While they have their own specialty areas, this overview of the business means they can jump into any job when either one of them needs a break or is unwell.
They credit this working cross-over for helping them be named the Canterbury-North Otago Share Farmers of the Year.
Now this will be put to the test when they line up among the regional finalists for the Dairy Industry Awards national final at Mount Maunganui on May 10.
The Lismore couple are contract milking 1450 cows at DDL Partnership’s 420ha property.
Mr Grabham said they both picked up on each other’s roles with little communication.
"We work really well as a team and when we first started this contract job we sat down to work out what our strengths were.
"I always wanted to have my strengths across the whole lot, but we worked out that wasn’t going to work so we worked out what I was best at and Nikita was best at.
"We can both do each other’s role, but we specialise in particular areas."
They get time off individually and together as they had a second-in-charge who fitted into this equation, he said.
His specialty area lies in pasture management alongside the overall running of the farm, particularly maintenance and organising bought feed, rotations and winter feed.
Ms Baker looks after animal health and is in charge of buying carry-over cows — other farmers’ empty cows which are then mated — as they rear beef calves rather than herd replacements.
This involves retagging and putting electronic collars on the newcomers and she normally selects cows for mating and raises the calves.
On top of this she does the wages and accounts.
The herd is milked twice every three days for two-thirds of the season and twice a day from May to August and the "carry-overs" once a day over winter.
Most of them range from 3 to 5 years old, ideally 500kg with Kiwi Cross Friesian bloodlines.
They took on the contract milking role on January 2022 and this played into their hands as the first payment on February 15 landed five days before their first bills arrived.
"We only needed $40,000 in cash and a little bit of hire purchase for the bikes to get started," Mr Grabham said.
"The $40,000 was for paying staff and buying a few wet weathers and that basically meant we weren’t in a deficit from the get-go, which financially created a lot of opportunity for us."
Among challenges they navigated were recruiting staff after the Covid-19 pandemic and experiencing high inflation rates during their first year of contract milking.
Their plan is to start buying cows when prices come back and get into lower order sharemilking and then 50-50 sharemilking.
In the meantime, they are doing their homework leading up to the national finals.
"We are talking to as many people as we can, like corresponding with our bank manager and a couple of consultants, and just fine-tuning all of the feedback," Mr Grabham said.
He started working on a neighbour’s farm in the weekends as a 13-year-old, while she was raised on a dairy farm and graduated with a science degree in biology at university.
Ms Baker was a finalist in the 2019 Dairy Trainee category.
She said the awards had helped them set personal and business goals and pushed them to take on new challenges.
The couple won $9500 in prizes plus three merit awards for sustainable pasture, people and culture and animal wellbeing, recording and productivity
Runners-up were Becs and Josh Dondertman who are contract milking on Terrace Farm Holdings Ltd’s 272ha Dunsandel property, milking 1100 cows.
Third was Martynas Sinkus, a contract milker at Dairy Holdings Ltd’s 179ha, 650-cow farm at Waimate.
The other major winners were George Dodson, who was named the region’s Dairy Manager of the Year, and Caleb Smith the Dairy Trainee of the Year.
After finishing second in the same category last year and winning the Young Farmer of the Year award last year, Mr Dodson, 23, won $6500 in prizes plus three merit awards.
He is a farm manager on Andrew and Hayley Slater’s 113ha, 440-cow property at Darfield.
Hororata farm manager Lauren McConnachie, 34, was second and Ashburton farm manager Kuljeet Singh third.
Mr Smith, 23, won $6500 in prizes and one merit award in the trainee section.
The first-time entrant works on Matt and Julie Ross’ 266ha, 950-cow Duntroon property.
The 23-year-old grew up on a dairy farm north of Whangarei and in 2021, joined forces with Tony Dodunski, Mark Greenside and Lochie O’Sullivan to begin an agricultural recruitment business called Ag Assist, helping farmers who needed casual or part-time workers.
Runner-up was Kate Schuurmans, who is second-in-charge on Athol New’s 356ha 1350-cow farm at Mayfield, and third was Thomas Coates, from Ashburton.
