Bendigo chicken growers Hazeldenes sell Murray River farm for $8.5m
The family behind one of Victoria’s biggest chicken producers, the Bendigo-based Hazeldene family, has sold their Murray River cropping and grazing property Bennelong to a Victorian farming family for about $8.5 million.
The 2020-hectare property on Cobramunga Road, near Barham on the NSW-Victoria border, was acquired by dryland farmers the Riley family, who hail from the central Victorian rural town of Donald.
Vendor Peter Hazeldene is the son of Dick and Mavis Hazeldene, who founded Hazeldene’s Chicken Farm at Lockwood in the 1950s.
According to its website, Hazeldene’s is the biggest private employer in Bendigo with farms and processing facilities scattered throughout Central Victoria. Peter Hazeldene is a director with his brother John managing director and their sister Vicki head of corporate affairs.
Bennelong is well known for its prime vealer and fat lamb production. Cropping covers 840 hectares, producing wheat, barley and faba beans.
A standout feature of Bennelong is its four kilometres of frontage to the Murray River. The property, which has been held by the Hazeldene family since 2005, sold with 2140 megalitres of general security irrigation water rights from the Murray accessed by two pump stations.
It sold with a four-bedroom family home, a five-stand shearing shed with accommodation attached, four machinery and hay sheds around the property, an aircraft hangar and a grass airstrip.
The property went to auction on September 23 last year but did not sell. Selling agents RuralCo Property said it sold recently in line with a pre-auction forecast of $8.5 million.
Ruralco Property selling agent John Morris described Bennelong as a “coveted Murray River property location with the benefit of significant productivity and scope to add further value”.
“This was the sort of opportunity to buy that presents about once in a generation,” he said.
A clearing sale of extensive farming and cropping plant realised in excess of $1 million. “We even sold the Piper Lance aircraft that belonged to Peter Hazeldene for a very reasonable $40,000,” Mr Morris said.
The Hazeldene family acquired Bennelong for just over $2 million from L A & G M Martin (Pastoral Co). At the time the property measured 1555 hectares.
