Meet Alice
Alice originally from England immigrated to NZ in 2004 with her parents and brother. Growing up on sheep, beef and cropping farms Alice has always been eager to have a career involved in the agricultural sector.
Alice holds a Masters in Hydrology from the University of Otago. Her masters focused on fog deposition on snow tussock grasslands and the ability of fog to sustain soil moisture during drought. This has made her a lover of all things fog – making the Waikato the perfect place to live! Alice has also gone on to complete the Advanced Nutrient Management course at Massey.
Alice works off farm at Waikato Regional Council as a Senior Catchment Management Officer. In this role, she works with farmers to provide information and advice on environmental best practice and helps facilitate restoration projects.
Meet Dave
Dave holds a Bachelor of Commerce in Agriculture majoring in Rural Valuation. After Lincoln University, Dave worked for Dairy NZ over a period of five years, before traveling around the world and working on dairy farms in England.
Dave came home to the family farm in 2013.
In the last couple of years in conjunction with the home farm, Dave has taken on a role off farm as an Operations Manager overseeing three, 640 cow farms in the greater Waikato area.
He is also heavily involved in other industry roles such as a trustee of SMASH (small milk and supply herds) and sits on their national committee.
About our dairy farm
We milk 430 X-breed cows on 124ha of rolling ash country. Ivondale Farm is owned in equity between ourselves and Dave’s parents Phill and Deb.
Phill and Deb have owned the property for 32 years.
We operate a system 5 farm, importing maize and PKE. Supplements are fed on a feed pad. 15ha of chicory is grown on the platform. Chicory is grazed by our calves and the twice a day milking herd over summer. 5ha of maize is also grown on the farm.
Calving starts on the 1st July for our heifers and the 10th July for the rest of the herd. Every cow only gets milked once a day for her first 2 weeks of lactation before going twice a day. However because we have two herds and a long walk to the back of the farm we do keep 180-220 of our cows milking OAD for the entire season.
Our farming principals include a focus on utilising pasture first, maintaining well fed cows and always striving to sustain a high standard of cow comfort and animal health.
Articles about us
From Country Life, RNZ.
A Waikato farming couple will be hanging up their tennis racquets this year after transforming the farm's tennis court into a native plant nursery. READ MORE
Contact
P. 021 523 385
E. thenativedairyfarmer@hotmail.com
Te Awamutu - Otorohanga
Waikato, New Zealand