Now Strathallan Station operates a once-a-day milking programme, producing 254,567kg of milk solids and feeding 800 calves (20,000 milk solids) in the 2018/19 season.
The property ranges between 40m to 240m above sea level and has a man-made 1800sq m reservoir from where water is filtered and pumped to a 30,000-litre holding tank before being treated through a dosatron dispenser and circulated to tanks and large troughs.
Apart from rainwater, a natural well supplies four dwellings on the property.
"The farm is consented to run up to 1100 cows," says Bousfield. "Stock production records show Strathallan Station reared 800 calves. Of the 400 heifer calves, 200 were exported, predominantly to Asia; while the 400 bull calves were sold at various ages. Two hundred cows and 100 bulls went to meat processing works.
"The property has consent to take on an additional 100 cows under its split-milking permutation," Bousfield says.
Farm building infrastructure on the Waipaoa property consists of:
• a fully automated 54-bail Westfalia rotary milking shed built in 2010 for two herds of 500 cows each on a once-a-day basis;
• a large nine-bay calf-rearing and implement storage shed;
• a dormant 264sq m six-stand woolshed next to 302sq m of covered yards suitable for handling calves;
• an effluent treatment pond consented to handle excrement from more than 1000 cows; with a pumping plant spreading the byproduct across lower paddocks;
• an additional pair of workshops and high-stud implement storage sheds;
• about 1000sq m of feed bunkers and concreted feed pad for feeding out brought-in vegetable waste - like a tomato/squash mix; and
• a five-tonne silo with built-in auger for an in-shed feed system for which local kibbled maize is readily available.
Accommodation on the property consists of the following four residential dwellings for four full-time staff:
• a six-bedroom/two-bathroom homestead with recreational amenities including a swimming pool and concrete tennis court;
• a three-bedroom manager's home with a separate two-bedroom sleep-out; and
• a pair of three-bedroom Lockwood staff homes.
Bolton-Riley says the property's topography is mostly of rolling paddocks and easy hill country near 40ha of flat land, sustaining an effective milking area of 700ha.
He says Strathallan Station has been subdivided into 218 paddocks as part of the dairying conversion, with larger paddocks separated by conventional post and batten fencing and smaller ones by electric fencing.
All the paddocks are accessed by well-maintained stock movement lanes.
Strathallan Station is fully contained with 2000 cattle, including the milking cows, wintered on the farm.
