Country-Wide November 2018

GROWING NZ FARMING

AT THE READY Fiona Shaw is a shepherd on Gisborne’s Kaikoura Station which has developed rapidly p51

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November 2018

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November 2018

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November 2018

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November 2018

EDITOR’S NOTE

Growing the pie

P NEXT ISSUE Country-Wide December: • THE CASE FOR GOING FINER: In the past two years crossbred wool prices have halved while while mid-micron has risen from $7.50 to $10.00/ kg. Coarse or mid-micron wool?

• USING KPIS: Kids get school reports four times a year so why not a farm business?

• BRANDING EXPERT: The future of farming lies in growing and delivering guilt-free food • DOER-UPPER: A farm requiring a lot of hard work hasn’t deterred a young couple • DOG FOOD GUIDE: Our annual look at what is in their tucker.

@CountryWideNZ @CountryWideNZ

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November 2018

rotests against petrol prices, fuelled mainly by tax hikes may be the start of widespread unrest. Discontentment is growing especially in cities and towns as the cost of living rises. Food prices are high, increasing taxes are biting and people want a bigger share of the economic pie.

Teachers are pushing for 15% pay increase, just one of the many drums of industrial unrest beating in the private and public sectors.

The Labour-led Government made many promises and deals in order to be elected.

Some have been delivered such as a billion dollars a year to students. However, the hands are out for the unpaid dues.

Finance minister Grant Robertson inherited an economy growing at 3% and has a $5 billion surplus to play with. However, he wants to save it for a rainy day which may well turn out to be torrential.

Labour’s dividing of the pie into smaller pieces by loading more taxes on individuals and businesses is not the answer. Margaret Thatcher once said “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money”.

Let the people who risk their own capital through investing in their own businesses or others, get on and grow the economic pie.

If there isn’t a downpour and Robertson wanted to encourage these people and stimulate growth, then he would do well to dish out tax cuts.

Government and local government seem to be doing their best to stangle entrepreneurship.

Given the Government’s ideologically driven impact on labour laws, foreign investment, oil and gas exploration and irrigation, it’s no wonder business confidence is low. Also, higher inflation is predicted if the economy weakens later

this year and interest rates may rise too.

Country-Wide is full of stories about people with skin in the game, farmers who are growing the economic pie. However, government bureaucracy can stop innovation as our Home block columnist Dan Shand found out (p15).

Dan believes the Resource Management Act is a poverty policy after a frustrating experience trying to gain consent to build a honey shed.

He says the RMA ensures anyone who is self-employed and motivated will have their aspirations crushed.

The RMA was introduced to enable sustainable development without unnecessary restrictions, but he sees it ensuring many parts of rural New Zealand will continue to slowly economically decay.

Some farmers try to work with the system and head the bureaucrats off at the pass, like Tom Buckingham (p40).

Before developing a gorse infested farm, he called in Environment Southland which identified 7ha out of the 245ha as significant wetlands needing protection.

The 7ha is covered in gorse and no one would notice if it was gone, but that’s the price he had to pay.

Remember in the 1980s when NZ was supposed to become the Switzerland of the South Pacific (financially not agriculturally as it is heavily subsidised)?

Paul Burt does and suggests NZ should take a leaf out of the All Blacks book if it wants to succeed (p16).

If conviction, determination, selfdiscipline and resilience was applied across the country, NZ’s economy would be a world champion.

Terry Brosnahan

Got any feedback? Contact the editor direct: terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz or call 03 471 5272.

Facebook.com/terry.brosnahan 5

More: p55

BOUNDARIES Wheat-breeding boost.

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Review: Light on the land.

HOME BLOCK It’s Gold Card time for Chris Biddles.

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Roger Barton reckons we should never waste a crisis.

Mark Chamberlain observes the Good, Bad and Ugly of succession.

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Dani Dark suffers cow frustrations.

13

Gaye Coates experiences a warts-and-all safety check-up. 14 Dan Shand gets an RMA pummelling with his honey shed.

15

Paul Burt is Topping up the half-full glass.

16

NOTEBOOK 18

What’s on when and who’s doing what

FACTS 19

Reece Brick notes the potential for collateral damage.

BUSINESS Livestock stress: ‘Bubble-wrap’ sale lambs.

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A question of meat quality.

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Investment advice from a vet.

Facial eczema a costly disease.

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Farmers may walk away from dam upgrade plan.

Contents

China takes lead on lamb.

Editor: Terry Brosnahan, ph 03 471 5272; mob 027 249 0200; terry.brosnahan@nzfarmlife.co.nz Deputy Editor: Cheyenne Nicholson, ph 06 280 3168; cheyenne.nicholson@nzfarmlife.co.nz Managing Editor: Tony Leggett, ph 06 280 3162 mob 0274 746 093, tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz

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Middle Eastern niche market declines.

DEER FARMER Copper puts shine on weaners.

Designer: Joanne Hannam, ph 06 280 3167 Junior designer: Cassandra Cleland Production Planning: ph 06 280 3164 Reporters Andrew Swallow ph 021 745 183 Anne Hughes ph 07 863 3361; Lynda Gray ph 03 448 6222; Robert Pattison ph +64 27 889 8444; Sandra Taylor ph 021 151 8685; Tim McVeagh 06 329 4797; James Hoban ph 027 251 1986; Russell Priest ph 06 328 9852; Jo Cuttance ph 03 976 5599; Rebecca Harper ph 06 376 2884.

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Good price prospects for sire stags.

Sub Editor: Andy Maciver, ph 06 280 3166, andy.maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz

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But, do they need it?

Deer Farmer Editor: Lynda Gray, ph 03 448 6222, lyndagray@xtra.co.nz

Country-Wide is published by NZ Farm Life Media PO Box 218, Feilding 4740 General enquiries: Toll free 0800 2AG SUB (0800 224 782) www.nzfarmlife.co.nz

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Partnerships Managers: Janine Aish, Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, ph 027 890 0015 Janine.aish@nzfarmlife.co.nz Tony Leggett, Lower North Island, ph 027 474 6093 tony.leggett@nzfarmlife.co.nz David Paterson, South Island, ph 027 289 2326 david.paterson@nzfarmlife.co.nz Subscriptions: nzfarmlife.co.nz/shop ph 0800 224 782 or subs@nzfarmlife.co.nz Printed by PMP Print, Riccarton, Christchurch ISSN 1179-9854 (Print)

ISSN 2253-2307 (Online)

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Country-Wide

November 2018

More: p64

LIVESTOCK

More: p40

From gorse-infested to highly productive farm in five years.

40

Drench resistance lesson learned.

47

Worms: Reduction test reluctance remiss.

Hard work and genetics bring success.

Greater collaboration needed on FE.

Ravenwood’s milky future.

Stock Check: Keep it simple.

Dog trialling: Humble Alex and his winning Huntaways. 88

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Out there doing it, two decades on.

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Genetalk: Why parents count.

49 60

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CROP AND FORAGE Legumes: Clovers a good story.

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Extra-terrestrial imaging offers precise cropping

PLANT AND MACHINERY 76

ENVIRONMENT

Keri Johnston: Lessons from Nebraska.

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TECHNOLOGY 80

Reminders: Keeping track of things to do.

Health and safety: Blue light (not red light) dangers?

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Bark Off: Introducing the steering gear.

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November 2018

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SOLUTIONS Training at the wheel.

Picking top FE rams.

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Testing in real time.

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ESTATE Pukeokahu -- from the mountain to the river.

High-end finishing and dairy support.

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FARMING IN FOCUS 98

OUR COVER Shepherd Fiona Shaw and her fellow workers in the hills of Kaikoura Station, west of Gisborne.

Photo: Joanna Higgens-Ware

YOUNG COUNTRY

Shepherds: Getting in behind.

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More photos from this month’s Country-Wide.

Denis Hocking: Seeing taxation through the trees.

Finishing beckons for marginal land.

Finnish muscle: The Valtra S394 tractor.

COMMUNITY

84 87

More: p51 7

BOUNDARIES | BOOK REVIEW

Light on the land WORDS: SHERYL BROWN

R

oss Hyland has written a book profiling some of his favourite farming families across New Zealand. The former owner of Seales Stockfood, now Seales Winslow, Hyland says he wanted to shed some light on positive farming stories and tell the history of some of the country’s

most iconic farms and faming families.

“I have noticed a recent rise in negativity towards farming from some commentators.

This book is unashamedly positive and showcases some great people.”

‘Our Land Our People – In search of farming excellence’ is written from Hyland’s experience of visiting 24 different farms, his observation of the property and its people.

WHEAT-BREEDING BOOST Genetic improvement of wheat is expected to accelerate now 94% of the genome of a reference cultivar has been mapped, say scientists.

Wheat (Triticum aestivum) is the world’s most widely cultivated crop and its genome is five times the size of the human genome.

It’s taken more than 200 scientists from 73 research institutes in 20 countries more than 13 years to produce the map, details of which were published in the journal Science in August.

“This will greatly speed up our efforts on identification of agriculturally important wheat genes, including those that would help to combat major fungal diseases,” Kostya Kanyuka, of Rothamsted Research, United Kingdom, and the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium (IWGSC) says.

“This will also be hugely and immediately beneficial for wheat breeders, accelerating development of new elite varieties.”

Reference genome sequences for maize and rice are already available and delivering breeding benefits.

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He has included a detailed history, with an industry context on some of the business decisions that have been made over the years.

The book profiles many top stations, including High Peak Station in Canterbury and explores how the Guild family had taken on the challenge of chasing better value for their products and bypassing the commodity cycle, to Fernlea Station and the Coop family’s history including lessons learnt on farm succession and the development of the Coopworth breed.

Hyland has tackled stories such as Parengarenga Incorporation in the far North, writing about its history of land ownership between Crown and Iwi, to exploring entrepreneur Peter Yealands’ life from mussel farming to establishing Seaview Estate vineyard and all his ideas in-between.

Country Wide has a copy of ‘Our Land Our People – In search of farming excellence’ to giveaway to a lucky subscriber. Visit our Facebook page to enter.

Holiday help

A

n old, wise farmer once said “you teach your children to work, then you educate them”.

With this in mind, the CountryWide editor was pleased when his 12-year-old daughter’s school advised parents the children had to raise $35 each for a school activity day.

Rather than mum and dad just shelling out the money, the students could do jobs for their parents or for others.

The editor’s daughter chose to take on a newspaper round for a friend while she was on holiday.

As the round was on the other side of Dunedin her dad went too.

It required a 5am start and the first morning was cold, but successful, apart from not being able to find number 48 in a street.

There was no complaint lodged

and the next morning the weather was atrocious, but they walked for an hour in the southerly wind and rain.

Again, one newspaper remained, but no complaint. On the final morning, no papers were left over and they were satisfied it was a job well-done. When the friend resumed her paper round the following week she had a letter from the Otago Daily Times saying number 137 had not received its paper for three days. It had been going into the wrong paper holder.

Country-Wide

November 2018

BOUNDARIES | LETTER

Spreading the word Dear Sir

I

read with interest the commentary in Country-Wide Sheep 2018 “Better late than never” on the seminar I gave in five locations across New Zealand as the recipient of the Ray Brougham Trophy awarded by the NZ Grassland Trust. I took note of the irony (rather than being uncharitable and assuming sarcasm) in the headline but would just like to correct some of the assertions.

The commentary implies I am only now speaking out about this topic when in fact during my entire career of 38 years with MAF, AgResearch and Ravensdown I have talked to literally thousands of farmers all over the country about soil fertility in general and have tried, as others have also, to explain the science (or lack of) around alternative products so that farmers can make as informed a choice as possible.

In the 16 years I have been with

Ravensdown I have spoken to over 250 farmer meetings (yes I have kept a count!), albeit many of them to Ravensdown shareholders, about alternative products.

In fact many of the Speaking out: slides I used were taken Dr Ants Roberts. from these presentations.

I also took reinforcement from the call to arms of the editor of CW. Thus, it seems hardly fair to say “What a shame he did not speak out earlier” when I have been doing just that for 38 years just not in the agricultural media.

On a personal note and for the record, as a former colleague in MAF and latterly my boss in AgResearch, Dr Doug Edmeades had a tremendously positive influence on the way I have conducted my career in soil science for which I am extremely grateful.

While to this day we do not always agree on everything we still count ourselves as good friends. In the Ray Brougham series and all other public speaking I have tried to emulate Doug’s and my own intent, if not his style!

Dr Ants Roberts Chief scientific officer, Ravensdown.

I’m flattered you took reinforcement from my editorial, but like Edmeades I have been warning against pseudo-science for more than 15 years. The point made in Country-Wide Sheep was that there is a huge difference between telling small groups of farmers and stating it publicly. By going public, Edmeades was exposed to a backlash from the pseudoscience brigade and it has cost him. However, pseudo-science has to be countered and more scientists need to speak out. So your public talks are most welcomed.

Editor

A film with a lot of heart WORDS: REBECCA HARPER

S

hearing is one of the only sports where men and women compete against each other on equal footing.

She Shears is a visually stunning and compelling documentary film that follows the lives and fortunes of five remarkable female shearers, as they prepare for the Holy Grail of shearing competitions – the Golden Shears.

Starring Hazel Wood, Catherine Mullooly, Pagan Karauria, Emily Welch and Jills Angus Burney, the characters are at different stages of their shearing careers, but all share a passion for the industry and drive to succeed in their chosen sport.

As the prestigious competition draws near, the characters battle with exhaustion, injury, self-doubt and family demands.

Through it all, no matter what the outcome, the overriding message is a shared love of shearing.

Country-Wide

November 2018

She Shears, written and directed by Jack Nicol, is sure to resonate with both urban and rural audiences. Not only does it showcase the talent of the five women and the shearing industry as a whole, it gives a beautiful insight into rural life and what makes rural communities so special.

The film is now showing in cinemas. To find a screening venue near you visit www. sheshears.com.

BALL HAIRCUT An old man walks into the barbershop for shave and a haircut, but he tells the barber he can’t get all his whiskers off because his cheeks are wrinkled from age.

