Today marks a very special day for us, 25yrs ago today we moved to our current farm. There's be some big changes since then as well as the highest of highs and the lowest of lows along the way. Farming is character building to say the least but I wouldn't change a thing

We had a farm signed up just out of Riverdale in Southland originally but at the 11th hour it fell through. We then found this piece of dirt we have called home for 25yrs no. ,I've driven past it a few times & thought how different things would have been if we ended up there

We went from milking 180 cows through a 12 ASHB all year round at our old farm at Tisbury,south of invercargill,to milking 300 through a 30 ASHB in the first year at Kelso

Kelso had been a 185ha dairy grazing farm before we converted it ,the lanes we're done with "gravel" dug from the farm in February before we took possession in June. My father & a family friend refenced the whole place with our "mankiller" postdriver and a David Brown 995

We were only the 3rd dairy farm in the district and we paid $1 million for the farm, which was a lot of money back then. "They'll be broke and gone in 5 yrs" the old boys all said at the time. But we're still here...

Our cowshed was built by Waikato Dairy Builders,the crew actually came down from the Waikato. They started In May and lived on site most of the time in a caravan in the hayshed that still is next to the cowshed to this day. The build seemed to take longer than it should have...

The build was so late that we ended up milking 70 heifers on a 2 cows plant in the hayshed. We would start milking at 1pm & get home about 7pm. When the zig zag went in the herringbone, we had the 2 cow plant in a wheelbarrow in the pit &and thought it was heaven!!

It seemed to rain every day from the 10th of June till end of September that first year,the crops of kale were poor & we unintentionally wrecked many ha of grass along the way. Our land doesn't handle heavy stock well in the winter

We lost a LOT of cows that spring. As silly as it sounds,our cows having come from a flat farm, didn't know how to calve on the rolling hills. I remember one cow,a favorite, Rachel, being cast in the rain 1 night. Dad & I had to roll her onto the tractor tray to get her inside

She spent days in the hayshed with us carting feed and water to her, lifting her,etc but to no avail. We had to put her down. That was a very dark day and had us asking ourselves what we had done by making this move!!

Because we went from 180 to 300 cows and you couldn't buy many Ayrshires,we had to buy a few budget cows & the rest of the numbers were made up by leasing some crossbred R2 heifers. The deal was we got the bull calves & any heifer calves went back to the owner of the leased cows

Most of you know my love of machinery & I must say we didn't always have all the gear. We went there in 1995 with a David Brown 995 with a loader,a John Deere 6200,a twin drum UFO mower,3 furrow plough,10ft discs and a Giltrap silage wagon,that was about the sum total of our kit

Some time in the early 200's we extended the 30 ASHB to it's current 40. In 2007 we added 80ha of the neighbors to the farm and as before,we did all the water scheme and fencing ourselves. Cow numbers increased slightly over the years to our current 540-550 herd

We've always been ones to try & have control of as many aspects of daily farming life as possible & we've always operated the "fully self contained" model as much as possible. All young stock,silage, crops have always been done on the "platform" apart from a couple of extremes

After many winters on kale in 2012,we made the big and bold move at the time to sink over $1 million into our freestall barn to get all our cows off the land during winter. Having housed 200 cows in winters since 2005,going the whole hog was a big call & a lot of $$$

But it has definitely been the right move for us as the future of farming constantly changes. In May 2019 we bought 120ha adjacent to the home farm. This has made everything "final" in my opinion,we have the scope to fed all our stock,not just heifers,but rear bulls as well

As we can now rear all our bull calves,we are on the path to zero bobbies. We use slurry from our barn to fertilize the land when & where required. Silage is then made of this land,as well as cereal silage. It's just a continuous circle of adding nutrients & harvesting grass

This has been a small insight into our "journey" over the last 25yrd. Highs & lows,like all farming. If you're having a shit day,stick at it,there will be better days ahead,I can attest to that. I won't be around to see 100yrs unfortunately but hopefully one of our family will

I'd also like to say,we got here through hard work,very hard work and dedication. And our love for the pedigree Ayrshire cow,and later,the pedigree Holstein cow. If not for our love of these cows,we wouldn't be where we are today. Everything we do,we do for them.