Hi

Hi all. I have a couple of questions for you all but unsure if I'm in the right place. I currantly rent 10 acres in Ngaruawahia, but like a lot of people the landlord has sold It's been 3 years of fun. Now I'm looking at a new place which is a little bigger. My main question is, do any of you amazing people take on dairy calf rearing for local farmers?? What is the deal? I believe there is a deal at the moment but I don't want to go in blind when it comes to talking. Please help. I need to know if I can make a living and quit my job
Thanks

Welcome.
With farming, everything goes in about a 10 year cycle of about 2 years very profitable, 3 years getting worse, 2 years very unprofitable, 3 years getting better. If you have enough savings to carry you through the bad years then you might break even. Rearing calves is a 12 week job per calf (or less if you are very clever and very lucky) from June to August. After August the Dairy Beef cross calves that dairy farmers don't want as replacements start arriving until end of September. These have to be sold to beef farmers until they get up to killing weight, so are much better if they are steers.
Every farmer will have his own method of obtaining replacement heifers, so "a deal at the moment" will be one of many ways of doing the job. Having a contract to rear the farmers calves for him is perhaps safer than doing the buying and selling of the calves yourself.