The barber gets a little wooden ball from a cup on the shelf and tells him to put it inside his cheek to spread out the skin.

When he’s finished, the old man tells the barber that was the cleanest shave he’s had in years... But, he wanted to know what would have happened if he had swallowed that little ball.

The barber replied, “Just bring it back in a couple of days like everyone else does”.

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

The Gold Card arrives Northland farmer Chris Biddles has ticked off a super birthday, the opening of a key offfarm project and a successful calving.

L

ate autumn was my last column This complex is at the end of six new and I wrote about work/life netball and tennis courts that also has a balance and my reducing offcontrol room at the halfway mark of the farm voluntary work, the great courts. Throughout the eight-month build season we had enjoyed, and my there was a pretty big demand on my time fast-approaching super birthday. What has and as we neared completion even more changed? and that coincided with calving and bull The birthday came and went, my first sale preparation. payment was due the day before our bull Last week’s opening made five and a sale but did not arrive. So I spent an hour half years of hard work chairing this board in the morning of the sale sorting the all worthwhile. We were very fortunate cock-up that was not of my making. I did to have Minister of Sport and Recreation receive an apology from WINZ and the first Grant Robertson open the facility. We had payment of six days was in the bank that a celebrity game of tennis with Ian Dunn afternoon.

It didn’t stay long as I did what I had always intended and put it on the bar at my local for a few mates and for my Sportsville board. So I am now a kept man!

The good season continued with a huge amount of rain in May and June then in July the rain stopped. I was very careful about complaining how dry we got in July when I was in the company of inland farmers, they would not appreciate hearing that when they were wading around in water and mud. Not once during our seven weeks of calving did we Opening day: Dion Nash, left, with Chris Biddles and Grant Robertson. have to seek shelter to fill out the calving book with the weather so fine. (former All Black and local boy) joining That off farm work has been bigger than Dion Nash, (former Black Cap and local ever over the winter as we completed the boy) play two locals, Pete Bond and Alistair building of Sportsville, Dargaville.

Nauman.

This wonderful project was completed We also had a celebrity game of netball and opened at the end of September, with with our board (including this old eight sports stakeholders sharing a facility bugger) playing a team made up of the that houses four changing rooms, storage Minister, Willow Jean Prime and Matt King rooms a community room, kitchen and (Members of Parliament), Bernice Mene toilets with two large covered muster areas. (former Silver Fern and wife of Dion Nash),

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our local Mayor Jason Smith and a few kids from the high school.

It was a great game with a huge amount of fouls and cheating. All morning and afternoon the local kids were making use of the courts and fields. A really great day.

This project was led by a sevenmember board plus a huge amount of support and advice from Sport Northland.

Two board members were elected by the stakeholders and the other five were independents appointed by Sport Northland for their different expertise the project required. Of the seven-member board five are farmers, one a rural banker, one a parks and reserves manager and one a school principal. They have been extremely committed and turned $100,000 seed funding from the council into $2.8 million. By early next year the courts will all be floodlit, which will see stage two completed.

Onfarm we had a good calving but full on with Daphne and I doing 23 consecutive days of between 10 and 13 hours as calves were dropping in large numbers. The tight mating of 43 days is great but does put pressure on that first three weeks of calving. The bull sale was very good with a complete clearance of all 106 yearlings at an average of $3409.

As I write we are preparing for mating with CIDRs in 60 animals ready for AI on October 10. Grass is growing but we could do with a little more moisture to really boost it.

We have a couple of calves with clinical signs of theileria but no deaths yet.

Chances are that both will succumb to the disease. It is school holidays and we have the two grandchildren for a good bit of the time with not too many fights.

Karren’s Kaimanawa foal has arrived this morning and seems to be settling in well.

TE KOPURU

Country-Wide

November 2018

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Never waste a crisis Ewe deaths have been lighter than usual and wet dry numbers are very reasonable.

The arrival of Mycoplasma bovis has had one benefit – raising the awareness of onfarm biosecurity. Roger Barton writes from Greytown.

control this sheep and goat meat product quality issue.

The only good thing about hydatids was that everyone knew that dogs were a human health risk. This knowledge is now dwindling fast. Hydatids was eliminated in 1992. Many young shepherds now were e’ve spent the last realise how under par much born well after this activity finished. The few days docking of our feeding was in earlier only good thing about M. bovis is GREYTOWN that now many farmers are doing lambs (tailing for the years. Compromised growth southerners). Despite rates compromises lifetime better risk assessments around an eight-day dirty production. I wish I’d learnt this onfarm biosecurity and what they spell in the earlier part of lambing we much earlier. deem as acceptable behaviour of those haven’t been too badly hit.

On a wider front, issues that may come on to their land invited I’ve learnt to shut up about southerly around onfarm biosecurity have or otherwise. conditions when talking to my been hugely heightened with the Farm discussion groups are taking compatriots from the southern valley in Mycoplasma bovis outbreak. We proactive measures to mitigate against the Wairarapa. Those guys really do get had moved from breeding/finishing potential issues which adds backbone to serious wind-chill in poor conditions. Ewe cattle to trading only when we forfeited the new attitude developing in this arena. deaths have been lighter than usual and our cow herd to the other farm.

From a purely selfish point of view, wet dry numbers are very reasonable given Trading has inherent risks in a number keeping in mind my work with Ovis Mgt, the potential we had for issues. of areas. M. bovis has been a major it would be great if sheep and goat farmers Daily tagging with the recordeds was blow for the limited numbers of farmers lifted their attention to biosecurity issues challenging but we only missed one day impacted. The North Island hasn’t been relating to visiting dogs. While we love and then played without its issues but to point our fingers at the urban fringe catch-up. I’ve got two we haven’t, to date, dogs and “townies” who drive out into lambing dogs with 27 had a major blow the country to walk their dogs the reality The only good thing years of experience out. The potential is that most sheep measles incursions start about hydatids was that to import internal between them. Do the on a sheep farm (94% in fact). maths on that and In reality any dog can be a risk. There everyone knew that dogs parasites which have you’ll realise that I built up immunity are specific times of year when dogs seem were a human health had issues. Luckily my to commonly used to be more mobile. Peak holiday periods risk. This knowledge is son parted with one of anthelmintic products such as summer/Christmas and on farms his heading dogs and is another area of the annual duck shooting rounds starting now dwindling fast. by day three he had concern with trading in May. things well worked any stock whether they Do yourself a favour and exercise your out. No teeth bared be cattle or sheep. rights, demanding that visiting dogs of any and the smart use of paws to hold a lamb One of my off-farm interests is my ilk meet the needs of your farm biosecurity once bowled over. Catching one lamb is involvement in Ovis Management Ltd. plan. They need to be subject to an usually easy for me... it’s the twin mate OML is a subsidiary of the Meat Industry effective worming programme 48 hours that the dog may need to deal with.

Association and has the role of gathering before any visit.

All the stars are aligning for a useful data on Ovis (more commonly referred M. bovis has done us a favour, it’s now season price-wise. We just need to keep to as sheep measles) infection in lines of time to raise the bar... never waste a crisis matching animal numbers with feed lambs killed and acting as an educator, would seem to be the catch cry under demand. The longer I farm the more I primarily in sheep farming circles to help these circumstances.

W

Country-Wide

November 2018

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Succession of farm ownership varies from the smooth to the very rough.

Mark Chamberlain offers his suggestion.

T

he Good, the Bad and the Ugly was a classic movie starring the near-immortal Clint Eastwood.

The title of this movie quite accurately describes one of the biggest sources of conflict in the farming community. Farm succession. Or, as a good friend of mine refers to it, farm sucksession.

Every district in New Zealand is littered with these stories and, to me, it beggars belief how it can come to this.

Let’s start with the good.

Successful farm succession plans seem to be few and far between but they have common elements. Strong leadership, good communication, and parties who have a mutual respect for each other. The success of these situations seem to rely upon people’s willingness to work together and for each other, rather than one party having a dominant hand. The workload and financial burden is gradually, and with structure, passed on seamlessly from weary shoulders to those that are stronger and fresher.

The bad can often be spotted a paddock away.

It is usually signposted by the 40-yearold, university-educated son or daughter who is a glorified gate-opener for their 70-year-old parent who simply cannot let go of the reins. This is a classic example of poor leadership and poor structure. All this does is undermine the confidence of the next generation of farmers and lessens their connection to the land. Sure, they are going to make mistakes. You did too.

The ugly, is not pretty.

This often results in warring parties.

There is typically an overdose of communication – often featuring four

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letter words and directions on where to go and how to get there. It is not always the elder party who is at fault in these situations.

There is often a sense of entitlement by those family members returning to the farm after a three-year ‘gap year’ at Lincoln University; the double-cab ute car park capital of NZ. The ugly situations result in Christmases forever ruined, cousins growing up not knowing each other and families in despair.

My late father did the basics of farming well for his generation but he was no financial wizard. He did however, have the perfect farm succession plan.

Simply put, he sold up and kept it all for himself. Mum and Dad started farming in 1960 with nothing but somehow still managed to pay off their livestock in the first year. Ten years later they managed to build a new, modern house and carried on farming while raising six children, all the while reminding us how hard they’d had it.

My parents survived the 80s with Muldoon and the lovely Rogernomics and, in my opinion, it is during this time that Dad sprained his financial brain; shutting up shop and batting for time until his retirement many years later.

If my parents had even tried some kind of succession plan it would have been like so many others, a complete disaster.

Like many of his generation he was secretive about his finances and saw paying tax as a disaster. So selling up and retiring with their pot of gold enabled my parents to travel the world a couple of times, live comfortably and, of course, continue reminding us how hard they’d had it.

Cancer claimed Dad’s life but not until he’d enjoyed 10 years of retirement.

Maybe sometimes the best answers are the simplest ones.

Our sharemilking partners once told us that for NZ farmers to stay farming; somewhere along the line there has to be a transfer of wealth from one generation to the other. Some people can’t accept this and therein lies the problem.

A wise old owl recently told me that the best succession plan is to give your kids nothing… except a good work ethic and support. How you decide to apply that support will ultimately lead to an outcome that is good, bad or ugly.

Conflict on the land: Clint Eastwood in the movie The Good, The Bad and The Ugly.

Country-Wide

November 2018

HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Cow frustrations Forget calving out on the hills of the King Country, Dani Dark says the cows are now within sight of the house.

P

aul Burt’s column last month struck a chord – trying to find the word that sits between utter frustration and admiration for his ewe flock. This mystery word also applies to the breeding cow – for me it sits between utter frustration and sheer delight.

For the past few years our cow herd has teetered on the brink of being wiped out, with stories of bulls doing the same pasture grooming job, and the lure of never having to calve an animal again.

In our quest to make the cows pay their way, last year we decided to see how they would go calving out on the hills. What resulted was a sub-par calving percentage, but also a lot of grief and time wasted as we ran around paddocks trying to figure who owned a motherless calf or attempting to calve a cow in a gully.

So back behind the break they have come, right outside the house so we can sit on the deck and watch the action. This is great for the kids, who love being involved

and seeing all kinds of ‘gross’ stuff like the mum dispatching the afterbirth.

After a few early slips while still out on the hills we seem to be having a pretty good run. As it always seems to go, the first cow to calve died, just to make sure we were paying attention. A couple of sets of twins have helped to make up for earlier setbacks and I’m interested as to how we can increase the likelihood of these. With our cows being half Friesian, an extra calf doesn’t bother them at all.

Generally, our hand-reared HerefordFriesian cows are so quiet that I can help to get a calf feeding on mum out in the paddock, however we have paid the price of putting a homebred ‘beefy’ into the herd this year. After calving she went completely loopy jumping every fence in sight, and leaving her equally loopy calf behind, as well as its twin that she didn’t want a bar of.

Our eldest daughter Eva and I watched with our binoculars from the deck,

Gimme shelter: Generally, our hand-reared Hereford-Friesian cows are so quiet Dani can help to get a calf feeding on mum out in the paddock.

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checking to see if she was taking her second calf, only to watch her bunt it away. Eva was most put-out declaring that she was going to “kick that stupid ARIA cow for not loving her beautiful baby”, and I assured her I had her number come culling time.

We are experimenting with our ewes and lambs this year, shufflegrazing them since docking. They get about three paddocks at a time and every other day they get a new gate opened and the tail gets gently ushered up, for about a 20-day round.

My father-in-law has taught me that the eye is always drawn to the worst animal, which I know to be true after seeing the difference that pulling the bottom 10 ewes out of a mob makes.

The jury is definitely still out – on one hand at the front of the mob where the gate is opened it is hugely satisfying to see a big fat set of twins walk out with mum on to fresh grass, but at the back of the mob as I push them on I am filled with anxiety as I imagine every other lamb to be motherless.

My father-in-law has taught me that the eye is always drawn to the worst animal, which I know to be true after seeing the difference that pulling the bottom 10 ewes out of a mob makes.

I suspect my eye keeps being drawn back to the same one or two motherless lambs that we get every year regardless.

Time will tell whether this is an experiment that becomes the norm in years to come.

It’s certainly more work than setstocking, but more lambs away at weaning this season will be well worth the extra effort.

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Warts-and-all check-up Following the accidental death of a young friend, Gaye Coates decided to get her West Coast farm’s health and safety system checked out.

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enjoy farming most of the time.

I like the familiarity that comes with having worn out a few pairs of gumboots. I’m challenged in a positive sense by the mix of science, business and practical skills. I enjoy the constant exposure to new knowledge and the process of achieving a job well done.

But, every now and then I encounter an aspect of the job that unhinges my confidence.

In recent years, I have wrestled with my employer responsibility of health and safety. It’s not because I haven’t seen it as important and it’s not that I haven’t done anything, because I have. Our team is small and close-knit; like family. The thought of not having done enough to guarantee their safety unnerved me.

Back at the beginning of being an employer, I confidently wrote a health and safety manual and proudly sat it on a shelf in the office. I felt that we had ticked the compliance box and had “done” health and safety.

Then, in keeping with a revamp of the legislation, our industry had the volume turned up on health and safety. Farmers were besieged with opportunities to attend courses, employ consultants, trial apps and follow prototypes. Our culpability was emphasised in the advertising; the risks of not getting it right highlighted. I looked at our health and safety manual with the dust on the cover and the crisp pages within, and I began to experience some doubt that we were doing it right.

