Providing accessible, affordable water systems to cattle producers is the goal for Derek Verhalst.
“We’ve been doing it for 35 years,” said the CEO of Kelln Solar.
Kelln Solar is a remote watering system company based out of Lumsden, Sask. While the company was originally created for the agricultural industry, they have expanded into work for cabins, lighting and small power solutions.
Verhalst said Kelln uses solar to power their products so they can be used anywhere.
“The price of getting power to a dugout, either doing it yourself or doing it through Sask Power… it’s cost prohibitive, and solar, it’s easy to set up easy to maintain,” he said.
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Kelln Solar has two different lines of products – their winter water systems and summer water systems, designed for seasons outside of winter. In each line, there are many different products – submersible pump systems, a 500-gallon mobile trough and motion-controlled winter watering bowls.
Verhalst says producers who are considering which system to purchase should look at the needs of their own operation first.
“We pride ourselves in putting the producers in the right solution. So, what’s your water source? How many animals? How much lift do you have?” Verhalst says. “Then we’re sizing the system for what they need, instead of saying, ‘Oh, here’s a system that might work for you, or that will work,’ but it’s going to provide either way too much water costing them more money than they need it to, or it’s not going to provide enough water because we didn’t get enough details about their farm.”
Verhalst says they make sure they always have someone available to answer the phone and help producers troubleshoot whatever is wrong with their system.
“We’ll try and troubleshoot over the phone as much as possible before we ask you to send it in for repair,” Verhalst said. “We’ve got an extensive dealer network across Western Canada of primarily ranchers who use our products, sell our products and service our products, who are out there soliciting feedback and bringing it back to us. So our offerings continue to evolve to meet our producer’s needs.”
