The Isla Bank dairy farm milks 450 cows at the peak of the season and is targeting 205,000kg MS this year from its largely Ayrshire herd.
“It’s a very attractive farm in one of the prime districts of farming in Southland and just 20 minutes from Invercargill,” Wayne Clarke from Southern Wide Real Estate said. “It’s a great place to live.”
The farm spreads out over flat to rolling contour that is split into 50 paddocks flanking the 50-bail rotary dairy with Protrack auto drafting, automatic cup removers and an in-dairy molasses feed system.
The silage feedpad adjoining the dairy is designed for 450 cows and flows into the farm’s effluent system which consists of two weeping walls with a central pump, a 90-day storage pond and hydrants in the paddock supplying the effluent to pods.
“Cows feed on the concrete feedpad when they leave the dairy and it’s a very efficient way of feeding them. And in wet weather the cows have somewhere to go without turning the paddocks to custard.”
Supplements are usually made on the farm, including grass silage, with molasses purchased in spring and autumn. This season 90 tonnes of dried distillers’ grain was used until the end of mating. This year the farm has 15ha of whole crop barley undersown with Shogun and white clover, with the balance in permanent pasture.
Three homes are set up on the farm, including the main house built in 2005 with a brick exterior, a second extensively modernised three-bedroom house and a third older, weatherboard three-bedroom house.
For further information contact Clarke on 03 218 2795 or 0274 325 768. The farm can be viewed at www.southernwide.co.nz.