I attended a course and came home with guidelines and templates. I became

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overwhelmed with the feeling that the execution of health and safety was no less in its requirements for our farm than it was for a large corporate business that had a whole department delegated to ensuring the job was done well.

Coerced by others’ reassurance that they had “done” health and safety, we signed up with one of the many options of health and safety companies providing resources and the promise of ongoing support. But the standardised forms didn’t seem to replace the accountability to have a process working behind the words.

The visit proved incredibly positive; the advice offered was gentle and clear. There were a few things to work on but we were doing okay.

Last year my uncertainties came to a tipping point. I attended the funeral of a much-loved young man who was killed very tragically in a workplace accident and afterwards over a cup of tea and shared tears, there were loud voices accusing employers of not doing enough. I carried the echo of those voices home, worried and then I contacted WorkSafe and requested a visit.

The temptation to hurriedly put up some

of the glossy forms that I thought we needed and to hide some of the things I thought may be lacking was great.

But I decided to really get some certainty about how we measured up, I needed to take a “warts-andall” approach; even share an incident that had happened onfarm in the week before their visit. The visit proved incredibly positive; the advice offered was gentle and clear. There were a few things to work on but we were doing okay. In fact we have a safety culture in place that we own and that walks with us daily on the farm.

On our farm, we’re not big on written words, certainly not lots of them; they’re not our primary form of communication.

We’re all about showing and working alongside and being on the end of the twoway should anyone need help. At night no one goes home before we are certain everyone is accounted for. We don’t have all the standardised forms but we have the important things written in our farm team notebook. And that’s okay; our system is unique and intimate to us.

I doubt we will ever be able to tick the “job done” box for health and safety; it is ongoing. I suspect we can never guarantee an accident won’t happen on our farm, but I am confident we have a safety culture and a structure in place for now that lives outside a pamphlet. That has to be enough to settle my mind to move health and safety to a happy place for me. Thanks WorkSafe NZ.

HAUPIRI

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

The RMA is a poverty policy

The honey shed.

Planners responsible for implementing the Resource Management Act appear not to connect with the context reckons North Canterbury’s Dan Shand.

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hen writing columns, I decided I would try to ensure I always remained positive, but unfortunately I am forced to make an exception.

I have recently experienced the resource consent process first-hand while applying to build a new honey shed in the small town of Waipara.

After the process, I am now convinced that the Resource Management Act can only be described as a poverty policy.

Why? Because the RMA ensures anyone who is hard-working, self-employed and motivated to grow and create employment will feel so beaten up after they have experienced the resource consent process that they will no longer have the same aspirations.

I understand the RMA was originally established to enable sustainable development to happen without unnecessary restrictions, but what I see happening will ensure many parts of rural New Zealand will continue to slowly socially and economically decay.

Over the past few months I’ve spoken to many small business owners – even voluntary community groups – who have tried to develop or expand their businesses.

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Nearly all have found the consent process so frustrating and onerous that they have been forced to scale-back what they originally set out to achieve, one even describing the process to me as “losing the will to live”. This widely felt sentiment can only ensure many more will slow their business development in pursuit of sanity.

We in rural NZ – like most countries around the world – are experiencing a mass migration to urban centres. To curb this trend, we need to make living in rural NZ an attractive option.

Fast broadband, thriving businesses, well-paid jobs, diversity, enjoyable social lifestyles and most importantly opportunity are attracting an everincreasing amount of young people to cities.

If we are going to compete with urban areas we must remove as many barriers as possible for businesses to setup in a sustainable way. Diversity is key. A supermarket, a garage, a rural supply store and a pub is not a modern attractive community.

The issue has come about simply by planners implementing plans that control every situation without considering the context. One builder I spoke to felt

planners should have had to have owned their own CULVERDEN business so that they fully understand what it is like to be on the other side of the process.

Something I couldn’t help but agree with. He also put a few more descriptive words in than that!

It is obvious there is a real disconnect between the people willing to risk everything to help economic growth and the people paid to enforce it.

Councils, both district and regional, are also caught in the process pushing up rates and driving up other consent fees just to meet their own consent requirements. The difference is that they don’t see the pain because they just pass on the cost.

If we are truly committed to thriving rural communities and reducing poverty we must put our hand up and say enough is enough.

I don’t claim to know the answer but we could look at this as an opportunity by putting pressure on our councils to reduce the pain experienced by the consent process or on the rural regulators to make the planning rules open to deal with the context so that it becomes known that rural NZ is open for business.

Entrepreneurship is the fabric of rural NZ so enabling more small business to develop and thrive is key to ensuring it survives the urban onslaught.

We don’t need more subsidies or handouts we just need the opportunity to sustainably develop.

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HOME BLOCK | COLUMN

Topping up the half-full glass What happened to the idea once floated of making New Zealand the Switzerland of the South Pacific, Paul Burt asks?

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o we have a problem with attitude in this country? It seems an inescapable part of the aging process is to reminisce about the past and harbour a growing dissatisfaction with much that is modern.

The media is full of the problems that beset society but how many are selfinflicted? I accept that it is a different world now but during my childhood New Zealand was at or near the top of the world living standard index.

Is it a coincidence that in this indulgent age, few speak about good manners and self-control or has the rest of the world simply left us behind. The lack of either of these attributes causes so much personal grief and the consequences consume so much effort and money we should all be concerned.

I could drone on about the state of personal accountability where company directors face court action for negligence and government decisions revolve around being re-elected rather than a greater good.

Are egos bigger than they ever were, are reputations less valuable and has power become more seductive.

I sympathised with comments made recently by expatriate philanthropist Owen Glenn, regarding our national outlook.

What I think he was saying was that in the many years since the idea was floated to make NZ the Switzerland of the South Pacific we have gained no traction. But oh, what we can do when we try.

A non-compromised 100% effort to have the best rugby team in the world has borne fruit and is a matter of national pride.

The agencies responsible for improving our social statics could only dream of that commitment and that result. Why is it

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proving so hard to put a stick in the spokes of this wheel of averageness on which we are spinning.

On the employment front we describe blue collars and white collars but what do the self-employed wear. What-ever shade it began I expect it’s a bit grubby by now as most self-employed people I know succeed because they possess an inner Steve Hansen. Smaller of course but just as driven and tough.

for the extended industry has produced MATATA the averageness that is holding us back.

Food and communication are basic human needs.

Unlike the other, the industry we’re involved in suffers from a lack of excitement and glamour which translates into a lack of capital.

We’re hamstrung into doing the same things we’ve always done and it shows. By comparison, Apple and Microsoft re-invent themselves every couple of years and the results say it all.

I think the only way we can change attitudes is by raising the sights of young people. It’s our duty as adults to foster an

Since the idea was floated to make NZ the Switzerland of the South Pacific we have gained no traction.

Conviction, determination, selfdiscipline and resilience. We celebrate (demand) these attributes from our sport heroes but many ordinary people find it so hard to apply them to life.

As farmers we know our business inside out. Staying viable requires skilled and strategic responses to the extent that our grassland livestock models are the best in the world. However, too few of us (myself included), have the willingness and ability to become involved and apply this skill to the industry at large. This lack of passion

appetite for learning both academic and practical. There is a greater need than ever to teach financial literacy and life skills in general.

It’s a tragedy to let loose on the world so many young people who have yet to (or may never) build their self-esteem. It’s a tragedy that so many lack the ability to cope with disappointment.

If each of us can change a perception that some-one’s glass is half full rather than half empty we will have achieved much.

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November 2018

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NOTEBOOK

ZANDA AWARD SHORTLIST Five Australians and one New Zealander have been shortlisted for the 2019 Zanda McDonald Award based on their passion for agriculture, strong leadership skills, and their vision for the primary industry.

The shortlist is made up of Alice Mabin of Linthorpe, Queensland; Harry Kelly, of Caramut Victoria; Luke Evans, of Tennant Creek, Northern Territory; Nick Boshammer, of Chinchilla, Queensland; Shannon Landmark, of Queensland and Kiwi Grant McNaughton, 34, managing director of McNaughton Farms in Oamaru, North Otago..

The three finalists will be announced towards the end of the year, and the winner will announced at the PPP Conference in Port Douglas in May 2019.

GRASS GROWERS Twizel hosts this year’s Grassland Association annual conference from November 6-8. The event brings together farmers and scientists interested in plant and pastoral science research More? www.grassland.org.nz/events.php

More? www.pppgroup.org

SHOWTIME A&P shows are in full swing through November as New Zealand agriculture puts itself on display.

Bay of Islands Pastoral & Industrial Association’s 176th show, November 8 and 9, Showgrounds, Waimate North, Northland.

More? www.bayofislandsshow.co.nz Clevedon Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 17, 18, Showgrounds, Monument Road, Clevedon.

More? www.clevedonshow.co.nz Cambridge Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 24, 25, Cambridge Raceway, Taylor Street, Cambridge.

More? mandymcwha@hotmail.com Te Aroha Agricultural, Pastoral & Horticultural Association show, November 3, Boyd Park, Stanley Avenue, Te Aroha.

More? tearohaaph@gmail.com Waihi Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 10, Cornwall St, Waihi.

More? marilyn@ktd.co.nz Egmont Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 16, 17, Burnside Avenue, Hawera.

More? www.egmontshowgrounds.org.nz

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Manawatu Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 3, 4, Manfeild Park, Feilding.

More? www.manawatushow.co.nz Stratford Agricultural & Pastoral Association (Royal Event - Equestrian), November 23-25, Flint Road East, Stratford.

More? www.stratfordshow.co.nz Wanganui Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 9, 10, Wanganui Racecourse Oval.

More? wanganuishow@gmail.com Waverley Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 13, Dallison Park, Waverley.

More? bdsimson@farmside.co.nz Central Hawkes Bay Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 9-11, Showgrounds, Waipukurau.

More? www.chbshow.co.nz Canterbury Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 1416, Canterbury Agricultural Park, Christchurch.

More? www.theshow.co.nz Courtenay Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 24, Showgrounds, Kirwee.

More? www.courtenayshow.org.nz Marlborough Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 9, 10, A&P Park, Blenheim.

More? www.marlboroughshow.co.nz Nelson Agricultural & Pastoral Association (Royal Event - Equestrian), November 24, 25, A&P Park, Richmond, Nelson.

More? www.richmondpark.nz Southern Canterbury Agricultural & Pastoral Association show, November 24, 25, A&P Showgrounds, Waimate.

More? info@scshow.co.nz South Otago Agricultural & Pastoral Society show, November 23, 24, Glasgow Street, Balclutha.

More? soap@unifone.net.nz West Otago Agricultural & Pastoral Society, November17, Tapanui-Raes Junction Highway, Tapanui.

More? show@yrless.co.nz

NOTEBOOK

If you have something you think might be suitable for the Notebook page please send an email or Word document (.doc) to Andy.Maciver@nzfarmlife.co.nz along with any pictures as .jpg attachments.

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FACTS

Tallies at Feilding, Stortford Lodge and Matawhero were pushed to 1.03 million.

Big season for the saleyards Sale yards in both North and South islands have been packed with lambs following an exceptional season.

AgriHQ analyst Reece Brick reports.

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xcept for spring cattle sales, the wider sheep and beef industry is in a bit of a lull, which makes it the perfect time to reflect on the season just passed.

Specifically, we’re going to focus on the saleyards.

One of the main beneficiaries of the exceptional lamb season were the saleyards, with throughput in the locations where AgriHQ collects data well in advance of usual levels.

Both North Island and South Island yards sold an additional 5% lambs (store or prime) against the 2016-17 season, pushing tallies at Feilding, Stortford Lodge and Matawhero to 1.03 million and whereas Canterbury Park, Coalgate and Temuka traded 457,000 head.

While it is well known that schedules

were exceptionally strong, underpinning prime lamb sales, there wasn’t quite the same polish to the store lamb market on the whole.

Drought through Southland caused some issues in the South Island, meaning the $112/head average on lamb there was only $19 more than the season before and within touching distance of 2011-12.

Better conditions in the North Island meant store lambs averaged $121/hd there, $24 more than the season before.

Record mutton schedules gave the perfect out for anyone trying to divert farming away from sheep. In fact, throughout 2017-18 prime ewes averaged $137/hd in the aforementioned South Island yards, a far cry from the $75-$105/ hd standard seen any other season this decade.

Average saleyard prices

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Million lambs

$/hd

120 100 80 60

Saleyard lamb throughput

1.40

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It was no wonder then that South Island prime ewe numbers climbed to 156,000, about 20% more than the 131,000-134,000 the previous three years.

Similar price trends were noted in the North Island too, though prime ewe numbers were at 168,000, only just above the 161,000 the two seasons beforehand.

Cattle were sold in larger numbers too, though not quite to the same extent as sheep.

Wellsford, Frankton, Rangiuru, Stortford and Feilding saw a combined 857,000 yearling and R2 store put under the hammer, only fractionally more than 2016-17, but still the largest period since the turn of the decade.

This number was 298,000 for Canterbury Park, Coalgate and Temuka, again the largest since at least 2010.

On average a one-year/R2 steer (excluding straight dairy breeds) sold for $1150 or $3.12/kg in 2017-18, just a little below the all-time peak the season before where $1200 or $3.20/kg was paid.

1.35 1.30 1.25 1.20 1.15

2010-­11

2012-­13

Store Lamb

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November 2018

2014-­15

Prime Lamb

2016-­17

Prime Ewe

1.10

2012-­13

2013-­14

2014-­15

2015-­16

2016-­17

2017-­18

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BUSINESS | LIVESTOCK STRESS

‘Bubble-wrap’ sale lambs Farmers can produce a top lamb crop only to miss out on the best prices from the works through poor management. Joanna Grigg investigates where the money can be lost and gained.

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areful management of lambs pre-transport to slaughter is worth another $10 or more.

Ian Strahan finishes about 15,000 trading lambs each year, on his farm 20km from Feilding.

