After nearly 30 years dairy farming in the South, Tim and Katy Button are calling time on milking cows to transition to an easier life.
The couple will auction about 140 of their Anglo stud herd, a mix of cows, in-calf heifers and calves, mostly Holstein Friesian, either black and white or red, across two consecutive days next week.
The rest of the stud herd to be offered were Ayrshires and Brown Swiss breeds.
Mr Button said the sale would be emotional, as the cows had helped them achieve farm ownership in Port Molyneux, near Kaka Point in the Catlins.
Mrs Button agreed.
"It will be hard but it will be harder putting them on the truck."
The Buttons would move off-farm to live near their 200ha property, making way for 50/50 sharemilking partners Matt and Ella King to start in June.
Mr Button said they were looking forward to helping the next generation into dairy farming.
The Kings were contract milking in Clydevale at present.
Mr Button said he and his wife had been fortunate to receive guidance from mentors during their career.
"Now we’re in a position to help others get started and grow within the industry."
Mrs Button said they were able to buy a half-share in the farm after entering an equity partnership with Hans and Liz van der Linden in 2002.
"This has been our baby since 2002."
The Buttons had other equity partners between then and buying the farm outright in 2016.
More than 400 cows were milked when it was an equity partnership but the milking herd size was reduced when they bought the farm and could diversify the business to include more beef cattle.
A batch of scones with jam and home-made clotted cream served in the farmhouse signals the origins of Mrs Button.
"I grew up in Somerset, the home of clotted cream."
The Buttons met at an agricultural show in England, she was showing sheep and he was showing beef cattle.
"Neither of us come from a dairy background," Mrs Button said.
Before meeting his future wife, Mr Button had been on a working holiday in New Zealand in the 1980s, preparing beef cattle for shows.
After the pair met, he shared stories of his enjoyable time in New Zealand.
The couple packed their belongings in a metal trunk and travelled to New Zealand.
Before leaving England, they secured work as dairy assistants, via fax, on Big Sky farm in Maniototo and started in September 1996.
A fax had smeared a digit of the herd size and they incorrectly believed they would be helping milk a herd of 400 cows, rather than 1400 cows.
The timing of their arrival on Big Sky coincided with calving.
"It was a baptism by fire," Mrs Button said.
The next season the couple went contract milking with a 250-cow herd in Paretai, South Otago.
She recalled how financially tough the first winter was when there was no milk revenue and a need to buy a motorbike and calf-rearing gear.
"Once you are in the cycle you are away but to get going was quite a mission."
The next career step was contract milking 500 cows in Greenvale, West Otago, which required employing staff, buying a tractor and feed out wagon.
They then went sharemilking in Morton Mains, Southland and bought about 200 cows, mostly Holstein Friesian.
The breed was "big and strong" and it had plenty of potential to put a beef breed over it to create another revenue stream by selling beef calves, Mrs Button said.
During their two season in Morton Mains, they met the van der Lindens.
"He was a great sounding board."
It was important to be able to enjoy the company and be able to share a meal with anyone you had made an investment with, she said.
"If you can’t get on, it ain’t going to work."
The Buttons registered the Anglo stud in 2001.
Stud breeding objectives include a strong emphasis on udder quality.
The herd had proven itself to maintain a consistently low somatic cell count and to have reliable performance under variable conditions.
During the wind event in October last year, the back of a calving shed blew out.
Football players from a club in Balclutha rallied to fix the shed and clear fallen trees, some which had blocked lanes and killed livestock.
During a flood in October 2024, a kayak was needed to get between their home and their 40-aside herringbone milking shed.
About half of the herd needed to be evacuated.
"We were cut off, we were an island."
The Buttons had two children, Josh, 28, and Lorna, 26, who had both forged careers outside dairy farming.
She felt fortunate with the timing of the move to their farm because the children had not yet started school.
Often the children of dairy farmers need to move schools between seasons, usually in the middle of their school year.
Their children were able to stay at the same schools.
"We built our lives here."
The plan next season was to run beef cattle on their new property and continue the stud until all of the Anglo herd was sold.
They would find ways to spend their time now they did not have to milk cows, Mr Button said.
"Katy likes her cavalcading and I like my hiking and now I won’t have to do the Routeburn or the Kepler in a day."
An open day for the sale was on between 10am and 2pm on Tuesday next week.
Bidding opens on online platform Bidr at 7pm on May 6 and 7.
"It’s a nervous time but exciting," Mrs Button said.
