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Graham Matthews (inset right) is chuffed with how well his lambs are coming along at Wakanui.
An early spring in their step By Susan Sandys
susan.s@theguardian.co.nz
Spring is two months away, but lambing is done and dusted at Graham Matthews’ Wakanui grazing block. “It’s been a tough year, but the sheep came through real good,” the 84-year-old retired farmer said. The season had been a challenging one with little autumn rain and low pasture growth, and
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he was not sure why his sheep had done so well this year. He had 56 ewes which lambed over three weeks on the Wakanui block, which he was grazing on for the first time this year. The sheep had finished lambing by June 20, resulting in 37 live sets of twins and 94 live lambs altogether. “I helped one sheep, the rest lambed themselves.” And they had thrived since, en-
joying a daily dose of extra feed such as lucerne hay, baleage and sheep nuts. Matthews once farmed at Waimate and had 5000 sheep on 2300 acres of hill country. He found retiring was no reason to give up something he loved, and he lambs his sheep on grazing blocks around his home in the town of Ashburton each year. “I have always liked animals,” he said.
After a foray into winter lambing he found it was a method that worked well, so he stuck with it. Last year had been particularly successful, when his top pen of lambs at Coalgate, at the end of October, fetched $229 per lamb. “I have waited nearly 100 years to get $200,” he said. And he was confident, with such a thriving mob again, that he would get a similar price this year. Matthews has a long history of
sheep farming behind him, having acquired his first flock at the age of 14. “Dad let me have a paddock and I bought 100 ewes of my own,” he said. The main thing he had learned was that it was most important for newborns to get their first drink of colostrum. Matthews worked as a shearer in his younger years, saving enough to buy his own property.
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