SAVE FIVE

During this period Penny worked in Hawera supermarkets, boarding kennels and a drapery.

“Brad began having issues with unreliable staff, and because I was already milking with him on my days off, I left the drapery to work with him on his parents’ farm,” Penny says.

Two years later, they made the jump to sharemilking and took on a threeyear contract and went 50:50 on a 70ha Manutahi farm milking 200 cows. They leased a 90ha farm at Alton then returned to sharemikling.

“We only stayed there for two of the three years because our current farm came on the market and they let us go so we could purchase it,” Brad says.

“We went through quite a few jobs to get into a position to buy this farm. We were attracted to it because the fouryear-old 34-bail rotary cowshed had ACR, Protrack, walk-over scales, teat sprayers, drafting, and an automatic plant wash system.

“It’s basically a one-person shed, which worked well for us when the kids were young. It meant that one of us could always go to their events while the other ran the farm.”

The farm is a System Three and they have a 45ha runoff 2km away that is primarily used to grow their young stock.

HUNDY ON