Lambs are a mix of genetics, breeds, gender and age, but he treats them all with extra care on the day of slaughter. Only heading dogs (non-barkers) are used to muster in and no dogs are used to load the truck. Plastic bags tied to waddies make a noise to move lambs.

“We know our truckies and have a good relationship with them, and they know our set-up, so it just flows.

“Being bought-in trading lambs, they are already used to yards and transport, so this probably helps with low stress reactions.”

Across the industry, carcase downgrades for bruising or abscesses from incorrect injection placement, are typically worth 50c/kg carcaseweight (CW).

A 50c/kg CW downgrade to a ‘cutter’ works out to be $8.50 less for an 17kg CW lamb, all preventable through correct handling.

The icing on the top of the lamb cheque is the top presentation premium. Top presentation (usually grade 1 and 2 out of

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4) is worth another 15c/kg to the Strahans.

Each processing company has their own guidelines but, in general, wool needs to be short (shorn or belly crutch) and no dags or stains present. Research and laboratory results demonstrate that lambs presented at slaughter with short wool and/or with a full belly crutch and with front socks shorn, have significantly lower microbiological levels post-slaughter. Tail length must cover the vulva or equivalent length for ram lambs.

Being a 15-minute drive to the slaughter plant, Strahan’s lambs are not fully emptied before transport. They are yarded early that morning (between 5am and 7.30am) and stand for about an hour before the truck is due.

Best practice is for lambs to be emptied out by yarding them for at least four hours off food. This is especially important if transport time is several hours, as there is more chance of effluent build-up affecting lamb presentation and welfare during transport.

Not fully emptying out for such a short distance works for their system.

Strahan says he has good relations with Ovation Meat Company.

He has had no major downgrades on

presentation. Mud from wet weather sometimes causes a lower score. There have been no complaints from truckies about effluent on the truck. The declaration card has a box for four-hour emptying time but Strahan doesn’t fill that part in.

Typically, the lambs have been grazing a ryegrass/clover pasture (not a greenfeed crop, such as brassica).

“They are loaded and slaughtered within about six hours of coming off feed, as we are lucky to have a processing plant in Feilding,” Strahan says.

“I’m probably a bit different from others as transit time is so short.”

He expects dressing out yield (as a hot carcase) in sale lambs to be between 43% and 46% of the liveweight recorded the day before, in the yards. Lambs usually hang up at between 20 and 22kg.

“Yield result does vary with wool length, age and time of the day, with more gut fill in the afternoon, as this affects the liveweight measure at the start.”

He has noticed yield varies with time to slaughter. If lambs are sent further away and slaughtered the morning after being yarded and transported, they have lower yields.

“I’ve seen a drop of a quarter of a kilo

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LAMB SALE CHECKLIST • Check tail length at docking meets the standard.

• Avoid yarding on really hot days or miserable wet ones.

• Don’t rush lambs (ie: panting hard). Train staff to move them at a walking pace.

• Check gates open and close smoothly. This reduces the chance of pile ups and allows a quick close of the exit route.

Long wool, dags and stains are not wanted. Silver Fern Farms stock presentation standards, 2018, have been upgraded to reflect MPI’s new code of practice standards for the slaughter and dressing of red meat. The main change is around the level of faecal matter at post mortem inspection.

of meat yield in these lines, and up to 750 grams in one case.”

At $7.50/kg CW this is $5.60 worth of meat. A line of lambs were split with half sent locally (couple of hours off feed to slaughter) and the other half sent to another plant about 2.5 hours away. There was a 100g difference in carcase weight with further-travel lambs slightly lighter (23.6 versus 23.5kg CW).

“Meat companies realise that yield drops off with travel, so will often buy in the paddock per head or pay a premium if sourcing from afar.”

Silver Fern Farms (SFF) head of communications and strategy, Justin Courtney says most lambs are processed in excess of 12 hours off feed, when adding onfarm holding, transport and preslaughter holding on plant.

“There is little or no evidence that extended time off feed has too much of an impact on final dressing out yield.

“There is an expected emptying out timeframe onfarm regardless of proximity to the plant. The recommended timeframe within the NZFAP standards is four hours.

“The presentation standard is an indicator of insufficient emptying out, especially if there is fresh fleece stain.

However, this may not be evident after short transport times.”

Australia is the home of research into the effects of longer transport times.

A literature review by MLA Australia on feed and water curfew research (2006) showed there were benefits from reduced hide/pelt contamination through emptying stock and keeping empty for up to 48 hours. The negative was that unwanted microbial growth within stock intestines increased with this time off-feed.

The ideal length of curfew was described as a complex equation of feed type, wool length and transport time.

Curfews are designed to reduce food safety risks from faeces contaminating the carcase, and to reduce the chance of slipping in the truck.

NZ industry recommendations for ruminants pre-transport is that they should be held off food for at least four hours but no longer than 12 hours.

Fast-grown lambs, presented without dags, stain, mud and long wool, and handled carefully to avoid bruising, is the ideal recipe.

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• Repair broken rails, nails.

Bruising can downgrade a carcase to a cutter and shave off $0.50/kg CW. • Avoid barking dogs in yards.

No dogs on backs.

• During loading, never throw or drag lambs. Pulling wool will cause bruising.

• Use plastic bags, or stones in containers to create noise to move lambs, rather than physical contact.

• Aim to kill at the nearest slaughterhouse, not the furthest.

• Code of Welfare Transport within NZ (2016) states, as a minimum standard, during conveyance stock should not be soiled by faeces or urine from animals on a higher level. Animals should be able to maintain their balance while moving and regain their feet if fallen over.

• Best practice is for ruminants to be held off green pasture (but given water) for a minimum of four hours, in accordance with the National Stock Effluent Working Group’s Industry Code of Practice. This is to minimise stock effluent spillage on roads. Time off feed depends on the feed (hay feed okay, green feed produces more liquid faeces).

• Staff involved in animal handling during transport should have evidence they are trained.

• Provide water at all times.

Dehydration will knock yield.

• Minimise Ovis cysts by dosing dogs all through the year.

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Grow fast, keep it calm, still best recipe Fast-growing lambs during lactation are good on so many levels.

They maximise efficiency for lamb growth per days to slaughter. Prime lambs off the ewe don’t require double handling in the yard. They are weaned and loaded off the same day. The weaning check in growth is avoided and the ewe has more time to recover bodyweight.

One drawback is that lambs weaned off the ewe will have limited experience with yards and handling, only being yarded once for docking, perhaps. The novelty of yarding may increase stress so calm mustering and minimal dog use is important.

Justin Courtney of Silver Fern Farms says high pH is not regarded as an issue with lamb in general. However, stress preslaughter is the biggest cause of high pH. Pre-slaughter stress uses up glycogen stores in the muscles. This can result in less lactic acid being produced, resulting in a slighter higher pH. Really high pH meat is tender but dark and spoils more quickly.

To minimise stress pre-slaughter, stock are held in the processing plant yards in their mobs.

“Our yard staff are trained to move stock through the process quietly, to minimise stock jumping on each other.”

Animal welfare requirements restrict the number of washes to a maximum of two. There can be exceptions to this providing an assessment on animal welfare is undertaken. Animals that are washed more than twice are unable to supply into certain programmes.

For this reason, wet weather, combined with the percentage of stock coming off crop, has the biggest influence on the number of sheep that meet SFF’s A presentation grade and the ability to supply chilled year-round programmes.

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“We understand that wet weather onfarm can at times make lambs difficult to present. However, to enable us to maintain our processing standards, lambs need to be fully crutched and bellied.”

Across the country only a very small percentage of stock presented as dirty last season, Courtney says. Poor presentation does not allow the plants to achieve the national performance criteria, no matter what actions plant staff take.

“Animals deemed too dirty to meet our chilled criteria will be diverted to lower-

‘Animals deemed too dirty to meet our chilled criteria will be diverted to lowerpaying markets, impacting on the value of what we are able to pay for incoming stock supply.’ paying markets, impacting on the value of what we are able to pay for incoming stock supply.”

The monetary loss to farmers from having a cutter lamb from bruising or abscess is about 50c/kilogram carcase weight (kg CW). This works out at about $8.50/head for a 17kg CW lamb.

Courtney says injection abscesses are not common with lambs, but good needle hygiene is critical.

Needles will not go undetected in the meat. All product is passed through metal detection, x-ray and has multiple quality inspection as it moves through the chain process, before being signed off for export

by Assure Quality and MPI. Farmers must

record all broken needles and this is audited as part of farm assurance.

Dog use should be kept to a minimum.

He says farmers will know the temperament of their dogs best so they can use the right dogs, or other methods to move stock to their yards.

Research shows a link between the amount of dog use and lamb stress levels and resulting meat quality (Sutherland et al, 2016). The trial involved lambs aged six months who had either low-intensity handling (no dog, mustered in slowly) or high intensity. High intensity involved moving the lambs quickly over a longer distance, with a dog used before transport.

Lamb behaviour was recorded after handling (before transport), and again after transport before slaughter.

All lambs spent more time panting and standing (rather than lying and ruminating) after transport, compared to after mustering in pre-transport. This shows loading and transport itself can have a big effect. However, the high treatment lambs spent more time panting and standing than the low-level treatment lambs, both pre and post transport.

Upping the speed and distance of mustering and using a dog did reduce meat quality. Ultimate pH was higher (P<0.001) in high than low lambs and stayed up there longer.

The verdict was that the intensive preslaughter handling regime used in the study caused stress in lambs and increased ultimate pH. This could potentially negatively impact welfare, product quality and consistency.

Yard and loading design should encourage sheep to run. Stock prefer to move uphill rather than downhill. They will move towards lit areas, especially if uniformly lit, without shadows.

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BUSINESS | LIVESTOCK STRESS

A question of meat quality WORDS: LYNDA GRAY

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ow does same-day killing affect the quality of meat?

There is little in the way of hard scientific evidence to quantify the impacts on meat quality, and further complicating the issue is how ‘quality’ is defined, AgResearch Meat quality has a wide meat products and supply food definition. science impact leader Dr Cameron Craigie says.

“Meat quality has a wide definition, it can be based on the intrinsic attributes of the actual meat product such as pH, tenderness; or the extrinsic attributes relating to how the meat was produced.”

Objective assessment is possible using a pH meter, or texture analyser whereas subjective assessment is based on the feedback of consumers.

“Consumers are the ultimate arbiters of meat quality, and our production and processing needs to be aligned to meet or exceed their expectations. “ With same-day killing there is theoretically less time for lambs to become stressed. The stress stems from a number of factors, such as standing for prolonged periods in unfamiliar surroundings and dehydration. The pelt removal process is easier when the skin is not dehydrated because less force is needed to remove it from the carcase resulting in minimal damage to meat cuts. Also, with same-day killing, which usually entails careful scheduling of trucks and smaller yards, there is potentially less opportunity for animals to encounter other unfamiliar mobs, which is another pre-slaughter stress factor. Ante-mortem stress depletes muscle glycogen, resulting in meat with elevated ultimate pH. The upshot of higher pH is darker and less-visuallyappealing meat, a shorter shelf-life and less consistent tenderness.

However, a potential drawback of same-day kill is a greater gutfill at slaughter.

“That means that a knife nick to the internal organs during removal from the abdominal cavity is likely to have greater consequences in terms of carcase contamination, which may result in carcases being condemned.”

AgResearch has a number of research trials underway investigating the effects of genetics and feeding, processing interventions and packaging on meat quality, Craigie says.

“We are particularly interested in the development of objective quality measurements that can be deployed in the meat processing plant to generate real-time meat quality information that can be fed back to farmers for greater understanding of the impacts of production on meat product quality.”

Talk to us about our comprehensive plant and seed diagnostic services

Contact us today: 0508 00 11 22 www.asurequality.com

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23

BUSINESS | INVESTMENT

Time to invest wisely With the strong prices for lamb this year, vet Andrew Cochrane has some advice on making the most of the cash harvest.

I

was delighted to hear the latest forecast for lamb, for too long a reasonable year has been followed quickly by a downturn and sheep farmers, once again, are left working hard for bugger all. So how can we take full advantage of this positive outlook and where should we prioritise spending extra income in order to reduce that bloody tax bill?

Much will be said about debt reduction, new tractors, boats, and a ute to tow it, but I want to focus on investing back into the farm/stock to improve long-term management and productivity.

To prioritise spending requires some planning and we first must look at what improvements/technology could provide long-term value to the farm business.

I am fortunate enough to facilitate two discussion groups which give me a pretty good insight into different farming systems and I get to see a wide range of farm operations. Yet as a veterinarian, my expertise is in animal health and production, so where do I see gains that could be made through wise on-farm investment?

Some of you will argue you don’t have the time to weigh ewes, so for you I have another investment opportunity – better lanes.

The cynics in you will now be expecting a sales pitch for more drench/vaccine, but I’m going to assume you’re a top farmer and doing these things properly already.

I’m a details person, when you ring in July about the two-tooths’ poor scanning I want to know their weight and condition score in March and also the mature weight

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Your choice: The boat, or something to improve long-term management and productivity.

of your MA ewes. So my first question is, have you got a set of scales? I mean a decent set, one with auto draft features so you don’t need extra labour to run it.

You will be able to draft lambs off with it, monitor hogget growth and measure ewe mating weights, a great investment for any surplus income.

Some of you will argue you don’t have the time to weigh ewes, so for you I have another investment opportunity – better lanes. How much time do you spend behind ewes taking them back to the boundary paddock after a yarding?

Wouldn’t it be great if you could put a lane in to the back of the farm and just let them walk themselves back? This will free up time for weighing and body condition scoring and may even reduce the need for that extra staff member you can’t find.

While the fencer is there why not get them to subdivide some of those big paddocks - you know the ones that take ages to split up for breakfeeding over winter. You will improve your pasture management and may even fix some of those nutrient transfer and feed utilisation problems you have.

Development is often undertaken in good years, but how often is the money spent wasted because follow-up fert/sprays weren’t applied.

We’ve all seen the farm that developed the back block of gorse, only to see it completely covered in gorse again five years down the track. By prioritising development on lanes and subdivision the fences will still be there in five years regardless of future incomes.

