Taupiri, Waikato
Ten years, six jobs, 3,750 square metres
800 cows at Taupiri, North Waikato, and rubber matting that has spread from the feed pad to the yard, the exit race and the calf sheds since 2016.
Plenty of farms try rubber matting once and see how it goes. Areare Farms has bought it six separate times. Phil, Jackie, Brian and Jenna milk 800 cows twice a day at the end of Howard Road, Taupiri.
The first job went down in March 2016. The most recent went down in March 2025. Ten years apart, same supplier, same herd walking on it.
Jenna walks us through ten years of matting at Areare Farms
Case Stats
800 cows
twice-a-day milking
3,750 sqm
of rubber matting laid in total
Zero wear
reported on the original matting
Record production
on the farm’s last season
Ten years
between the first install and the most recent
Second season
on the yard at the time of filming
6 separate jobs
between 2016 and 2025
Taupiri, North Waikato
on the Waikato River
Numat has been matting Areare Farms since 2016. 1,493 square metres went down on the covered feed pad that year, then another 1,490 square metres across two installs in 2018. In 2025, they added 730 square metres on the yard and exit areas.
Between the jobs, rubber now covers the feed pad, the cow yard, the exit race, the weigh scale area, the calf sheds, and the horse stable floor.
Where it started:
the covered feed pad, 2016
The Rogers family needed a floor for their covered feed pad that could take 800 cows and a loaded mixer wagon without breaking down. They went with 25 mm rubber over bare concrete. Roughly 1,493 square metres of it, laid in one go.
The problem that brought them back:
smooth, ageing concrete
Concrete does not stay grippy forever. With 800 cows crossing it twice a day, the yard polished off and turned slippery, worse again in the wet. That is not just a cow problem. Anyone walking the yard in gumboots knows it too.
“Particularly with the concrete getting older and things like that, it does get naturally slippery with how many cows we have on it.”
The reason underneath it all:
animal welfare
Lame cows cost twice. Production drops, then the treatment bill arrives on top. The Rogers family runs the welfare case as a straight business case, because on a high-producing herd the two are the same thing.
“Cows are high-producing animals. Looking after their welfare is our ultimate concern, and everything starts and stops with the cows on the farm.”.
“When you’ve got cows that are lame and not feeling 100 percent, the production is going to be less, and then obviously the treatment that goes with lameness depending on the problem. It all costs and everything adds up.”
Building it out, one area at a time
The matting did not go down in one hit. It spread as the family watched it work. 2017 brought a top-up and a fitting callout, three men for nine hours on the feed pad. 2018 brought two more installs, 840 square metres and 650 square metres. 2019 added a small 27 square metre patch. Then in 2025 came the biggest single job on the farm: 730 square metres cut to fit the yard, the exit race and the weigh scale area, with another 10 square metres topped up that March.
The durability test:
800 cows, every day, for ten years
This is the part that decides a repeat purchase. The 2016 matting is still working. Not relaid. Not patched back to life. Still down, under the same herd, ten seasons later.
“It doesn’t wear out. It hasn’t worn out at all. We’ve got 800 cows going over the areas and we just need that longevity, and it gives us that.”
What changed on the yard
Second season with matting on the yard, and the difference showed up in the cows and in the crew. The farm also recorded its best production season on the books, though Jenna is careful not to hang that on the matting alone.
“It’s just made a huge difference to lameness in the cows on the yard. It’s just so much nicer for the cows and for us ourselves walking on the yard as well, so yeah, it’s made a big difference.”
“If a cow goes down or something like that, it’s just a lot easier. We don’t actually have that anymore. We don’t have that problem.”
The honest bit: would they do it again?
Every farmer reading this is running the same maths. Price against payback, disruption against downtime. The Rogers family has answered it six times with their chequebook, which carries more weight than anything Numat could write here.
“The installation was easy. Making sure that we had the right type of matting because there were a few different types out there. We wanted to make sure that we had that longevity.”
The matting did not stop at the shed. Calf sheds, concrete work areas and the horse stable floor all ended up with rubber underfoot.
Thank you
to the Rogers family
Ten years and 3,750 square metres of trust is not something Numat takes lightly.
Phil, Jackie, Brian and Jenna have come back six times since 2016, from that first feed pad job through to the yard. Repeat business is the only review that really counts.
Thanks also for opening the gate, letting us film through milking and giving us the run of the yard for the day. It made for an honest look at how the matting is holding up under a real herd in real conditions.
From the whole team at Numat, thank you.
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Smooth concrete on the yard or the exit race is a fixable problem.
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