Fifth Season Milestone

from 17th December 2021 - Christmas Issue

Christmas Carols

Five seasons ago, passed local legend on the rugby field, cricket oval and farmer Joe Catherwood (also known as Joe and Uncle Joe) was milking a selected group of weaned ewes from his commercial flock to ‘bucket’ milk and fed to spare and weak lambs. The volume of milk produced meant that the majority had to be frozen for the following season, enough to cut the milk powder bill by two thirds! The health of the sheep comes first with Joe and the ewes raise their own lambs and are only selected to join the milking baabaa mob after their lambs have reached weaning weight. This leaves approximately 100 days of a ewes natural lactation to harvest. With the help of Alamae Stud, Uncle Joe’s milk flock steadily outgrew the bucket four bay plant and blast freezers were stacked floor to ceiling with nearly 3,000 litres of frozen milk! What started as a dream has now turned into a reality as Uncle Joe signed as the first approved sheep milk supplier for the Jones Family Farm when he upgraded to a sixteen bay plant last season. His mobile plant and paperwork passed rigorous MPI testing with top marks, as mobile plants are still considered a novel technology. Uncle Joe has been farming sheep for over fifty years, following in the footsteps of his father, uncles and grandfather. He noticed early on in his farming career that some ewes produced stronger lambs and had excess milk that could be fed to spare lambs instead of powdered milk. This interest continued to grow and when Uncle Joe was breeding Merinos using an AI programme, a neighbour used East Friesian semen over half bred ewes and the progeny of the cross produced a leaner carcass. He also noticed the neighbour’s ewes were scanning at a higher lambing percentage than before and had large udders after weaning. At the turn of the century, Uncle Joe started to include some East Friesian genetics in his commercial flock to increase fertility and raise spare lambs from triplets and quads on surplus ewe milk. Over the last ten years, Uncle Joe has been selecting ewes with the ability to raise vigorous lambs, produce lots of milk post weaning and have strong natural immunity. These formed the foundation of his current commercial milking flock, a mix of breeds locally known as the Catherwood Cross! Everything the ewes eat has been grown on farm and they spend their whole lives outside with uninterrupted views of New Zealand’s southern alps. Now the Catherwood Cross Milk Sheep raise twins and triplets and continue to produce in excess of one to two litres of milk a day after weaning. This milk has been tested and has a very high milk solid content, which makes it ideal to be made into award-winning cheese, soap, skincare products and frozen for personal use and to feed spare lambs, puppies and foals next season. For example, Alamae Stud’s ewe LML who won Supreme Texel at Ashburton this year produces 1.5 litres of milk a day post weaning with total solids of 26.7%. All the Alamae Texel Ewes join the milk mob after they have raised their stud babies and Alamae Stud rams Big Jim (in 2019), Mr T (in 2020) and Mr B in 2021 have also been known to join the milk mob each year to get them socialised for upcoming shows (and produce strong early lambs)!! Now supplying the Jones Family Farm for the second year running Uncle Joe’s milk goes into making their delicious cheeses available at Four Square and Sabelle skincare products available at Farmlands! For anyone worried about our ewes health Nutmeg has appointed herself as Ewe-nion rep with Freeda in charge of barley distribution, ABBA responsible for making sure all the flock go up the ramp in an orderly manner while she brings up the rear and of course we cannot forget Tinkerbelle, Trixie, Chayja, Chloe and Pixie who ensure everyone keeps their social distances!! Congratulations Uncle Joe for your seeing through your vision and continuing to develop your Catherwood Cross ewe flock.

Kim Lewis.

ABBA waiting to send the next load of girls for milking. • Screened/Crushed Rotten Rock • Compacts Like Concrete • Bulk Deliveries - Truck & Trailer • Lifestyle Driveways - Free