Herd Manager

🐄 Come Grow With Us – Dairy Farmer / Assistant Manager | Waikato

Looking for more than just your next job?

We are a Welsh family who, 10 seasons ago, made the move to New Zealand to chase a dream of building a successful dairy farming business in the mighty Waikato.

Fast forward to today and we are farming 1,100 spring-calving cows across three neighbouring farms, and we're still growing, learning and having plenty of fun along the way.

We're now looking for the right person to join our team — not just someone to fill a position, but someone we can invest in, develop and hopefully have as part of our farming journey for the next few years and beyond.

If you're ambitious, enjoy farming and want to build your skills, take on more responsibility and progress your career, we'd love to hear from you.

🐄 The Opportunity

You'll be working on one of our 700-cow dairy farms, as part of our wider three-farm operation.

This role would suit someone who has at least 2 years' dairy farming experience and is ready for their next step.

You don't need to be the finished product. In fact, we'd prefer someone with the right attitude, work ethic and willingness to learn who we can help develop into a confident leader and manager.

As you grow, so will your responsibilities.

You'll have the opportunity to learn how we operate a larger-scale dairy business, be involved in decision-making and develop your leadership and people-management skills.

We want to give the right person the opportunity to progress with us rather than simply move on to their next job.

We Want to Invest in You....

We genuinely believe that good people are one of the biggest assets in a farming business.

We'll support you to develop your skills through:

- On-farm training and mentoring

- ITO courses and further education

- NZ Dairy Industry Awards

- Increasing responsibility as your confidence and skills grow

- Being involved in key farm decisions

- Learning across our three-farm operation

- Support from experienced and approachable employers

If you want to become a better farmer, a better leader and eventually take on more responsibility, we'll back you.

We're looking for someone who can see themselves settling into our team, becoming part of the wider business and growing alongside us over the next few seasons.

👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 What Are We Like?

We're a family-run business, and we want our farms to feel like a good place to work.

We work hard, expect high standards and take the business seriously — but we're also a family who enjoys having a laugh, a bit of banter and enjoying what we do.

We value people who:

- Communicate openly

- Look out for their teammates

- Take pride in their work

- Care about cows and animal welfare

- Are willing to have a go

- Ask questions and want to learn

- Take responsibility rather than waiting to be told everything

- Can have a laugh and enjoy being part of a team

Our Farming System

We are a pasture-based, spring-calving operation.

Our season runs roughly:

July–September: Calving and getting cows settled

October–December: Mating and herd management

January–April: Summer management, pasture utilisation, maintenance and weed control

May: Drying off and preparing for the next season

We milk across three neighbouring farms and currently have 700 cows on the farm associated with this position.

There are three houses on the property. We won't be living on this particular farm as we oversee the wider three-farm operation, but that means you'll have plenty of support around you and regular contact with us and the wider management team.

📍 A Pretty Good Place to Live!

The farm is only around 5 minutes from The Base in Hamilton, so you get the best of both worlds — proper Waikato dairy farming while being close to shops, restaurants, gyms, entertainment and everything Hamilton has to offer.

And if you're new to New Zealand, we're happy to help you settle in and get to know the area.

👤 Is This You?

We're looking for someone with:

- At least 2 years' dairy farming experience

- A genuine interest in progressing within the dairy industry

- Good communication and people skills

- The ability to work independently and as part of a team

- Good organisation and attention to detail

- A strong focus on animal welfare

- The confidence to make decisions

- Good physical fitness

- The ability to operate and maintain farm machinery

- A positive, can-do attitude

- A willingness to learn and take on more responsibility

Most importantly, we're looking for the person behind the CV.

Experience is important, but attitude, reliability, honesty and a willingness to learn will go a long way with us.

What We Can Offer You

- Competitive salary based on experience

- On-farm accommodation

- A great Waikato location

- A supportive family farming business

- Genuine career progression

- Training and development opportunities

- Support with ITO qualifications

- Opportunities to enter the NZ Dairy Industry Awards

- Increasing responsibility as you develop

- The opportunity to work across a growing three-farm business

- A friendly team environment with plenty of laughs along the way

🐄 We're Looking for Our Next Long-Term Team Member

We're not looking for someone for one season and then onto the next job.

We're looking for someone we can get to know, invest in and grow with.

Someone who wants to build their confidence, develop their leadership skills, take on more responsibility and hopefully look back in a few years and see how far they've come.

If that sounds like you, we'd really like to hear from you.

📧 Get in Touch

Send us your CV and a little bit about yourself — we'd much rather hear about you than just read a list of jobs you've had.

Marc & Nia Jones

📧 [email protected]

And feel free to Google Marc and Nia Jones and have a look at what we've been up to over the last few years. 😀

Come and join us, grow with us and be part of the next chapter of our farming journey.