Craig's Poultry at Herbert, which at peak production produces up to half a million eggs a week, is being offered as a going concern by PGG Wrightson in Oamaru for $8.1 million.
The Craig family has been involved in poultry farming in North Otago for three generations, or about 40 years, going back to Mr Craig's father, Ivan, who established his business at Maheno, beside State Highway 1.
David and Linda Craig bought the Herbert property about 25 years ago, developing it into a poultry farm.
Mr Craig said the property was on the market because, at age 64, he wanted to retire.
"We've worked seven-day weeks for yonks," he said.
The property consists of the poultry unit and a 276ha arable property in Herbert.
It has a fully automated 80,000-bird poultry unit and all eggs are graded and packaged on the property.
The eggs are distributed to supermarkets and other markets in the South Island from Invercargill to Christchurch.
Mr Craig believes the poultry farm is unique in New Zealand, with feed grain grown, milled and made into mash on site and the eggs freighted in the farm's own fleet of trucks.
Replacement birds are purchased as day-old chicks and raised in a fully insulated rearing shed which has a capacity of 30,000 birds.
Once hens are beyond production, they are killed.
The carcasses are combined with manure from the production sheds which, along with other elements, is made into compost to be spread on the paddocks producing grain.
Real estate agent Laurie Farmer said it was a very successful business which represented an excellent opportunity for an owner-operator or equity partnership to secure a healthy return on investment.
"Production figures from the business show gross farm income highly favourable to even the best performing dairy unit of comparable value," he said.
The business was well established and had an excellent reputation.
Over the past 25 years the farm had been progressively redeveloped and expanded.
Infrastructure for the poultry unit had been upgraded over the past five years.
The new egg grading system was installed three years ago and included German-engineered automated technology which helped cut operating costs and labour.
It could check, grade and pack the same number of eggs in an hour that the old machine would have taken a day to process.
The property had gently rolling arable downlands with productive Opuha silt loam soils, the fertility of which was maintained by application of the poultry compost.
The farm, in 11 titles, was laid out to accommodate large grain harvesting machinery.
All the effective land area was used for wheat and barley production, supplying on average about 80% of the poultry's annual feed requirement, Mr Farmer said.
There were two family homes on the property.
The farm and business were for sale as a going concern, but the vendors would consider selling the poultry unit with a reduced land area.
