After more than half a century in the same family, Maxi Moo is for sale, with the option to buy as three separate blocks or one large-scale dairy unit.
Stewart Anderson and his wife, Dr Bronwyn Goldrick, converted half the Papakaio farm to dairying in the late 80s and casually called it Moo Farm. When they converted the remaining half as a second unit they called the combined property Maxi Moo Farms.
Last season the farm produced 451,056kg milksolids (MS), 1478kgs MS/ha, and this season it has a target of 468,769kg MS from 305ha effective, 1534kg MS/ha.
Over the years the farm has been run by various sharemilkers and Ian Moore from Farmlands Real Estate said Anderson had always been keen to give young people in the industry the chance to get ahead.
Retirement now beckons and Moore said that presented an opportunity for a new owner to crank production up to another level.
"It's got all the key ingredients – flat, location and the way it's set up," he said. "The cows don't have far to walk, the lanes are wonderful and it has cheap, safe water."
Papakaio was renowned for its good soils laid over stone and grew quality grass for milk production with reliable water from the Lower Waitaki Company.
Just down the road is the award-winning Riverstone Kitchen for a break from the challenges of dairy farming, while Oamaru and all it has to offer is just 16km away.
"They built a lovely home about 15 years ago and Dr Goldrick had her own onfarm doctor's surgery there, with people travelling out from town to see her."
That's known as the homestead block, with 9.3ha surrounding the home, while Moo 1 encompasses 163ha and Moo 2 has 151ha. It meant there were options to buy Moo 1 or Moo 2 individually or the entire Maxi Moo Farms, Moore said.
The entire farm is rectangular and surrounded by roads, with quality internal lanes leading to the two dairies and 70 paddocks.
Irrigation is the key to dairying in North Otago and a combination of border dykes, pivot, K-line and RotoRainer cover the farm. Between the two dairy units, 185ha is irrigated with pivots, K-line and RotoRainer, with another 107ha irrigated from border dykes. Last year irrigation cost $58 a hectare and totalled $18,700, with a water right to 320ha.
"It's got two lovely pivots with plenty of safe, secure river shares at a low cost."
Effluent adds more water as well as nutrients and irrigated onto 136ha via pivot and RotoRainer, with a 750,000 litre storage tank on Moo 2.
As a combined operation, about 10% was regrassed annually in the past seven years and some balage is made from surplus grass. The main bought-in supplement is fine-chop grass silage and that amounted to 650 tonnes of drymatter last year which was stored on a rock-based pad. Molasses is fed out in one of the dairies, with 120t of grain and this year a small amount of palm kernel in troughs.
Each unit has its own dairy, with a 40-bail rotary on Moo 1 fitted with Nu-pulse plant and a grain and molasses feeding system, while Moo 2 has a 50-bail rotary fitted with Read plant and auto flood wash.
Four houses are distributed around Maxi Moo Farms and foremost is the two-storied architecturally-designed homestead with office that was built in 1994. Moo 2 has a seven-year-old four-bedroom brick home as well as a four-bedroom roughcast home, while Moo 1 has a three-bedroom roughcast home built about 1986.
Among the farm buildings on the farm is a large six-stand woolshed and covered yards used for calf rearing, and a new three-bay 18m by 9m shed near one of the dairies with a lock-up section.
"It's pretty hard to criticise anything on the farm," Moore said. "It's already created quite a bit of interest."
Maxi Moo Farms has a deadline sale date of February 12. It can be viewed at www.farmlandsrealestate.co.nz ID WA1254. For further information contact Moore on 027 539 8152.
