About 3m of rain falls through the year on Cavelands which spreads out over 478ha of mixed contour ranging from flat and rolling to steeper rounded hills.
On a dairy platform of 210ha, 550 cows are milked at the peak of the season with potential to expand the platform further over rolling country.
Gary Scott from PGG Wrightson Real Estate in Masterton said about 100 cows were wintered off the property, with the remainder of the herd and young stock retained on the farm.
“They winter about 1000 head of dairy cattle and make all the supplements to winter them including silage and rape.”
In the past five years the entire property has been regrassed, as well as Italian-type annual grasses undersown over the entire milking platform each year. Eighty-seven paddocks subdivide the milking platform, opening to a laneway system leading to a 30-aside herringbone dairy and a concrete feedpad for 400 cows.
Solids from the feedpad are scraped and dispersed to paddocks while liquids enter the farm effluent disposal system via a weeping wall.
Plenty of calf sheds, an implement shed and several store sheds provide ample cover for farm management, while owners and staff have three houses for accommodation.
“All the hard work has been done here and that leaves the fine tuning which we believe is where the real growth will emerge,” Scott said. “The boundaries of the milking platform can be extended and it will be up to the new owner if they wish to push the milking contour.”
Scott said there was also the possibility of buying the neighbouring property on the northern boundary which was a 100ha former dairy farm on near-flat land.
“The rainfall is well spread out so Cavelands can really grow grass and we pretty much call it summer safe – they even had feed left during last year’s drought.”
Cavelands is being offered for sale by tender, closing March 19. For further details contact Scott on 027 484 4933 or Mark Bunny on 027 479 3320.
