Merv Hicks: Eltham Man Turns Milking Around

Cow psychology led an Eltham man to mastermind one of New Zealand's great farming inventions – the turnstile rotary milking platform. Back in 1967, a dairy inspector gave Merv Hicks two years to replace his old four-bail walk-through milking shed on his Taranaki farm.

At the time, Merv was in a New Zealand Dairy Board discussion group with 11 other members. Part of their job was to visit farms, where they would look at improvements and hear ideas. "Most had upgraded their sheds to herringbones" he says. "I listened to these chaps over several years and you could hear the problems they had in training the cows – some couldn't get them used to their sheds, although the herringbone system was a big improvement on the walk-through."

But Merv had a gut feeling about that system. "There was something wrong and I didn't know what it was." Then it came to him – the individual needs of cows. "How can I keep these cows separate in a herringbone shed?"

Merv decided that was impossible, so his mind began turning over possibilities. "These were just idle thoughts and I thought of some sort of a square platform with five bails on each side of the square. They could walk out that fifth bail." With mind chugging like a milk pump, Merv realised, "To revolve a square is ridiculous! There are too many problems with that, especially lining up to an exit. You can't have cows stepping over gaps. I could see all sorts of strange problems. So it became a circle."

The next poser was how to get the cows on and off a round, rotating milking platform. "One thing these herringbone chaps said is 'don't bring your cows in on an angle – it becomes a block'." So Merv decided the cows had to walk straight into the separate bails on the platform. But how did they get off?

The answer came in the cold months, when he was milking his two winter cows to supply the household. "That was standard practice by pretty much all farmers back then." These cows would be led into the shed, milked and then put back in the paddock they came from. To do this, they had to walk backwards out of the bail. "Within a day they knew what to do. I thought 'crikey dick, if we walk these cows on, perhaps they'll back off'. That was the real breakthrough" Merv says. "Up to then, it was a just a series of thoughts ticking over while I was milking, or doing farm work. After that, it was full on – I couldn't get rid of the thought."

He faced problem after problem, solving each one with logic. His blueprint included a fixed breech rail to keep the cows in place. He had to work out how to get the milk on and off the platform. "Our original turnstile had a turret in the middle." This contained the vacuum and milk pumps, and other machinery for the rotary dairy, including a rotary electric power gland. "That was designed by a chap in the engineering department at the Taranaki Electric Power Board," Merv says of the latter apparatus.

For help with the structural side of the cowshed, he called on old school friend Tom Hotter, also an engineer. "Naturally, I went to him with this drawing to see what it would cost. He gave me a figure of $3000, which was very acceptable." Tom designed the specifications, including the platform substructure and its rollers. Armed with his plans, Merv went back to the dairy inspector who had condemned the old milking shed. "I said what about a rotary turnstile instead of a herringbone?"

The inspector steered him towards the Ministry of Agriculture and the plan got a tentative tick – with provisos. The platform was to be tested for 12 months and a sign had to be put up saying the turnstile had yet to be officially approved. "This was to stop these things springing up all over the country," he says. "We started construction after the hay was in, in 1969."

On 2 September that year, the platform began rolling. "We were still working in the old walk through, so we gave them a couple of rides on the platform." The cows seemed to enjoy their joy rides and quickly adapted to walking on and backing off the slowly rotating platform. "They learnt to back-off in a day."

Finally, Merv began milking on the turnstile. "After three or four days I said to my wife, 'There's something happening – these cows have gone very quiet'." Even the ornery beasts weren't creating trouble. "We would have spent the next 12 months figuring it out," says Merv.

During that time, the dairy was inundated with fascinated visitors. One woman talked about how animals born in a litter were comfortable touching others, but those born individually didn't like contact. The answer to the calmness query came down to animal psychology. "In a yard they are squashed up and as soon as they walk on that bail, they become an individual," he says.

Merv reckons that's why the brown-eyed bovines were so keen to get on the platform and became so quiet. They just needed their own personal space. "All the cows were facing the centre and left alone. I've even seen a cow play up and the rest couldn't care less."

He also discovered that when attaching the teat suction cups by reaching between the back legs, the animal was less likely to kick out. "I learnt a lot about cows … they are a lot more intelligent than I gave them credit for."

They even learnt to step backwards off a moving platform. "In the beginning, it used to stop and start. Now its rotation is constant." The rotation speed has a control so it can be changed to suit the season. The average time to milk a cow is about eight minutes, but it takes longer in the flush (start of November) and less time in the autumn.

Merv's invention followed the circle of life for that testing year and at the end of it, the dairy division of the Ministry of Agriculture gave it a big tick. By 1971, the turnstile rotary dairy was given full approval.

Slowly, the rotary system began to spread. "We built five the first year. One went to the Ruakura Animal Research Station in Hamilton. They said 'We have got to have one of those'."

Eventually, Merv lost count. "I used to keep a record of all these platforms. I got up to over 1000 and I stopped counting then." But he did see them built in the United Kingdom, the United States, South Africa and Australia. As they caught on, they also got bigger. The first turnstile was built for 14 cows, while new structures were built for 17, then 22 and up to 36. "This was all in the first few years," he says. "Then it went up to 60-cow platforms and I said 'That's it, we aren't going any bigger' … but they have gone bigger now. I believe there are a couple of 100-cow platforms – someone always has to be the biggest." Merv believes two smaller, contra-rotating platforms would be more efficient at catering for the biggest herds.

But the truth is his say holds no sway anymore. That's because, in 1990, Merv sold all the turnstile patents to dairy technology giant Alfa Laval Agri (now DeLaval). "I was a one-man band and I had been at it for 20 years," he explains.

He also hadn't earned a great deal from his business operations. "We didn't charge enough for our facilities. We made a small profit, but the big thing was when we sold it in the finish. We did something strange with that money – we bought a kiwifruit orchard in Tauranga. That was the real reward for what we did. It's a nice lifestyle here."

Don't be surprised if ideas for some new-fangled kiwifruit packing or picking machine begin spilling from Merv's mind. For an inventor's mind is constantly turning, churning – just like a turnstile rotary platform. At the Dairy Awards national finals in New Plymouth on June 12, 2004, Merv's invention won him a Lifetime Achievement Award for his contribution to dairying.