Thursday, March 28, 2024

Formidable farm package

Avatar photo
Five interlinked Southland farms milking a total 3600 cows to produce 1,483,250 million kilograms milksolids are now for sale as its owner plans his next venture near Lake Ohau.
Reading Time: 2 minutes

Kees Zeestraten originally bought two established dairy farms at Otapiri, northeast of Winton, then added another three neighbouring farms that he converted to dairying and reconfigured to work together.

Today, the five farms cover 1206ha, with four blocks milking 800 cows and the fifth milking 400 cows on a reasonably low-input system that includes feeding on the shoulders of the season, winter wheat for silage, and fodder beet for the cows coming home after wintering.

Numerous sharemilkers have farmed the separate units in the past and now two of Zeestraten's sons are operations managers for the entire operation.

"We've been running it as five different units under one umbrella," he said. "The way it is set up, everything is interlinked, so that means it can be sold as one block or five individual blocks.

"In the past five years we've done quite a bit of regrassing and some of the soils needed work to up the nutrients and drainage, so it's getting to a nice robust level. There's still potential with some fine tuning."

The majority of the cows have been wintered at the 7000ha Ohau property that the family now intend to develop for dairying. Springers return to Southland where they calve in a huge central calving barn housing 400 cows, before heading to one of the five farms.

Around 400 good empties and late calvers remain on the property during winter and are milked for a winter milk contract, though Zeestraten said the main reason was to retain good cows in the system rather than lose them.

Philip Ryan from Southern Wide Real Estate said the five-unit property was one of the largest dairy farms interlinked in Southland, with just one underpass needed to work them together.

"It's a formidable cluster of five farms," he said.

"The 800-cow units employ three staff each and that's the most efficient way to run farms. He's running the largest units he can with the least number of staff."

Eleven homes are scattered around the five units and numerous bores supply water for stock and dairies. The three converted farms each have a well-appointed 60-bail rotary dairy in the centre of the farm, while one of the original dairy farms also has a 60-bail rotary and the other has a 50-aside herringbone.

The five units will be offered for sale as one property by tender with a closing date of December 10.

Zeestraten said the family would concentrate on relocating and growing the business at Ohau and intended to spend two years planning the venture. The completed development, which he expected to take about 10 years, would include three farms producing one million kilograms milksolids each.

"It will be all staged and we want to do it very carefully," he said.

For further information on the five Southland farms, contact Ryan on 03 218 2795 or 0274 325 770.

Total
0
Shares
People are also reading