Dairy farm with extensive building infrastructure
A Northland dairy farm operating one of the biggest milking sheds in the province and in turn producing some of the highest milk outputs is on the market.
The 538.6ha farm, at Kauri, some
13km north of Whangarei, has been milking 1050 cows. The herd produced 499,632kg of milk solids in the
2017/18 season and is forecast to produce 500,000kg in 2019/2020. The Kauri farm’s milk supply is contracted to Fonterra.
The property consists of some 200 flat contoured paddocks, most of which are in rye/clover pasture on loamy peat soil. The paddocks run off a netwotk of 20km of races to the milking shed. All fencing is electric.
The freehold, Apotu Rd property is being marketed for sale by tender through Bayleys Whangarei, with tenders closing at 2pm on November 28. Salespeople Tracy Dalzell and Lin Norris said the property had three access points for vehicles — one off Apotu Rd and two off Crane Rd.
“Water is drawn from a spring via an easement and gravity fed to a pair of 25,000-litre storage tanks before being pumped to paddocks and the milking shed,” Dalzell said. “Effluent from the dairy shed and the feed pads flows directly into a 175,000-litre holding tank and is either pumped directly on to pasture or to a separate
90-day storage facility. “Supplementary feeds are between 800 and 1200 tonnes of palm kernel, 200 tonnes of corn gluten feed, and 100 tonnes of molasses. “This is in addition to up to 1300 tonnes of maize grown on the farm, with further summer feed coming from grass silage harvested off 60ha of dedicated pasture.”
Infrastructure on the property includes:
• A semi-automated 80-bail rotary milking shed with cooling tanks installed in 2012, three-way drafting system, and in-shed feeding line
• Two feed pads with a combined capacity for 550 animals
• A covered rearing facility for up to 180 calves
• Six-bay and four-bay sheds
• Barns for both feed, stock, and equipment storage, and
• Fertiliser bins and silos. Norris said the farm is operated by five full-time staff, with additional workers brought in during calving season, and it winters up to 1100 cows.
Residential dwellings on the property consist of:
• A two-storey, four-bedroom/twobathroom homestead with a flat lawn area to the front and mature bush to the rear
• A three-bedroom manager’s home with its own self-contained studio unit, and
• A pair of single-bedroom worker’s units built side by side in
2007.