While I’ve got you, how about investing in some testing? This year would be a great time to complete a whole-farm soil test and a faecal egg count reduction test to ensure your fertiliser and drench purchases are performing as expected. In many cases these tests and subsequent discussions with your fert rep and vet will result in reduced fertiliser and drench bills or at the very least more-effective use of each product.

Obviously, you can’t afford to do all these things at once and maybe debt reduction is a much wiser choice this year, but hopefully I’ve got you thinking about where some money could be spent on your farm. Consider permanent/semipermanent improvements and investments in technology that will provide long-term benefits and more efficient use of your time. Use this spare time to do some condition scoring of ewes, or maybe take the new boat fishing… up to you.

Andrew Cochrane works for Northern Southland Vets.

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November 2018

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November 2018

25

BUSINESS | MANAGMENT

Upright plant species, such as chicory, plantain and lucerne are generally safe options.

Facial eczema a costly disease WORDS: PETER ANDREW

I

n the good old days, the presence of facial eczema in Gisborne and Wairoa districts was a nightmare for many of the farmers let alone for the poor sheep. It was an annual curse that eroded farmer attempts to build a great ewe flock.

In the past this meant the sheep were pretty much an icon of our hinterland, condemned to the high and cooler parts of the region. There, they consistently pumped out our best docking results (tailing for some). This is also probably one of main reasons the Gisborne and Wairoa districts were the home of the beef cow and why we have had such high cattle ratios.

The presence of FE has certainly had a huge impact on the way we have farmed sheep in front country of this district.

Dealing with FE was a trigger for some good things in this district. We have built survivors that are purpose-built and now much harder to kill (Despite our best attempts).

FE forced us out of genetics that weren’t performing. The same ruthless approach to genetic selection for facial eczema, flowed through to other attributes such as fertility, milk and growth.

Dealing with the FE problem has been painful and even tragic for many, but it has also been an amazing story of genetic progress and success.

In the 1980s veterinarian Dr John Peters and a group of local Coopworth and Romney sheep stud breeders started dosing with one X dose rate of sporidesmin. The

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1980s also saw Dr Karl Jarguish, testing for depressed fecundity, finding the fusaria, zearalenone was a significant depressant for those ewes mated in the front country.

Fusaria likes the hot and dry and the FE the hot and damp, so sheep were truly under siege.

This triggered local stud breeders to start dosing and selecting rams in the 1980s. It is hard to believe that, that small decision step has had such a huge impact on farming in this district.

Terminal sires are quite vulnerable and a challenge in this district – they should be sold with a packet of zinc capsules tied around their neck.

The almost 30 years of genetic selection for an attribute with high heritability means we now have sheep genetics that are almost able to withstand any challenge thrown at them. FE Gold sires are pure gold.

In the Gisborne and Wairoa district the areas with highest FE counts are the low country or the front country. The hot humid valleys are full of bugs and a toxic place for sheep in summer and autumn months. However, in winter the bugs are all gone.

The worst places for sheep in summer

are ironically the best places for lamb survival in winter. This is a great place for lambs to be born being supported by high winter pasture growth rates especially on warmer soils on those northerly faces.

The humid valleys of summer are warm and sheltered from storms in winter. This now is supported by farmer lambing results with the highest lambing results coming out of the front country.

The genetic progress has been outstanding in both the tolerance to FE and pure fecundity that in this district they are no longer the Achilles heel of our sheep performance. Now thanks to the selection, a well-fed ewe in summer is now scanning in excess 200%. This is despite being mated right amongst a long season of high spore counts.

The exciting challenge is now successfully landing that scanning with respectable docking percentage. This is always going to be fun in this sometimesstormy isle?

It is always a great management dilemma; do you zinc capsule your $1000 maternal rams or cull those affected rams as you don’t want to breed from their genetics? Probably take the best long-term strategy due to the high heritability.

Terminal sires are quite vulnerable and a challenge in this district– they should be sold with a packet of zinc capsules tied arounds their neck. The breeders have focused on meat and growth and the reality is we have not really paid them enough to take that long-term genetic path to building tolerance.

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November 2018

Table A The main financial impact of FE on a flock without tolerance when a bad outbreak occurs is: Decreased Scanning being down

9%

Decreased Lambing being down

6%

Average Farm

1197(effective) ha

Stocking Rate

8.7su/(effective) ha

Sheep Stock Units

4915 ssu

Typically

3800 ewes

Lambing

132 %

Lamb Price at Wean

$20,520

This is without taking into account the cost of lost liveweight gain and death for vulnerable stock You should have a multiple head approach to minimising the impact of FE in your flock on the farm.

Management tips Monitoring is critical using both spore counts on pasture and blood test GGT level surveillance in vulnerable stock such as keeper ewe lambs.

Know where the hot spots are on your

Genetic progress has been outstanding in both the tolerance to FE and pure fecundity.

farm. Make sure that you have a plan so that vulnerable stock such as ewe lambs, two tooths and calves are in the cool spots.

Fungicide spraying can be a cheap and effective option in keeping safe zones.

Upright plant species, such as chicory, plantain and lucerne are generally safe options to have up your sleeve.

A ryegrass clover pasture with its high drymatter content can be lethal at this time of the year.

The bottom 25mm at this time of year is a real death zone.

It has got to be the home of cows and older tolerant ewes or just an autumn sabbatical.

Zinc dosing is a great tool and it is probably worth talking to your vet about this option.

Peter Andrew is a farm consultant with Agfirst, Gisborne.

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November 2018

27

BUSINESS | IRRIGATION

Farmers may walk away Manuherikia River want to raise the 90-year old Falls Dam by six metres.

WORDS: TIM FULTON

C

entral Otago farmers will simply walk from upgrading Falls Dam if minimum flow on Manuherikia River is too strict, Manuherikia River Ltd chairman Allan Kane says.

Farmers in the Manukerikia catchment made it clear at the pre-feasibility funding stage that they wouldn’t pay eye-watering amounts for better water storage.

Manuherikia River Ltd had the potential to irrigate 26,000 hectares when it first asked farmers for $50/ha to get the scheme rolling.

That initial pitch for support yielded 12,000ha, of which 10,000ha were already fully or partly irrigated.

The minimal amount of land being put forward for new land conversion told a story, Kane says. “That tells me that we are now at the maximum end for investment.”

Manuherikia River Ltd want to raise the 90-year old Falls Dam by six metres.

The stored water would be fed into the Manuherikia River to supplement low flows and give farmers more reliable stored water.

The Falls Dam upgrade is subject to a merger of four existing irrigation companies, a feasibility assessment, design and a capital-raise for construction.

The investment company argues that under the highest minimum flow, storage water from the dam would need to be used to maintain the minimum flow and might not be available for irrigation.

If more storage was then needed, the

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cost of the scheme will go up, and fewer farmers might sign up for it.

Farmers last year panned Otago Regional Council (ORC) for proposed minimum flows on the Manuherikia River at Alexandra ranging from 1250 litres per sec (l/s) to 2500l/s.

Drystock farmers and orchardists decried the figures, saying the lowest flow of 1250l/s would not be manageable in a dry year. Water issues are a handful for ORC: councillors recently voted in favour of throwing out a previous allocation limit and instead calculating a new allocation and minimum flow plan change at the same time.

Water-users want minimum flow and plan changes settled comprehensively in a single package so they can decide whether to invest in projects like the dam and onfarm infrastructure such as spray irrigation.

Kane, a finewool grower from Upper Clutha, says at this point Manuherikia River Ltd is basing its Falls Dam storage on a minimum flow on the Manuherikia of 1200l/s at the Alexandra campground.

Minimum flow on the Manuherikia wasn’t the only factor giving farmers pause for thought.

Otago also needed to introduce resource consents for water to replace historic mining rights, or ‘deemed permits’, by 2021.

The next step for Manuherikia Water Ltd, after the necessary merger of the irrigation companies, is preparing to raise funds for the feasibility study.

Kane says it is unfortunate Crown

Irrigation Investments Ltd (CIIL) withdrew funding for that investigation because it was one of the most expensive parts of the project. He estimates feasibility assessment would cost farmers $500-$600 a hectare.

If the proposal looks sound at that stage Manuherikia River Ltd would issue a prospectus to raise construction funds.

Gary Kelliher, chairman of Otago Water Resource Users Group (OWRUG) says ORC is creating water policy in a piecemeal way and acting “with a whole-level of predetermination” about the community’s best interests.

The former ORC councillor and farmer at Springvale, near Alexandra, says Otago’s land and water policy was traditionally based on effects rather than the type of land-use. ORC, influenced by the need to comply with the national policy statement for freshwater, seems to be moving toward controls on certain types of farming.

“What we want is an Otago direction.

It’s not, say, driven by what Wellington wants to see to fix the issues in Waikato and Southland.”

MORE: ORC Your Say Manuherikia catchment https://yoursay.orc.govt.nz/ manuherikia-catchmentintergrated-water-management Manuherikia Catchment Water Strategy Group www.mcwater.co.nz

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November 2018

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29

BUSINESS | LAMB

China takes lead on lamb WORDS: CHRIS MCCULLOUGH

H

igher incomes in China are providing more families there with greater opportunities to buy meat which was normally too expensive for them.

With a recently acquired taste for lamb, China is changing the dynamics of the global sheep meat market and is now the largest producer, consumer and importer of sheepmeat in the world.

Global lamb and sheepmeat exports are dominated by Australia and New Zealand which are the second and third largest producers worldwide.

While Australia has experienced rapid growth in lamb exports in recent years NZ has been somewhat thwarted for long-term growth due to high competition from its dairying and forestry sectors.

Some hard number crunching and extended international talks has resulted in a degree of liberalisation of lamb meat trading through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).

Using these FTAs Australia and NZ are at the forefront of meeting the welcome Chinese import demand giving both countries somewhat of a competitive edge over other suppliers.

China is home to 187 million sheep, the world’s largest flock, while India with 75m is second; Australia with 74.7m is third; Sudan with 53.5m is fourth and Iran with 48.7m is in fifth place.

The United Kingdom holds the largest sheep flock in the European Union as well as being the largest producer of lamb and mutton in the same region.

While the EU is the second largest importer of lamb, shipments to there have been falling since 2010 due to economic instability on top of falling consumption and production there.

Lamb and sheep production is vital to the UK economy but since it operates in an increasingly open global market where competition, free trade agreements and market access can influence its future, it is very volatile.

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Plus, with Brexit looming and the current uncertainties of what market trading will be, the UK could either be facing a lamb export crisis or become a very strong player in non-EU markets.

Another key influencer in world lamb import markets is the Middle East/North Africa (MENA) where demand is also increasing as the tradition of eating sheep meat intensifies.

A number of uncertainties will influence the global trading of sheep meat including changes in international trade agreements, the outlook for the global economy and exchange rates.

Swings in consumer trends to another meat, possibly beef, in the future are also a challenge facing the sheep meat export industry as well.

Long-term sheepmeat forecasts suggest there will be a tight supply situation for the key exporting countries, and indicate Australia will experience further growth but NZ will not.

While the EU production of sheep meat is expected to remain China is home to 187 million sheep, the world’s stagnant, global demand is largest flock. forecast to grow led by China which is set to be a major influence in the sector.

States is a key example of how a new A report published by the Agriculture leader can force major change in how a and Horticulture Development Board country trades with the rest of the (AHDB) in the UK assesses the global world. situation of sheep meat production and Religious tendencies will also influence demand. the global production and trading in the It also looks at the forecasts for sheep future but to what extent is unclear. meat exports in the future to 2025 and what factors will influence the sector.

The report highlighted that the success of any country’s export market for A number of critical factors will influence sheepmeat in the future relies critically on production of NZ sheepmeat. government policy.

This will herald from any impact of As voters start swinging to far right environmental legislation on the livestock parties, as experienced across the EU sector, plus further competition from the and beyond, a new party in power could dairy sector. change policy.

In Australia, climatic conditions will The Trump administration in the United continue to play a part in production

Growth in trade

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November 2018

Loading lambs at an Australian sheep farm. Forecasts indicate Australia will experience further growth but NZ will not.

developments there as sadly witnessed in the drought across the country but more so in New South Wales.

Global production and consumption of sheepmeat are forecast to grow by just over 1% per annum, a slightly higher rate than historical developments.

The growth in trade, led by increased availability of Australian lamb, is expected to be nearer 2% per annum in line with the historical increase.

The ‘high’ scenario is one of sustained strong positive price and demand developments, plus a sustained move towards more free trade with global supply unable to keep pace with demand.

There will be long-term sustained lamb export growth for Australia, with strong consumption growth in China but with global import growth constrained by export availability. The growth in global production and consumption is forecast to be nearer 2% per annum with trade rising by more than 3% per annum.

The ‘low’ scenario is the opposite of the high scenario with no increase in

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November 2018

world prices and demand, increased protectionism and problems for exporting countries.

Lamb and sheep production is vital to the UK economy but since it operates in an increasingly open global market where competition, free trade agreements and market access can influence its future, it is very volatile.

In this case, there will be long-term declines in production in Australia and NZ as they adjust to declining import markets, including China.

The AHDB report concluded international policy will inevitably impact on trade flows.

There could inevitably be a switch of supply for NZ lamb if it chooses to divert produce from the EU to the increased demand and potentially higher prices from China over the next five years.

This in turn might free up the market in the EU somewhat boosting supply and prices there.

Chinese demand for cheaper cuts makes it another advantageous market to be a part of as it adds value to the lamb carcase on export. Further growth is expected to take place in MENA, especially the Gulf States, given consumer preferences but with oil price developments also continuing to influence demand.

The US will also remain an important market for prime lamb and there could be scope for a further rise in imports.

However, the main concern is how long the Chinese demand will continue to increase?

China could become more self-sufficient in sheep production therefore throwing the export trade to it into chaos and forcing export countries to reduce stock

31

BUSINESS | EXPORTS

Niche market declines WORDS: TIM FULTON

T

he Middle East market may not be big but is a halal market niche for New Zealand carcase components that don’t sell strongly elsewhere.

