What We Do
White River Dairies are a dairy farm operating in West Otago, New Zealand.
We produce quality nutritional milk for Mataura Valley Milk. Sustainability is at the core of everything we do - for our business, the land, environment, our cows, and our staff.
The Farm
White River Dairies is a farm located between Tapanui and Heriot townships, in West Otago, New Zealand. At the base of a wide valley, our land is of a flat contour. Rainfall averages 800-850mm pa, so we are lucky, we don't require water irrigation.
The farm consists of 184ha milking platform (171 effective) with a 42 ha support block for cropping and silage; and 96ha grass block for wintering and young stock.
We operate a 50 Bale Rotary cowshed with Protrack Vantage drafting gate and herd management system. For milking, we have a De Lavel plant and Milfos variable pulsators with automatic cup removers.
Cows are wintered either on a woodchip loafing pad with self-feed silage, or, on fodder beet and hay. We have a 600 cow capacity covered feed pad with rubber matting. Plus, there's a calving pad with head bail, adjacent our calf sheds with hot water available.
In the paddocks, we grow rye grass / clover based permanent pasture and crop fodder beet, turnips and barley (whole crop silage), making us a self-sufficient operation.
Take a look around White River Dairies farm in this short video
At White River Dairies we're always keen to hear from people with a passion for cows, are enthusiastic to learn, and want to be the best farmer they can be.
