We dried off all cows on the farm in mid-May, marking the end of the 2024-2025 season.

The new milking year involves a bit more work as I take on a new farm as a contract milker, meaning that as well as managing a completely new farm, I now also provide all labour and machinery.

To do this, I operate a separate business from that of the farm owner and I get paid a set amount per kg of milk solids the farm produces.

This is different from sharemilking, which would imply I own a certain number of cows in the herd and get a share of the milk cheque. Long-term, the goal will be to sharemilk this farm once I can build up enough equity.

The end of May involved moving 12 trailer loads of furniture and equipment up to the new farm, which worked out to be a 115km round trip through the middle of the Canterbury Plains. The new farm is located further inland from my old farm and higher up, as we’re on the edge of the foothills. It sits about 320m above sea level, which is an increase of 200m compared to where I was closer to the coast. This brings with it a slightly shorter growing season, depending on the spring.

This farm has recently been purchased by my farm owner, so it will be the first season the company has operated it. It will also mean we need to train all 1,200 cows to walk onto the new rotary this spring – but I’ll try not to think about that until then.

Deep end

This next step into a contract milking role is definitely a leap into the deep end, but a necessary step in the right direction.

The move is made slightly less daunting by the fact that all my staff from the old farm moved up with me, making life a lot easier. These relationships were certainly tested when we all helped each other move house over a period of around two days.

Currently, we’re well into the first month on the new farm and have no major incidents to report – just an ever-increasing list of jobs. The main aim is to get the farm set up to make life as easy as possible come spring. Grass on the farm is looking good at the minute, with a closing cover of 2,250kg DM/ha, which I aim to increase by 400 to 500kg over winter.