Ashvale Jerseys stud owners Rodney and Jocelyn Dobson held their final annual yearling bull sale last year, ending about 20 years of on-farm auctions in Gropers Bush.
The average sale price at the auctions were regularly the highest for any breed of dairy bull in New Zealand.
The first option to buy his pedigree cows was given to his son and daughter-in-law, Mark and Ashleigh Dobson, who sharemilked on the family farm and leased the herd.
Mark and Ashleigh bought about 250 of the Ashvale cows and bought a pedigree Jersey herd from Greenbrae stud owners Greg and Carolyn Alexander in Inglewood, Taranaki.
Rodney was born and raised in Inglewood.
The Greenbrae herd arrived in the South for the start of the season last year.
"They travelled well," Rodney said.
Mark and Ashleigh launched Maple Fern Jerseys and will hold their inaugural bull sale, offering 52 fully recorded Jersey bulls, on-farm in Gropers Bush on September 30.
The stud name was a nod to Ashleigh originally hailing from Canada and Mark being a New Zealander.
Ashleigh got her New Zealand citizenship last week.
She said she and her husband were grateful for the opportunities they had been given to launch Maple Fern Jerseys stud from the foundations of Ashvale Jerseys and Greenbrae.
"It's a very big deal to take on the legacy of those who came before and we are humbled to have been entrusted cows from the Dobson and Alexander farming families."
The bulls on offer at Maple Fern Jerseys would feature genetics from Ashvale Jerseys and Greenbrae.
Rodney said he had kept 10 Ashvale Jersey cows for himself for "sentimental reasons" and had nine calves on the ground.
He would offer a bull at the Maple Fern Jerseys sale.
"I still have my Ashvale stud and they’ll have an Ashvale prefix."
About 400 Ashvale cows and heifers were sold to Phil Garaway and Olivia Gunn, who milk cows on Brooklands Dairies near Winton.
"I think it was the ideal result. I couldn’t have found a better place for them to go," Rodney said.
Mr Garaway and Ms Gunn once worked for his late brother John Dobson and were considered family.
Selling his cows and heifers to someone he knew provided him the peace of mind they would be looked after.
"I know they are on a good farm and they are good farmers and the cows will get every opportunity there, that they got here."
Rodney considered himself retired "but I still get jobs to do".
He and Jocelyn recently spent six weeks in Scandinavia and attended a Jersey conference in Denmark, toured Norway and visited a rose convention in Sweden.
His uncle started the Ashvale herd about a century ago and launched the Ashvale Jerseys stud in the 1930s.
Mr Dobson bought his first pedigree cow in 1971.
Rodney and Jocelyn Dobson moved to Southland in 1993, after dairy farming on the Hauraki Plains.
"Shifting to Southland was the best farming move we ever made. We came down when the conversions first started and we got in at the bottom end and we could have never achieved in the North Island what we achieved here," Rodney said.
