Where there’s muck
What some might see as a waste product is absolute gold for gardeners.
By Katherine Robinson. Photos by Lucia Zanmonti
If you’ve ever helped out at shearing or watched sheep being shorn, you’ll know how important it is to separate those daggy bits from the fluffy fleece. The fleece is destined to be woven into fabric or carpets, but what happens to those dags?
“The price of wool is so low that farmers are often told to just throw the dags away,” says Gavin Fair, co-owner/operator of Carterton’s The Dag Man.
And if so, it’s a serious waste of a great product, he says. Based in Norfolk Road, Gavin and Jo Fair turn those unwanted dags into powdered or pelleted sheep manure that will loosen up the most stubborn of clay soils or enrich the sandiest of soils.
Gavin and Jo buy the dags from clients or wool companies around the Wairarapa. Once dry, it goes through a dag crushing machine, separating manure from wool to be made into slow-release pellets or Kinpack powdered sheep manure. One of the beauties of the grey friable powder, says Gavin, is that a small portion of wool fibre is retained. Not only is the soil enriched with nutrients but it also improve moisture retention.
As a crayfisherman working out of Ocean Beach, Gavin bought the dag crushing machine as a moneyspinner for those days when he couldn’t go fishing. “The Dag Man business got busier around the same time as we lost our crayfish quota,” says Jo.
Business has been brisk ever since. “We sell direct – Kinpack is sold through garden centres and some branches of Mitre 10 as far south as the West Coast right up to Waiheke Island.”
“The shorter bits of wool we sell as wool mulch or as a weed mat. When pea hay wasn’t allowed in the Wairarapa it became a substitute. One gardener used it everywhere in last summer’s drought and still managed to grow a good crop of corn,” says Jo.
Adding to The Dag Man’s arsenal of machinery is the Super Sucker. Looking slightly bigger than a washing machine, it has impressive hidden powers. With a 40-metre four inch pipe attached it is able to suck sheep manure that may have been built up over decades from under wool sheds.
“There’s only been one other machine like it in New Zealand, and it was used to suck liquefaction resulting from the Christchurch earthquake.”
“It cleans under the gratings in woolsheds. Manure builds up over the years – in some years it may have been there 60 years. It’s not only important to get rid of it for animal welfare reasons but also for health and safety of shearers and farm workers.”
With so much nutrient-rich gatherings from woolsheds, and an increasing demand from gardeners, horticulturists and viticulturists nationwide, there are plans afoot to turn this rich source of manure into fertiliser.
For more information: www.thedagman.co.nz
