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March 2017
WAIRARAPA FARMING LIFESTYLES
BY ANN MORGAN Tyla Petera grew up on Landcorp sheep and beef farms in Kerikeri and Taupo. At 30 years old, Tyla is now the manager at Massey University’s Riverside research farm and says it is a privilege to be involved with the advancement of the farming industry.
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culling process used is correct. “We kept the ewes instead of culling them to see what actually happened during a period of time, for example if they could recover,” said Tyla. “We have also fed lambs on different varieties of crops and evaluated the different weight gains and what the best feed was for their growth.” The scientists visit the farm once a week or fortnight to weigh the stock and do evaluations. The 670-hectare effective property is 90 per cent flat and 10 per cent rolling. The farm has approximately 4,500 Romney sheep and 300 Angus and Hereford cattle. The beef is purely for pasture management as they eat
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was the head shepherd at Wairere stud farm and the time came to further my career. The owner of Wairere, Derek Daniell encouraged me to apply for this job,” said Tyla. He has been in the management position for just over a year and says the experience has been exceptional for himself and his partner Anna McGregor, and baby Isla. “Being a research farm makes life interesting. We are involved in different trials with the scientists at the university as well as running the farm. It is different to the usual farming job.” The trials are often on issues farmers have such as ‘scoring ewes udders’ at certain times of the year to see if the
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Tyla Petera grew up on sheep and beef farms and says managing the research farm makes life interesting
the long rank grass down, making the pasture better for the sheep. Replacement ewe lambs are placed on a second block 5km up the road that has 30 per cent more rain as a result of being close to the ranges, which means
during the summer it always has good grass. “There is a lot of research around lambing time. From 3,200 ewes, we breed approximately 4,000 lambs. Many are tagged at birth and the stomach/ girth, length and weight of the animal is
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