is it important?
Matt [00:03:07]:
Well, if you think about it, the cows are getting cupped every day. Their teats are getting in absolute hiding. You need to kill the bacteria that accumulates on them from walking around in all the shit and the mud and all that sort of thing. And you need to keep them in good nick so they’re nice and soft, they’re not getting flogged from the cups too much. And that’s the general purpose of it. Teat condition and hygiene.
Chris [00:03:33]:
Okay, that makes sense to me. Even the townie got that. Sweet. Okay, so what makes Weddit different and how does the Weddit fit into the bigger ecosystem of cowshed technology?
Trevor [00:03:46]:
Wedit is different in terms of Weddit’s been around for over 30 years and we have a solution for every shed type. We do it for dairy cows, we do it for goats, it can be done for any animal that milks. So we believe we’re really unique in that way and we’ve been in the industry long or longer than anyone else. Now farmers have a lot of things they’ve got to deal with, but teat spraying is one of the suite of things that they look to for maintaining the health of the cow, productivity of the cow, and hence also how much milk the cow’s producing and the quality of that milk. So, and all farmers are incentivized by their dairy company for the quality of their milk. So doing teat spraying is definitely contributes to that quality of milk.
Chris [00:04:35]:
Cool. So there’s a bottom line benefit there. That’s well said. I like that. Really good. How has field days now? I’ve got to say, you’re a little bit tucked away in the corner here. So I want to ask, so you, I want to know, how long have you been going to field days and how’s field days been treating you this year?
Trevor [00:04:56]:
Oh, field Day’s been 10 years plus. We’ve been coming here like always in the same location nearly. We’re well known. Farmers know where to find us, they know where we are. This year has been an interesting one. Wednesday was a really busy day. There was a lot of activity Thursday, but the weather was fine. Today the weather’s not quite so good and quite a different mix of customers out There today we see them walking past, you see a different grouping of people.
Trevor [00:05:29]:
So we’ve had some good interest today, a little quieter and some of our key customers who deal with us all the time have been in for a chat that always like to keep in touch with us and how things are going. We get both New Zealand and international. WETIT is a company, we export all around the world and we even. And we have a subsidiary business in the USA itself. And so we do teat sprays, but we also do another product which is a hoof count, which is a foot bath for cows. Keep your. Keep the foot rod away and treat the cow every day as they. Basically the cows get a foot bath.
Chris [00:06:05]:
Nice. Oh, okay now but that makes sense cuz that’s, that’s all about getting your livestock and keeping it in good shape. Okay, so it’s interesting. So we are recording this on the Thursday. So Friday and Saturday are typically bigger days in general in terms of foot traffic. I don’t know if that’s true for farming foot traffic, but it’s definitely true for footage. And actually that’s why we come in on Thursday to do our recordings because Wednesday everybody’s so busy setting up that they don’t have time to talk to you. Thursday is the quietest day we find for doing interviews, to be fair.
Chris [00:06:40]:
And then Friday and Saturday should pick up. So hopefully, hopefully you’ll get a little bit more pickup coming up. But it sounds like you’re more interested in the existing customers coming back than the finding new people.
Trevor [00:06:55]:
No, no, I wouldn’t say that. We’re always looking for new customers, definitely. But we really focus on the lifecycle of our products. So where our systems are that were sold 20 years ago are still in place, still functioning, and we still support those systems and we have a team that goes around servicing those systems. But also some of, some of those systems are getting a little old now, so they might be looking for an upgrade so we can give, we can tail and make a solution that will fit their system.
Chris [00:07:24]:
Yeah, that’s a good point. Those systems can last a long time because we’re still on Cal 1.0. So you don’t have to update, update them. The Kales aren’t. Haven’t got wheels now, so we can still use that stuff, but it’s good. All right, so I’m going to ask you, Matt, anything else about your experience with field days and how it’s going this time and any good stories you might have from the previous field days.
Matt [00:07:52]:
Lucky for me, this is the first one, I’ve had to actually sit here and talk to people. I’m normally set up, pack down guy. So yeah, this is way out of my comfort zone. But it’s been good though. We’ve been heaps of chats and caught up with heaps of the guys that I’m normally working in their sheds. So I’ve copped a bit of grief for sitting here in the, in the dry air, you know, like a sales rep. But now as far as yarns, I mean, there’s always something going on. I, I try to just stay here, stay out of the limelight, you know.
Matt [00:08:20]:
But yeah, you probably got a few more yarns from other people out there than you’ll get from me, man.
Chris [00:08:25]:
To be, to be fair, yeah, no, that’s good. But I got to say, as a technician, it’s got to be good to actually talk to the customers, like often. I, I don’t know what it’s like in your industry. I know I’ve done sales in the past and where it’s like the sales people say one thing and then the, what you can actually do is like, yeah, technically that’s possible, but you don’t want to do that.
Matt [00:08:51]:
We call that the sail and bail, eh? Yeah. As from a technician’s point of view, that’s the sail and bail. Then they leave us holding the tools going, right, we better, better make it work.
Chris [00:09:01]:
Yeah. And so I think it’s a good idea to have technicians actually on these exhibit stands for all sorts of industries. All right, we’re going to get you to do our little random question. So pick two out of there and have a read of them yourself and I’ll get you to pick two out of there, have a quick read. Now each of you are going to pick one of your questions. So one, if one’s a dud, you pick your favorite one, then you’re gonna read out the question and give me your answer. So I’ll give you a second. I haven’t even seen them.
Chris [00:09:35]:
Sam sorted all these out, so they’ve all been a surprise to me so far. Alright, Matt, you got one you picked or how you going? Have you got one?
Trevor [00:09:43]:
Yep. So my question I’ve chosen is if you could teleport anywhere right now, where would you go?
Matt [00:09:50]:
Climb that one.
Trevor [00:09:52]:
I’ve got that one. I would teleport to St Moritz to watch an Eric Clapton concert.
Chris [00:10:00]:
Oh, that’s very specific, very timely. I, I, I like that. I, I would be just, I would have been more generically the pub, but okay. All right, Matt, what do we got here?
Matt [00:10:12]:
What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud? Probably when I got home last night after a full on day out here and the kids played me this random fart song I think on Spotify. Called me way off guard. Hey. Yeah, I was just almost wet myself, man. It was. It was hard case.
Chris [00:10:29]:
How old are your kids?
Matt [00:10:30]:
The twins are 9 and teenagers. 16.
Chris [00:10:33]:
So perfect. Perfect fart age.
Matt [00:10:37]:
It’s all about fart jokes. So it’s good for me. I’m into it.
Chris [00:10:41]:
Okay. So if people want to find out more about WETIT , they can go to wetit.co nz. That’s w e t I t co nz or ring 0800 493 848. Wet it. Anything else you guys would like to add to that?
Trevor [00:10:56]:
Don’t be shy, don’t hang back. We will do everything possible to get a solution for you.
Matt [00:11:05]:
Not everything br.
Chris [00:11:07]:
Almost everything. Almost anything.
Trevor [00:11:09]:
I might promise things.
Chris [00:11:13]:
All right, thanks very much guys. Appreciate it.
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