Cope family to sell Gippsland dairy farm, at Fish Creek for $15m-plus

A South Gippsland dairy farm has been listed for sale with offers expected to reach more than $38,000 a hectare.

Building a showpiece dairying property from scratch inside 14 years is a tall order, but that’s precisely what the Cope family has achieved in South Gippsland’s rolling hills.

A premier dairy farm located 15 minutes from Fish Creek, Tallagandra, is home to lifelong dairy farmer Graeme Cope, wife Jenny, son Shaun and daughter-in-law Sharna and their three young boys.

But now the 408ha farm has been listed for sale, with offers tipped to reach more than $15 million.

The farm is for private sale with Nutrien Harcourts and Leongatha/Alex Scott and Staff selling agents expecting offers of at least $38,918 a hectare.

The Cope family left their 100ha farm at Middle Tarwin for Fish Creek in 2008, building all shedding from the ground up and working to improve soil biology in their 60 paddocks.

“Instead of superphosphate, we use Petrik microbes annually along with sulfate of potash, urea, sulfate of ammonia, lime and pig manure,” Graeme said.

The Fish Creek dairy, Tallagandra, is currently milking 800 cows.

“We’ve renovated all the pastures since we’ve been here, with one main catchment dam of 15ML supplying the dairy thanks to an electric pump filling troughs via a two-inch pipeline.

“There are solar pumps on two other dams, plus three seasonal creeks running through the property towards the Bald Hill wetlands.

“We’re currently milking 800 cows, mostly Friesians with smaller proportions of Jerseys and crossbreds, producing 6.5 million litres and 480,000kg milk solids annually.

“We calve twice a year, March 1 and August 1, for roughly 400 calves each time, rearing for replacements and export heifers grazed on turnout blocks.

There are two homes, one fully renovated with three bedrooms and the other, with four bedrooms, less than five years old, both equipped with double garages and generous rainwater storage.

The 50-stand rotary dairy includes an 800-cow yard, 30,000-litre vat, auto-feed and auto-draft systems, undercover AI race/crush, office and lunch room, cup removers and automatic teat spray.

Other farm infrastructure comprises large feed pads with Geohex flooring and undercover calving area, two calf sheds, two four-bay machinery sheds, five hay sheds, the main yards, two additional sets of yards and four silos.

There are also three installations of solar panels – 100kW at the dairy and 13kW at each house, plus two home battery storage systems – with a 200kVa back-up generator at the dairy.

Soils on the property are sandy loams, with extensive laneway systems and shelter belts in place.

Graeme is a member of Landcare and has fenced off creeks for safekeeping.

“I’d estimate there’d be 40ha under trees, mostly along the creek lines,” he said.

Graeme and Jenny are planning to retire and hope to do some travelling.

Earlier this year a property development company listed their premier West Gippsland dairy aggregation after almost two decades in charge with offers of more than $18m tipped for the aggregation as a whole.