Corner Dairies, as it’s known, is made up of four titles and is for sale at $5.5 million with a further 92ha available for lease and has the potential for a range of dairying options. Most of the farm has been regrassed, the effluent system has had a major upgrade, improvements made to the water system and laneways have been remodelled.
“The property has got some really good potential in it,” Jerome Pitt from For Farms (NZ) said. “They moved it from a high-input farm to become self-contained, so have been slowly increasing the number of cows wintered on and last season wintered all the cows except for the first calvers which returned just before calving.”
The farm lies 12km from Dannevirke, an area known for its reliable rainfall in the lee of the Ruahine Ranges and considered a good dairying location.
Initially the trust milked 680 cows for 216,078kg milksolids in the 2007-2008 season, but dropped numbers back to 530 cows to enable the farm to become self-contained, while continually making improvements.
“It’s an A1 effluent system and they’re just going through the process of upgrading the consent to 800 cows. It’s a fantastic, well-designed system that helps futureproof the farm.”
Effluent passes through a stone trap sump and is pumped to a bulker where the separator press removes the solids and stores it in concrete bunkers to later spread over crop paddocks. The liquid effluent heads to a lined pond with a stirrer before being irrigated onto the farm. One feedpad near the dairy covers 1800m2 and has a flood wash, while a second feedpad beside an older, disused dairy covers 1000m2.
Both grass and oat silage are made on the farm and stored in two bunkers beside the dairy totalling 1400m3, with another two bunkers at the old dairy catering for 1300m3.
Maize silage is bought in, along with palm kernel to feed out when needed through the season. Now that the cows are wintered on the property, fodder beet and green feed oats are grown as a winter crop.
The dairy, which sits between two freehold blocks and the leased block, is a 60-bail rotary with automatic cup removers and was built in 2002 with a 485m2 holding yard.
“The cows flow into the dairy really well. All the infrastructure is there on the farm to take advantage of.”
The upgraded water system also caters for 800 cows, taking water from a 10m deep well and pumping it to two tanks and then through an 80mm PVC pipe to the dairy, house and pump station. From the pump station it heads to the rest of the farm via a dosatron system.
A manager runs the farm with two full-time staff and one part-timer, with accommodation spread between three homes including a three-bedroom main house, a second three-bedroom house and a third house which has three bedrooms plus an extra single room with its own bathroom.
Other facilities on the farm include the old dairy, a calf/hay shed and a large workshop. The farm also has its own metal pit that was used to renew the remodelled lanes around the farm.
For further information on Corner Dairies, contact Pitt on 06 374 4107 or 027 242 2199.