Meat Industry Association chief executive Tim Ritchie said the Middle East was a relatively small market for NZ, taking 21,332 tonnes of sheepmeat in 2017/18 worth $170 million, or 5% of total exports by volume and value.

Beef +Lamb Economic Service figures show the volume of product shipped to the region has fallen in the past five years, from 28,000 tonnes to 18,000t. Despite a decline in the total value of that trade over those five years, the average value of lamb exports was now about $8277/t Free on Board (FOB) compared to $5345/t.

Ritchie said the region remained important, as Middle Eastern cooking preferences meant there was demand for parts of the carcase, like forequarters, that

Tim Ritchie: Middle Eastern cooking preferences meant there was demand for parts of the carcase, like forequarters, that were not so prized in other parts of the world.

were not so prized in other parts of the world. Jordan (8987t, worth $70m) and Saudi Arabia (7336t, $56m) were the two major markets, accounting for 76% of exports to the region by volume.

Silver Fern Farms general manager of sales, Peter Robins, said his company had a significant presence in halal markets,

especially in the Middle East where its product ranged from lower-end primal cuts through to higher-end chilled cuts destined for retail partners. Middle East markets continued to grow, particularly in the higher end retail and food service sectors.

ANZCO general manager of sales and marketing, Rick Walker, said it tended to ship sheepmeat to Asia rather than the Middle East because China and its neighbours paid more. Lower oil prices had suppressed demand in the Middle East, he said.

Alliance Group general manager of sales, Murray Brown said the region was probably more of a speculative, opportunist market than a programmed one for his company.

“You’ll find pockets that still like the shoulder meat so they will come and buy a block of product at a reasonable price, but we see a bit more disruption and not consistent buying patterns.”

Bullish sale for McFadzean yearlings WORDS: RUSSELL PRIEST

T

The McFadzean family’s first crack at selling breeding bulls could only be describes as a roaring success.

All 30 McFadzean Meat Maker (MMM) yearling bulls offered sold at their on-farm auction on September 13 at an average price of $5500 with prices ranging between $4500 and $6600.

Their average sale-day live weight was a commendable 600kg achieved by a daily weight gain of 1.3kg a day from weaning to August 7 (average yearling age) and 2kg a day from August 7 to September 10.

All were sold to beef farmers with most being used to breed replacement females. Only two will be used as terminal sires.

“These bulls represent great value in terms of the influence they will have in commercial herds on increasing growth and muscling while maintaining maternal traits,” PGG Wrightson selling agent, Steve Olds said.

As well as photos of individual bulls as calves with their mothers, the catalogue included each animal’s sire identification and actual figures on weaning and yearling weight, weight gain, eye muscle area along with rib, rump and intra-muscular fat measurements.

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November 2018

Vet warns:

Do they need it? P37

Good prices for sire stags P39

Copper puts shine on weaners

Copper supplements do help boost weaner growth rates according to a trial on a Southland deer farm.

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November 2018

33

DEER | ONFARM

Copper puts shine on weaners Copper supplements do help boost weaner growth rates according to a trial on a Southland deer farm. Lynda Gray reports.

D

oes the copper injecting of weaners significantly boost winter growth rates?

Yes, and by a whopping 5.6kg/head based on the first year results of a Southland Advance Party Project on the Mind family’s northern Southland

farm.

Dave and son Aaron keep a close watch on copper levels.

Optigrow liver tests on cull dry hinds and early finished weaners have typically revealed a low to marginal copper status, although the tests have been difficult to interpret. There have been no clinical signs of copper deficiency but as a preventative measure all fawns have been injected with Copperguard pre-winter, and the hinds pre-rut and before set stocking.

RUAPEHU RED DEER SIRE STAG SALE

However, this year the Ninds made some changes around copper supplementation. In an attempt to get the true measure and worth of the copper injectable the 600 middle-weight range of weaners was split, with only Dave Nind. one mob receiving the copper treatment. Both mobs were wintered behind wire on fodder beet with lucerne balage then weighed when they came off crop 102 days later. Averaging of the weights revealed a 140gram daily growth rate in the copper injected weaners versus 85g in the untreated mob. The coppered mob also looked better and lost their winter coats sooner.

Aaron calculated that the 5.6kg difference works out at about

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November 2018

DEER • The focus is on breeding and weaner finishing. Hinds are Eastern Reds, and majority are mated to Red stags. About 600 are mated to Wapiti.

• Deer fenced area: 1025ha (300ha East Dome, 125ha Bixter Road, 600ha Remarkables).

• Deer wintered • MA and R2 hinds: 2250 • Replacement R1 hinds: 250 • MA & R2 breeding stags: 26 • R1 Red stags/hinds finishing: 900 • Hybrid R1 stags/hinds finishing: 850

TOP LEFT: Aaron regularly records the weights of weaners. LEFT: Aaron sorts weaners for drenching. RIGHT: Aaron says he’ll stick with Copperguard injecting of weaners if the repeat of the trial next year produces similar growth rates. BELOW: East Dome’s 550 hinds wintered on whole crop barley silage for 120 days.

an extra $21 difference per head, taking into account the cost of the injection. Injecting is time-consuming and can be hard on the weaners, but Aaron says they’ll keep doing it if a repeat of the trial next year produces similar results.

Weaner growth rates will be monitored in the lead-up to slaughter, typically over spring the weaners pile on 400g a day.

Aaron says he’ll be interested to see how the growth rates of the injected mob pan out given that he’s been told it typically has only a three-month effect. He’s not greatly concerned at the extra three weeks it’s likely to take the non-coppered weaners to reach target slaughter weights given the high and stable venison schedule.

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November 2018

Advance Party facilitator and vet Dave Lawrence is surprised at the significant winter liveweight gain given that a 2003 research paper ‘The copper nutrition of grazing deer’ concluded that supplementing deer by high copper forages, copper oxide needles, topdressing or an injectable had little if any production effect.

Historically the deer industry has had a fixation with copper, he says, and literally millions of dollars has been spent supplementing deer with it, the vast majority of which has been a waste of time, money and effort.

“That’s been instrumental in challenging Aaron to do the trial and I’m pleasantly surprised at the result.”

35

Copper on the side The other change at the Ninds with copper supplementation was the decision to stop pre-rut injecting of the hinds. The decision was based on the time and cost and the effect on the hinds.

“When you bring them in twice a year to jab them they get sick of it so it can cause a bit of stress in the yards.”

This winter the 550 hinds got ad-lib access to copper salt in a half-tonne sized bag next to the silage pad.

The mix, which cost $700, was blended locally and it took a couple of weeks for the hinds to develop a taste for it. The true test of how successful the copper salt treatment is should be reflected in Optigrow testing of cull dry hinds, although Aaron is questioning the threshold testing limits used to define copper deficiency.

“When you talk with others it seems that the threshold limits are too high.”

Dave Lawrence agrees that the testing of

36

Left to right: Olivia Fox, Aaron, and Brendan Groenewegen take time out from injecting weaners pre-winter

KPIS Weaning % (fawns weaned/hinds mated)

92%

Scanning % first calvers (hands in calf/hinds mated)

93%

Av carcaseweight stags 54kg Av carcaseweight hinds 50kg

a few animals can produce questionable figures, especially if the individual readings vary significantly, skewing the averaged results.

“Also the time of testing is crucial. At the end of winter or beginning of spring is when levels are traditionally low and the best time for testing.”

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November 2018

DEER | SUPPLEMENTS

Do they need it?

WORDS: LYNDA GRAY

C

entral Hawke’s Bay vet and Hawke’s Bay Original Advance Party facilitator Richard Hilson has strong views on copper use - or mis-use - and likes to get the bigger picture when farmers claim that their deer need copper.

“Really the starting point for the whole discussion should be that ‘do my deer need copper’.”

Assessing whether or not Richard Hilson: ‘It just shows how copper supplementation is subtle the issue of copper is.’ necessary should be discussion between the vet and farmer, he says.

“There’s got to be a reason to do it such as OCD in fawns, or broken limbs. The testing of deer can often reveal low levels, but really there’s no reason to act unless it’s causing clinical problems.

Just because copper has been given for the past 20 years is not a good enough reason to keep doing so.”

Hilson, who combines management of Vet Services Hawke’s Bay with sheep, beef and deer farming with wife Karen Middelberg on “Jedburgh”, at Takapau, has first-hand experience of the effects of copper deficiency on their own farm and that of several clients.

The clinical manifestation on Jedburgh was the birth of up to three fawns a year with OCD and arthritis. The condition only showed up with the start of hind wintering on kale.

Rather than remedy with a copper bullet, a time-consuming, labour intensive job costing about $5-$8 per head, Hilson decided to fortify balage with copper sulphate. His decision was made after reading the 2006 New Zealand Journal of Agricultural Research papers “The effectiveness of copper fertiliser in maintaining the copper status of deer at moderate to high pasture molybdenum contents” and “Fortification of silage and hay crops with trace elements”.

Hilson emphasises that the copper sulphate fortification of conserved feed, or spraying of pastures, is not recommended practice and should only ever be carried out after consultation with a vet.

“There’s several huge risks; you could poison your deer if they

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November 2018

Now you can instantly calculate deer feed requirements and compare the cost of nutrition on your device. www.deernz.org/deerapp If you know the cost of different feed options, enter them into the feed cost comparer to calculate the cost of the protein and energy your deer require for optimal growth.

Download the deerapp from www.deernz.org/deerapp to iPhone, iPad or Android phone.

The deerapp also includes the feed intake and feed allocation calculators developed

by Dr David Stevens and Marie Casey.

More calculators will be added.

37

already have decent levels of copper or are doing it out of season, you could definitely kill sheep, and if you’re in the business of selling fortified balage that kills stock it will be easy to prove that you are liable.”

Highlighting the risk in the sale or purchase of treated balage, was a case in the Hawke’s Bay where bought-in balage during a drought had significant amounts of Goats Rue that subsequently poisoned large numbers of sheep.

“This emphasises the importance of extreme care when buying and feeding fortified conserved feed that will be toxic to sheep in particular.”

At Jedburgh for the last six years the equivalent of 0.5kg/ha of copper sulphate has been sprayed on to windrows of pasture for balage.

“It takes a bit of coordination as we spray it on with a spray gun, in front of the tractor as it bales.”

Pasture testing prior to spraying revealed the copper status was in the 8-10 ppm which is typical of a lot of NZ pastures.

When fortified it increased markedly and ranged from 40 to 160 ppm, levels that would very quickly kill sheep. This highlighted the need to monitor and retest before grazing.

The 50-80 sprayed bales are identified and separated from the rest and fed out to the 300 hinds over winter.

“The time they are on kale is also the

time at which copper levels in deer are usually at their lowest.”

Over the six years of spraying not one fawn has been born with arthritis.

However, last year when the balage missed out on spraying three fawns were born with the condition. Of note was that those afflicted, as in the past, were European crossbred fawns.

point, Hilson says. His own conclusion is that the commonly used lab thresholds are conservative, based on the testing and analysis of many hinds as part of the Richmond Wrightson Deer Performance Project in the early 2000s. Traditionally, low copper status was defined by a liver biopsy of 95-plus, or blood sample test of 8-19 units, but project leader and vet Ian

‘There’s several huge risks; you could poison your deer if they already have decent levels of copper or are doing it out of season, you could definitely kill sheep, and if you’re in the business of selling fortified balage that kills stock it will be easy to prove that you are liable.’

“We’ve never had it in our English bred Reds so maybe therein lies part of the problem. It just shows how subtle the issue of copper is.”

This year the windrowed pasture again missed out on spraying so instead pastures destined for hind grazing in the lead up to fawning were sprayed with copper sulphate at 4kg/ha. The pasture was left a week after which hinds were regularly grazed on it for short periods.

The topic of copper deficiency is vast and some of the basic parameters, such as the threshold for deficiency is a moot

Walker suggested that these be revised down to 60-plus and 6-plus respectively.

“That was based on the fact that under the traditional parameters where the deer were defined as having a low copper status they showed no clinical issues.”

His final word on fortification of supplements or spraying of pasture with copper sulphate is to plan and consult with a vet.

“Work out if you need to do it, which method to use, where you’re starting from and where you end up, and certainly don’t graze it until you’ve had it tested.”

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38

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November 2018

DEER | SIRE SALES

e c i r p d o Go

prospects for sire stags

WORDS: LYNDA GRAY

H

‘In the past it’s been hard to get a premium price for hinds with proven velvet genetics but that’s certainly changing.’

Another trend he’s noticed in recent years is the move away from the dual purpose velvet/trophy sires that some studs were breeding.

“They’ve become more focused and are either targeting trophy or velvet.”

Adam Whaanga, deer specialist of South Island-based Rural Livestock is predicting strong demand for velvet sires in particular.

He hasn’t crunched the numbers but suspects the average price for velvet genetics has significantly lifted for stags, and also yearling hinds.

“In the past it’s been hard to get a premium price for hinds with proven velvet genetics but that’s certainly changing.”

Independent Waikato-based deer agent Bob Dunn says the $11.40 schedule

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November 2018

The average price for velvet genetics has significantly lifted for stags, and also yearling hinds.

looks set to hold for at least 18 months, exchange rate permitting, and should be reflected in similar if not better sales prices than last year.

Downsizing in the industry and the rapid advance in genetics has radically influenced the stud sire sales scene over the last six years, he says.

“A lot of the bigger studs are no longer operating. Those that are still in business are putting forward fewer for sale that because of genetic advancement are generally of higher quality.”

He’s predicting strong demand for “good body” stags that will grow a good head of velvet.

Agents seem less certain on the prospects for trophy animals, a market that’s been under pressure.

“In the past trophy has pushed up the top sale price. There will still be demand for the very top-end but a lot of the guys who used to buy trophy stags have now set up their own breeding herds,” Carrfields Taihapebased livestock agent Derek Mickleson says. “(Trophy) demand was for bigger heads and more have been produced so there just isn’t the premium for those bigger heads unless they’re at the very top end.”

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igh and stable prices for venison and velvet will underpin what most agents are predicting to be a solid sire stag selling season.

