Hokonui Dairies spreads over 313 hectares 9km from Riversdale and milked 771 cows last year for 300,597kg MS while its best production of 343,000kg MS was achieved in the 2013-14 season. This season it has dropped numbers to 685 cows and aims to lift production per cow while reducing costs, with an estimated target of about 300,000kg MS.
The farm has been owned by an equity partnership for the past eight years and guided by Taranaki consultant Greg O’Byrne from High Performance Farming, with a contract milker in charge of the day-to-day management.
Bill McDonald from PGG Wrightson Real Estate says numerous improvements have been made on the farm under the partnership’s ownership, including a makeover of the 60-bail rotary dairy and improved grass species. About 210ha of the 294 effective hectares have been regrassed in the past few years, predominantly with perennial rye grasses Trojan, One50, Alto and Arrow. Some short-rotation varieties, namely Shogun and Ohau, have also been grown with good success.
Current management is to grow a summer crop for quality summer feed and as part of the regrassing programme. Twenty-one hectares of Tonic plantain was grown last season and another 9.5ha will be grown this summer. Fodder beet is grown as the winter crop, with silage or balage made onfarm for winter feed as well.
The only bought-in supplements on the farm are a small amount of molasses and palm kernel, with 700 tonnes to be fed through this season.
The makeover in the dairy has resulted in a complex that has a Protrack in-dairy feeding system, latest Waikato plant with cup removers, new centre gland and milk line and a circular yard for 700 cows. There’s also a 400-cow loafing pad, a concrete feedpad and a 350sq m covered yards area for rearing calves.
Three weeping walls cater for the dairy and feedpad’s effluent, which is stored in a 4.5 million litre lined holding pond before being irrigated on to pasture by two sets of K-line and one set of uni-pods covering 200ha.
The contract milkers and three other staff are housed in three homes that include a 2009 four-bedroom house, a three-bedroom cottage and an older three-bedroom villa.
The farm is for sale at $10.5 million excluding shares and the herd is also available for sale at valuation. It can be viewed at www.pggwre.co.nz ID#GOR20249.
For further information contact Bill McDonald on 0274 341 928 or Darrell Duncan on 0274 325 767.
