Up to 20 Canterbury farms converting to dairy will need somewhere between 16,000 and 18,000 in-calf cows and heifers over the coming seasons.

PGG Wrightson national dairy specialist Jamie Cunningham says cow prices have already crept north of $3,000, driven purely by supply and demand as the first wave of conversions settled in May and June.

He says buyers are all chasing the same moderate-sized black and white cow, which he says is a bigger challenge than sourcing numbers.

“If you can tick 80% of your boxes and 90% of your boxes, that might be more realistic, rather than saying ‘I’m going to buy exactly this’,” he says.

He says few South Island herds are exiting milking, so buyers must look to the North Island, where smaller herd sizes mean often combining two or three herds to fill just one.

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