Clearance rates and prices in 2017/18 were well above the previous season, with some stud farms reporting a 50% hike in price average. The indications are that the market should hold at much the same levels as last year,” PGG deer stud coordinator Graham Kinsman says.

However, the days of selling everything through the sales arena are gone.

“Stud breeders are putting up fewer and a higher quality animal.”

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39

LIVESTOCK | ONFARM

Silk purse made out of sow’s ear A Southland farmer has taken a gorse-infested farm by the scruff of the neck and has turned it into a highly productive unit.

Terry Brosnahan checks it out. Photos by Chris Sullivan.

W

hen Tom Buckingham bought the 245-hectare farm at Tokanui five years ago, most of it flat, it was covered in gorse and sitting in what looked like a swamp. That’s probably the reason why there was little interest in it even though it had a dairy farm beside it.

Tom knew two things about gorse. It doesn’t like “wet feet” and it is a sign of soil fertility. On closer inspection the water was due to blocked drains. He bought the farm for less than $3 million, had the ditches cleaned out by his brother Roger on a hired digger and now the land is pumping out the grass.

“I still paid too much for it,” Tom says.

A tractor with a mulcher backed over the gorse. One of the reasons for mulching the gorse rather than root raking it was it made a mat and allowed them to get over the ground without sinking in. The gorse was

40

also handy for stopping the digger sinking in.

Grass was sown straight away rather than a crop of swedes to work out where the wet spots were.

The farm is part of a 470ha (380ha effective) sheep farming operation Tom and his partner Sandra Leask are running.

They also lease his parents Geoff and Greta’s adjoining farm.

Tom’s parents’ farm has been in the family since 1925 and about 60ha is hill.

His brother Roger farms nearby.

Growing the grass is one thing, utilising it is another and this is done well.

Their Texel sheep are on an all-grass system with lambs finishing to heavy weights.

The lambs are all in the YM grade1820kg and bringing in the bonuses.

When he went to see them killed the grader told him they were so uniform “a blanket could be thrown over them”.

Last year they supplied 3934 lambs from November to June at an average weight of 18.89kg with 90% weighing 14.5kg to 21.20kg CW. The average price for all their lambs was $129.31.

The average total yield, on a monthly basis, almost hit 57% and only dropped below 55% in April and May. Most of his own lambs are gone by April so the drop off in yield in May and June was likely to reflect the different genetics of the trading stock.

The yield figures were streets ahead of the other farmers supplying the Alliance rep which Tom puts down to the genetics (see graphs).

Their yield quality payment was about $6.30 above the schedule per head. As the season went on they were averaging 19kg and the yield quality payment was up to $7.60 at the best.

It is not surprising then that Tom and Sandra are platinum suppliers.

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November 2018

LEFT: Southland farmer Tom Buckingham bought a gorse-infested, swampy farm five years ago and turned it into a highly productive sheep and beef farm. RIGHT: Before clearing the gorse, Tom contacted Environment Southland which identified four blocks(7ha) of naturally occurring wetlands that needed to be protected.

Heavier weights compensate The south-westerly wind coming straight from Antarctica whistles through the farm.

The wind and rain take their toll on newborn lambs, a major reason why the 170% scanning rate is only converting into about 135% lambing. On the plus side, as the farm is coastal, they don’t get the snow and frosts inland so the pasture growth is higher.

“Good thing it is a temperate climate because if it is raining it is not freezing.”

More shelter is being planted which will keep the paddocks and stock warmer, helping them reach their goal of 150% lambing. Sandra and Tom can still make good money because they can finish all the lambs to heavy weights which more than makes up for the low lambing percentage.

Normally some homegrown lambs are kept to June but it was so wet this year they went in May. Originally his dad had Coopworths and was crossing with Texels but decided to go with the latter.

The Texel rams are bought off Garth Shaw, south Otago and are mated at 1:150. Tom doesn’t use harnesses but uses the scanner to separate the ewes into a mob in-lamb after 10 days, after the first cycle.

To help close the gap between scanning and lambing percentages, Tom is running an A and B mob system.

Ewes and two-tooths only get one chance so any dries go into the B mob.

Garth told him they could afford to let up to 40% of the ewes go into the B mob because there will still be plenty of replacements out of 2000-plus ewe lambs.

Suftex rams used to go over the B mob but Texels now go over everything including the hoggets. Tom says a great thing about the Texels is that they look after their lambs.

“Ewes give it to lambs, they don’t put it on their own backs.”

The lambs come out small but grow like

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November 2018

rockets. Tom tagged a few at tailing time last year and they were growing at 400g/ day.The farming operation carries 3200 Texel ewes, 800 hoggets, 100 yearling and 60 R2 beef cattle.

Ewe numbers have been built up naturally from 2500, three years ago though 500 were bought in two years

Stock Units

ago. Tom, 52, has found the Texels hardy and less work than the Coopworths he used to run. No more than 10% of the lambs need dagging.

Sandra has her hands full with their three girls, Claudia, 6, Rosie,4, and Evelyn,2, but helps on the farm when she can.

FY2016

FY2017

FY2018

Opening stock units (July)

3716

4483

4134

Closing stock units (June)

4483

4134

5058

Texel genetics are making good use of the all-grass system with lambs finished to heavy weights and yields almost hitting 57%.

BUDGETS ALMOST SPOT-ON Tom uses Farmplan’s Peter Flannery as his farm financial guru who is a former stock agent, rural banker and now an independent adviser. After Tom sent his accounts to him, Flannery visited the farm and they did a tour.

Back at the farm house his guru said he could see now what Tom was trying to do. When he first saw the accounts he wondered why Tom was farming.

With Flannery’s help a five-year plan and budgets were draw up. It is now the fourth year and the budgets have been almost spot-on.

At a meeting with Flannery and the rest of Tom’s professional team, accountant Doug Stanley from Flintoff and ASB banker Michael McKenzie, it was decided to get stuck into the development. Better to have the farm humming earlier rather than stretching development out. This has worked well as the farm budget had its first profit estimated at $12,000 in year four, but it made $92,000 in year three.

Tom and his team of professionals meet three times a year.

41

Hogget lambs a bonus About 550 hoggets go away to grazing on a Fonterra farm at the end of May. They usually come back after 90 days, weighing 70kg at the end of September when the paddocks are shut up for silage.

Tom says it would be better if they could stay there another month as it would take pressure off the feed supply.

For the past couple of years the Texel rams have gone out over the 250 hoggets remaining at home. They couldn’t afford to buy more rams so Texels were used.

Tom says the hoggets are run with the two-tooths then drafted up into separate mobs to start lambing on September 25, a lot earlier than other farmers around him.

“Last year it worked a treat.”

Hogget lambing is 60-70% and last year the lambs averaged 19kg CW. Tom says lambing the hoggets early makes it easier because the lamb inside it hasn’t become too big.

Key Ratios

Converting to dairy was looked into but there would have been environmental and production restrictions on when the cows could be out on the flats.

FY2016

FY2017

FY2018

Gross farm revenue/SU

$160

$143

$179

Farm costs/opening SU

$94

$85

$81

Farm costs % of GFR

59%

59%

45%

Opening stock units/Eff HA

9.3

11.2

10.3

“You can’t tell the difference between the lambed hoggets and the grazed ones.”

A week before lambing they are spread out and some are checked twice a day, especially the longer-woolled ones which are at risk of becoming cast. The ewes are shorn about every eight months and clip an average of 4.5kg/year.

Last season they invoked a ‘No mothering-on policy though Sandra ended up rearing 35 lambs.

The ewes start lambing on September 5 with the B or terminal sire, then the main mob 10 days later.

MY AVERAGE TOTAL YIELD % VS MY LIVESTOCK REPS CLIENTS - LAMB - 2018/2018

Scanning is used to identify the A mob with multiple-lamb carrying ewes lambing within the first 10 days, then the next 10 days and the singles on their own. They are shifted every day and paddocks are split up with hot wires.

Spreading the lambing out with the different mobs is more work but it has lowered the risk of losses if storms strike.

About seven paddocks need going around twice a day.

“I’m happy to do that as it is the money time of the year.”

Dries and any ewes that have to be handled during lambing get a tag.

The single two-tooths and dry hoggets

MEAT PRODUCTION Last year (2017-18) the farm produced 103,252kg of meat: • Lamb 74,500kg, • Cattle, 16,240kg • Sheep 12,512kg • = 290kg/ha

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November 2018

GORSE CLEARING COSTS • Mulching: $200/hour, about 5 hours/ha= $1000/ha • Cultivation: Two Rota spike passes and the covering harrow $300/ha • Fertiliser: Five tonne of lime/ha, cost cart, sow $300/ha and 400kg super phosphate = $200/ha.

• Two dressings of urea, $452/ha.

Grass seed mix: 22kg Cocksfoot ryegrass, 10kg Feast short rotation and 2.5kg white clover = $254/ha • Total cost of developing 40ha of pasture is $2506/ha

went on to a paddock of swedes for 10 days which was originally for calves but too exposed.

Weaning for the early mob starts in the first week of December and the main mob 10 days later. The hoggets and two-tooths are weaned the first week of January.

A first draft of lambs for the works is taken from the B mob in mid-November before weaning. Last year 10-week old lambs averaged 35kg liveweight and yielded 18kg CW. At $8/kg, getting 100 lambs away is well-worth it and it frees up feed.

This season 1200 of 3400 of their own lambs were away by January 9 at an average of 18.23kg CW and $120.

The lambs are split into 45kg plus liveweight, 40-45kg and under 40kg.

MY AVERAGE TOTAL YIELD % - LAMB

There is no preferential feeding, but as the heavier lambs (over 48kg) are killed from the heavy mob, the tops of the middle

Sandra Leask and Tom Buckingham with their three girls, Claudia, 6, Rosie,4, and Evelyn,2,

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November 2018

and wee mobs move up. In the past two years the lambs have been weighed every week with an auto drafter from the middle of January. Between 100-150 lambs were killed each week and the average can be 49-50kg LW. Animal health costs are relatively low at $3.49/su. It used to be $2.33/su when they were grazing dairy heifers and had fewer sheep.

The lambs are drenched with Arrest three weeks before weaning and again when they are weaned. They will get another two drenches three weeks apart until February when drenching is stretched out to four-five weeks.

About late August the ewes get a Cydectin drench. The two-tooths get a toxo shot.

Their farming system has plenty of scope to grow lambs to heavier weights to make up for any shortfall due to lower lambing percentages.

If the season becomes dry or too cold they can drop the average weight and still sell lambs at good prices. With such a large portion of lambs killed early, if it does become dry he has the option of buying in

43

PERENDALES

WormST R

44

TM

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November 2018

ANNUAL FERTILISER • The mix below has been applied at 450kg/ha plus 450kg of lime.

• 25 units of P maintenance + 15 units of capital • 30 units of K maintenance + 120 units of capital

Tom hired a digger which his brother Roger used to clear out the ditches and a contractor mulched the gorse.

• 50 units of S maintenance • These are based on the recommendations from agKnowledge. The farm is in the last year of a three-year plan to build up soil fertility levels to optimum production.

more lambs when other farmers are getting rid of them.

However, increasing their lambing percentage and lamb weights is more important. If the lambing percentage can get up to 150%, Tom could take them to 22kg CW without going over 25kg CW and being penalised.

“The beauty of them is they don’t go fat but keep piling the weight on where it should be.”

Development Costs

FY2016

FY2017

FY2018

Total

Fencing

$12,356

$18,653

$14,107

$45,116

Drainage

$10,348

$19,577

$18,001

$47,926

$2380

$12,819

$260

$15,459

$18,041

$13,220

$31,261

Water supply Fertiliser over and above maintenance Weed and pest

$3189

$5630

$1953

$10,772

Seed

$4346

$8447

$4015

$16,808

Plant and machinery hire

$6494 $83,167

$51,556

$173,836

Total development including fertiliser

$39,113

Dairy option ruled out Tom investigated converting the farm to dairy but there would have been environmental and production restrictions on when the cows could be out on the flats. Also, learning how to handle a new system and staff at his age wasn’t appealing though robotic milking was investigated.

Tom doesn’t believe in the adage ‘where there’s mud there’s money’. He is a great believer in avoiding pugging in winter as it is not good for stock, promotes gorse and thistle growth. It is also not a good look from the road.

To keep cattle off the paddocks over winter, 60 two-and-a-half year old cattle are housed in a shed. The 100 yearling cattle are wintered in tree blocks and run on swedes late winter.

Earnings before interest and tax

FY2016

Gross farm revenue (incudes $ change in stock number)

$592,749

Farm working costs (including development)

$351,016

EBIT

$241,733

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November 2018

Over the winter the ewes are split into three mobs and shifted to a new paddock every second day. Silage is put in the paddock before the ewes are shifted to it.

When Tom took over the farm five years ago only 11 of the 32 paddocks could be used to put sheep in them. Now there are 80 paddocks between the two farms. The bigger paddocks are split with hot wires.

He says putting up permanent three-wire electric fences was a mistake – as the gorse grew it shorted them and left gaps for the stock to go through. He wishes he had put up proper fences.

Tom brought in independent FY2017 FY2018 soil scientists and consultant Dr $640,079 $740,934 Robert McBride from agKnowledge who $380,299 $333,299 diagnosed a potassium deficiency. Potash $259,780 $407,635 fertiliser has been

applied and the pastures now flourish.

Some of the pastures on the farm Tom bought are 40-50 years old the farm but still growing tonnes of clover and grass.

Tom doesn’t measure pasture or work out feed budgets, it is all by eye and calculated in the brain.

The feed pinch is late August-early September but with the farm an all-grass system for sheep, it keeps trickling in. Some urea usually goes on in spring but a dry July allowed 60kg/ha of urea to be spread over 100ha.

Crown root weevil has been through the area and last year porina struck the farm.

A 30ha block which had pit silage made from it in January should have had another

45

Key Items of Expenditure Animal health

FY2016

FY2017

FY2018

$8662

$11,522

$14,445

Rates and insurance

$25,439

$27,879

$25,162

Wages

$33,533

$29,410

$21,579

Vehicle

$17,869

$22,806

$20,392

R&M plant and eqiupment Total fertiliser (including capital)

$4297

$2736

$8123

$55,818

$99,959

$89,514

protecting. The biggest weed after gorse is California thistles which are kept in check with mechanical and chemical topping.

