Well located support farm placed on the market for sale

A sheep and beef run-off block used for supporting one of the North Island’s biggest livestock breeding and finishing operations has been placed on the market for sale.

Atahua Station is a 545-hectare farm located at 447 Pukeatua Road some 11 kilometres south of Dannevirke. The property is used as a support grazing block for
Lagoon Hill Station near Martinborough.

The Atahua Station property is being marketed for sale by tender through Bayleys, with tenders closing at 4pm on November 16 Bayleys Havelock North. Salespeople Tony Rasmussen and Vic Ellingham said Atahua Station was a well balanced farm with a mixture of contour, soil and aspect, fenced into approximately 48 paddocks – serviced by a central laneway, with water provided from two reticulation systems.

“A thorough fertiliser history has allowed young stock grazing on Atahua Station to be rapidly grown out to return to Lagoon Hill Station or finished to good weights to a nearby meat processing plant,” Mr Rasmussen said.

“The topography of Atahua Station consists of approximately 64 hectares of flat and easy contour, with the balance in medium and steep. The strong soil types are predominantly Kumeroa sandy loam, Purimu and Kourarau silt loams over a mainly limestone base on the hills and Takapau heavy silt loam on the flats.

Stock records show that in January this year Atahua Station took on 4000 ewe lambs and lambed them as hoggets at 85 percent. Some 2,500 lambs killed at an average 18.5 kilogram carcass weight. Meanwhile, the property took on some 125 weaner heifers from Lagoon Hill over April and May, calved them as first calvers and key return to Lagoon Hill as three year olds.

“The previous owners ran Atahua Station as a stand-alone breeding and finishing operation and wintered over 10 stock units to the hectare (between 4,800 – 5,000 sheep and between 280 – 350 cattle),” Mr Rasmussen said.

Building Infrastructure at Atahua Station consists of:
• A four-stand woolshed with night pen capable of holding up to 800 sheep
• A four-bay implement shed/workshop with concrete flooring and separate petrol and diesel storage tanks
• Two implement sheds/workshops
• Two hay sheds
• Cattle yards
and
• Five satellite sheep yards – some of which are adjacent to established trees for the provision of shelter

Accommodation on the farm consist of a refurbished five-bedroom/two bathroom two-storey residence with its own tennis court and swimming pool. Mr Rasmussen said Atahua Station also contained 6.7-hectares of three-year-old tended pinus radiata plantings.

Mr Rasmussen said Atahua Station was relatively square shaped, and had eight paddocks with direct access to Pukeatua Road.

“The farm’s buildings are all located near that main road, while a hard-metaled laneway runs 2.3 kilometres through the middle of the black to provide good vehicle access and stock movement. Metal rock for the laneway is quarried from a well-dug pit near the front of the property,” he said.

Two pump irrigation systems provide water across Atahua Station – with one drawing water from a bore, and the other sourcing water from a stream. Water from both systems is pumped to storage tanks on the property and then gravity- fed to troughs.

Mr Rasmussen said any potential buyer of the Pukeatua Road farm would have the option of purchasing some breeding sheep from the Lagoon Hill Station.

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