Moving Day and what it really takes to shift a farm

On Monday 22nd June 2026 Milson Rotary Club member Andrew, gave us a wonderful behind the scenes look at Moving Day, the first of June, when thousands of dairy farmers, sharemilkers, staff and whole herds across New Zealand shift to new farms for the start of the dairy season. It is the industry's big annual relocation of people, cows and equipment, and Andrew had a front row seat, because his son Jacob was right in the middle of it. As Andrew put it, it makes buying, selling and moving house feel like nothing at all.

Jacob had been a farm manager near Opunake, running 100 hectares and 330 cows largely on his own with his wife Katie. This season he decided to bite the bullet, buy his own herd and move to a 50 50 sharemilking arrangement on a much bigger property at Hawera, about half an hour away. The new farm is 300 hectares and will carry around 550 cows, a big enough jump that he has taken on his first full time staff member, and Andrew reckons he may well need another pair of hands before long.

When Jacob told the owner of the Opunake farm what he was planning, the owner, an 85 year old retiree in Christchurch with a serious golf habit and a simulator in his garage, decided to sell up. So the first of June brought a new buyer, a new manager, the old herd leaving and a new herd arriving, all on the same day. There was even a bit of friendly negotiation over how much grass should be left for the incoming cows while the old cows still needed feeding.

Andrew and Lian went over to lend a hand, which mostly meant looking after Jacob's little one, now almost six months old, so the parents could get stuck in. Jacob was lucky enough to get into the new house two days early, which gave them a bit of breathing room. From there he made around five round trips in his tractor, roughly two hours each way, hauling implements, trailers, calf feeders, fencing material, feed and silage, and an unbelievable amount of tools. As Andrew said, the sheer volume of gear on a farm has to be seen to be believed.

At the other end it was just as hectic, with the outgoing worker moving out and the new one moving in on the same single day, trailers and gear everywhere. The two day head start was a real blessing.

The old farm was flat. The new one is hilly as anything, and some paddocks cannot even be reached by vehicle, so Jacob may end up doing parts of it on foot with a dog. The terrain alone changed how he gets around. He has three quad bikes plus a two wheeler, the latter because the cowshed sits a full kilometre from the house, so he can run up and down, dump the bike on the race and walk from there.

Jacob bought 180 cows from the herd already on the farm, then sourced another 180 to 200 from Dargaville, driving up twice to inspect them in person before buying. He chose Dargaville stock deliberately, because those cows were used to hill country and would cope with the new terrain, including the long walk to the shed, with the furthest paddock about three kilometres from the milking shed.

The Dargaville cows arrived on the night of the first in four truck and trailer units, after standing on the trucks for eleven hours. Andrew said it was not a pretty sight as they came off, giddy and unsteady on their feet, and even Jacob found it hard to watch. Each cow was drenched as it came off, at the owner's request, just to be safe. Another 170 or so arrived the next day from a couple of places around Taranaki, bringing the herd up to 550.

The weeks since have been a blur of renumbering the whole herd, reorganising and roping off paddocks, and sorting out power and water issues he had not expected. There are still boxes and boxes stacked in the garage waiting to be unpacked, so Andrew and Lian expect to head back over soon, if only to mind the baby while Jacob and Katie put in their twelve hour days. Sadly there has already been one loss, a cow that slipped off the race and rolled down the hill and had to be put down. As Andrew said, to lose only one in all of that is doing well.

Our thanks to Andrew for such a vivid, honest account of what Moving Day really involves. It gave us all a fresh appreciation for the people, the planning and the sheer hard graft behind the start of every dairy season. We wish Jacob, Katie and the family all the best on the new farm.