Our farm is made up of 250ha effective, mixture of peat flats and rolling clay hills, edging the Hikurangi Swamp. We have a 100ha run off adjacent to the milking platform. The limitations of the farm being the cow shed proximity – it can be a long walk to the shed, and it does get wet, however we have infrastructure in place to manage this, feed pad and effluent system. We are currently operating with 700 cows on a fully autumn calving system, with a 48 bail rotary with ACRs. We have plans to purchase a cropping block and extend to 800 cows within the year. We are a system 4, and crop 60ha of maize per season. Our top production was 388,000kg/ms. With the goal of being 420,000kg/ms+. Listed below in bullet points are key infrastructure, plant and machinery components:
- Weeping wall
- developing racing systems
- Implement shed
- Good calf rearing sheds and trailers
- Silage wagon
- Spreader
- Mixer wagon
- JCB, John Deere 6920, John Deere 6140M, New Holland , 3x Quad bikes, 1x defender can-am
- Flood washed feed pad (400 cows)
- 2 extended effluent ponds, 30ha effluent irrigation with electric pumps and stirrers
- Great relationship with trusted farm advisor Scott Freeman
- 48 bail rotary with ACRs (milktech), milk metres, jantec herd management system and in-shed feed
- Good quality stock water pumped from stoney creek to header tank and gravity fed to farm
Housing: 1x 5 bedroom, 1x3 bedroom, 1x2 bedroom, 1x1 bedroom.
Thanks, Grae and Lou.