The gorse is kept in check with good grazing management which includes lots of subdivision of paddocks with hot wires.

Last year the dry opened the pasture cover allowing gorse to come away. Mowing kept it under control.

Chemical topping has proven to be a good tool for keeping pasture under control and lifting the quality.

The stock water scheme is gravity fed and a stack of troughs indicates further improvements are taking place with more subdivision of paddocks.

Tom is keen on new technology and sees electronic identification (EID) as the way of the future.

This is the fourth year Tom has put EID tags in the two-tooths even though he

Larger paddocks are split up with electric fences.

cut during the summer, but the contractor didn’t get to it until April. After the silage came off the pests moved in.

“The porina hammered it.”

Before clearing the gorse, Tom decided to do things by the book and contact Environment Southland. They identified four blocks adding up to 7ha which were naturally occurring wetlands and needed

is yet to buy a scanner and scales. Even at $1.80/tag, he still believes it is a good investment as the technology can only improve. One aim is to use it to identify twins from twins.

“The quickest way to get there is to identify them with EID.” They employ casuals for seasonal work such as tailing and drenching. Tom owns a wrapper and works in with a baling contractor doing contract wrapping. The idea was to employ a person to run the wrapper and work on the farm but such people are hard to find. Tom has been doing the wrapping and it, with their sheep conveyor he hires out, has brought in about $80,000 gross income a year.

Another bonus was milling about a hectare of pine trees running along the creek two-three wide. The 35-40- year-old trees brought in $40,000.

NZ Red Stag-Hind/Wapiti Bull Sales Itinerary December 2018 Sales Fri 7

th

Tues 11th

Wed 12th

Wed 12th

Thur 13th

Fri 14th

Fri 14th

Peel Forest Est. 1.00pm Forrester Sire Sale Venison Genetics Peel Forest National Velvet Awards Dinner Invercargill Ruapehu Red Deer 1.30pm Taihape Fairlight Station.

11.00am Northern Southland Deer Genetics 1.00pm Geraldine Forest Road Farm 12.30pm - Velvet Hawkes Bay

Sat 15th Sat 15th Sun 16th Sun 16th Mon 17h

Wilkins Farming Ltd. 3.30pm - Venison Hawkes Bay Tower Farms 12.30pm Cambridge Crowley Deer 4.30pm Hamilton Raroa Deer 9.30am (new start time) Cambridge Sarnia Deer - Cambridge Sale cancelled 3 yro sale 2019 Kelly Oaks - Rotorua Sale cancelled Private Treaty sales only

Sun 13th Mon 14th Mon 14th Tues 15th Wed 16th Thur 17th Thur 17th

January 2019 Sales Sun 13th

Peel Forest Est. 1.00pm Peel Forest

Fri 18th

Deer Genetics 4.30pm Geraldine Rupert Red Deer 1.00pm Geraldine Rothesay Red Deer 5.30pm Methven Black Forest Deer Park 6.00pm Outram Netherdale Deer 1.30pm Balfour Arawata Red Deer 12.30pm Invercargill Altrive Red Deer 5.00pm Gore Wilkins Farming Ltd. 2.00pm Athol

Sun 20th

Tues 22nd

Tues 22nd

Weds 23rd

Thurs 24th

Thurs 24th

Lochinvar Wapiti Farm 11.00am Te Anau Littlebourne Wapiti 1.00pm Winton Tikana Wapiti 3.30pm Winton Clachanburn Elk 1.00pm Ranfurly Edendale Wapiti 12.00pm Mt Somers Raincliff Station Wapiti 5.00pm Pleasant Point

PGG Wrightson Deer Specialist Team Graham Kinsman NZ Deer Stud Co-ordinator 027 422 3154

46

Murray Coutts Mid & South Canterbury 027 403 9377

John Williams Otago 027 241 4179

Ben Beadle Southland 027 728 1052

Sam Wright Waikato/BOP 027 443 0905

Ron Schroeder North Canterbury/West Coast 027 432 1299

John Duffy Deer Auctioneer 027 240 3841

Find out more at pggwrightson.co.nz/deersales Country-Wide

November 2018

LIVESTOCK | DRENCH RESISTANCE

Drench lesson learned Country-Wide’s Sheep relayed the latest thinking on combating drench resistance from leading independent parasitologist Dave Leathwick.

In part two, Andrew Swallow looks at farms that have grasped the resistance nettle, and deployed strategies to strangle it.

W

hen Gavin King got the results of the first faecal egg reduction test (FECRT) performed on his farm at Hororata he was shocked at the results: albendazole and ivermectin were only 40% and 10% effective respectively against teladorsagia (the species formerly known as ostertagia). Ivermectin was also down to 59% efficacy against trichostrongylus spp.

He had noticed Ivomec capsules he’d been using routinely in ewes and lambs were not working as well as they once had, which was why he’d agreed to be part of the national best practice parasite management programme (BPPMP) when his vet suggested it, but he hadn’t expected resistance to be so advanced.

That was back in 2009/10 and he and his

vet, Simon Hewitt, and BPPMP leaders Prof Bill Pomroy and Dr Tony Rhodes, spent the next four to five years doing further FECRTs and changing farm practice to a programme that would, hopefully, halt the tide of resistance.

Changes included dropping capsules completely: previously ewes got a routine pre-lamb capsule, originally Extender (albendazole) but later Bionic (abamectin + albendazole); sale lambs got Extender at weaning; ewe lambs ear-marked as replacements and tail-end “rats and mice” lambs got an Ivomec capsule.

FECRTs during the BPPMP showed Matrix (abamectin, oxfendazole, levamisole) was still 100% effective so that’s now the main lamb drench, with the first dose pre-weaning around December 1 and a regular 28-day programme until the end of March when Zolvix King’s FECRT results (monepantel) is used as an exit/ knockdown drench.

Worm species x drench active % efficacy “The Zolvix is to take out any 2009 2013 worms which might have got Teladorsagia x albendazole 40 64 past the Matrix. After that we monitor FEC to see if we need to Teladorsagia x levamisole 88 96 drench again.”

Teladorsagia x ivermectin 10 57 Ewes are hardly drenched at Trichostrongylus x albendazole 87 87* all now, with only an occasional Trichostrongylus x levamisole 95 98 skinny one destined for culling Trichostrongylus x ivermectin 59 100 getting an oral to help gain *2012 result.

Source: Dave Leathwick, Agresearch. condition.

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November 2018

FARM FACTS • 1130ha in three blocks.

• 317ha now irrigated via Central Plains Water • 3000 Coopworth and Coopdale ewes, scanning ~200%.

• 900 hoggets, all put to ram.

• 420 Angus cattle, inc 265-cow breeding herd.

• Up to 2200 dairy grazers, mostly over-winter.

Hoggets are all put to the ram, this year’s 612 Coopworth hoggets scanning 133% and 325 Coopdale’s scanning 68%. Their worm burden is monitored by FEC and Matrix used if average count gets much above 200. They’re run as a separate mob, usually on rape or swedes over winter and again coming up to lambing as two-tooths, which gives them a lift.

Besides changing drench use, King’s growing more winter crops, has increased cattle numbers, and integrated grazing rounds so lambs are followed by ewes or another stock class on all but three paddocks, which are in red clover specifically for lamb finishing.

More winter crop eases pasture

47

contamination and provides more clean feed while cattle and adult ewes grazing behind lambs help mop up any possibly resistant parasites shed by the lambs.

By the end of the BPPMP efficacy of albendazole and ivermectin had reverted somewhat (see table), but King’s not been tempted to start using them again.

“I was advised by Prof Pomroy and Dr Rhodes that if we did go back there was a possibility it [efficacy] would collapse again.”

The workload of extensive farm redevelopment to make use of Central Plains Water irrigation means he hasn’t run a FECRT since the BPPMP finished but he aims to do so this summer. He believes any sheep farmer serious about succeeding in the industry should do the same.

“You want to know how your sheep are going to do.”

King says there are probably some places that have resistance to every family of drench, but they don’t know it.

He believes when buying a sheep farmer it is best to make the deal subject to the results of a drench test.

King admits he hasn’t crunched the numbers on what the cost-benefit is of the changes to parasite management he’s made, partly because there have been so

Any sheep farmer serious about succeeding should do a drench test, Canterbury farmer Gavin King believes.

many other alterations to the farm system with the arrival of irrigation.

“But I know I’m saving a lot on capsules that weren’t working and with this regime we’re tidying the farm up, keeping it on track for the future. The lambs we’re selling now are going away heavier than they

RESISTANCE-REDUCTION STRATEGIES

The Poplars Dual Purpose Coopworth Rams

• Checked drench efficacy with FECRT • Switched from ineffective capsules to effective orals.

• Lambs: triple-active drench, 28-days apart, followed

by Zolvix exit.

• Hoggets and two-tooths: FEC monitored and drenched accordingly.

• Ewes: only occasional individuals drenched on welfare grounds.

• Cattle and sheep grazing rounds integrated.

• Cropping rotation provides more clean pasture.

WHEELER SHEEP GENETICS Very low input-high output (GDF9)

High fertility Texels Proven performers Efficient and Hardy Selected for short tails and low dag score, no docking needed • Lower input Higher output

lamb growth rates and wool weight FinnTexel ewes

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used to at the end of the drench capsule time and we had to do something, which was why we got on the Best Practice programme. There’s no point burying your head in the sand about these sort of things and hoping you don’t have a problem when you probably do.”

Phone Robert and Suzanne 07 896 7020 Phone Travis Carter 07 895 3348 email: unca.rokit@xtra.co.nz 136 Kirikau Valley Road RD 3, Taumarunui 3993 Country-Wide

November 2018

LIVESTOCK | WORMS

Reduction test reluctance remiss In the second part of a series, Andrew Swallow investigates how a scientist, vets and sheep farmers are fighting back against drench resistance.

W

orms resistant to one or more class of drench are probably present on most sheep farms and production losses will be eroding returns long before visible symptoms of excessive worm burdens are seen.

That warning comes from AgResearch’s Dave Leathwick who is helping farmers reverse drench resistance on their farms (see October 2018 Country-Wide Sheep issue).

“We’ve measured the impact of using a drench product on lambs that’s compromised by resistance and they returned $10 to $15 less per lamb… they take a growth check and so are smaller or take longer to get to drafting weight.”

Yet only about 10% of farms have ever done a faecal egg count reduction test (FECRT), so even if some of the remaining 90% are aware they might have a resistance problem, they won’t know how best to tackle it. Doing a FECRT typically costs $1000 to $1500 so doing one every third year on a farm finishing 5000 lambs works out at just 10c/lamb.

Given those numbers Leathwick is at a loss as to why more farmers haven’t checked the resistance status of the parasite population on the farm.

“Everybody accepts the need to vaccinate with a 5-in-1 pre-lamb but nobody accepts the need to drench test every three years.”

Veterinary Services Hawkes Bay’s Camille Flack, pictured, has a similar analogy, asking why it’s accepted periodic soil testing is necessary to plan and apply fertiliser appropriately, yet there’s an apparent reluctance to drench test.

Part of the problem, she believes, is timing and workload. A mob of 100-120 visibly healthy lambs of similar weight needs to be marked for FECRT and left

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November 2018

untreated at the first drench, which is typically around weaning or before.

“This is a busy time and planning for a FECRT is often forgotten about with Christmas adding to the time pressure.”

The FECRT mob should be grazed on permanent pasture and, preferably, left with the main mob of lambs which will help their FECs to rise more rapidly than if they were kept separate.

“It is best to perform a FECRT early in the season to ensure all the significant parasite species are present at the time of the test,” Flack says.

FECs should be taken regularly from the marked mob from about four weeks after weaning. When egg count averages 500750/g or more across 10 samples, with no zero counts, it’s time to call your vet back to do the FECRT. Lambs marked for testing are divided into groups of 10-15, tagged, weighed (accurate scales essential), faecal sampled, and drenched with a single active per group. Usually a drench active from each family is used, plus the main product (typically a combination) the farm has been using.

“Often four or five drenches are checked.”

A week to 10 days after drenching, every

lamb in every group is sampled again and the difference between the first and second FEC results tells you how effective that group’s drench is. Samples are cultured (ie: parasite eggs hatched and grown into larvae) to determine species present and hence which, if any, are resistant.

‘It is best to perform a FECRT early in the season to ensure all the significant parasite species are present at the time of the test.’

“Once results are available it’s really important to develop a parasite management plan which is about a lot more than just which drench to use,” Flack says.

Vet Services Hawke’s Bay has a club structure with more than 500 farmer members spread between clinics in Napier, Hastings, Waipukurau, Dannevirke, and Wairarapa. At a series of winter seminars Flack reviewed FECRT data from a decade ago and last summer, noting last summer’s tests included 10 drenches, compared to five in 2008.

“This shows how things have changed.

49

We have become more and more worried about the combination products whereas in the past FECRT mainly tested single actives.”

Of the 30 farms that did FECRTs last summer, only 47% had all drenches working at greater than 95% efficacy (see table). Hence 53% – more than half – had parasites resistant to one or more drench, with a third having resistance to dualactive combinations, and 13% to triple actives. The results are in line with the national trend with only Monepantelbased products having a 100% success rate nationally, she notes.

How skewed the data is by the nature of farms choosing to undertake a FECRT is unknown, but Flack believes it to be reasonably representative: there will be farms that have undertaken a FECRT because they have a problem but that’s balanced by those undertaking FECRTs because they’re pro-active, top performers, keen to do everything right.

“We recommend FECRT every three to five years depending on results. Some farmers are in a routine of completing them.”

One point where she differs with Leathwick is the use of faecal egg counting as a tool to determine need to drench, as opposed to just checking a treatment has worked.

“A couple of examples where FECs can be used as a tool are monitoring adult ewe burden, when to lengthen the lamb drench interval going into the winter, the necessity of a pre-wean drench. This reflects the variable weather seasons and thus the variable parasite populations and feed levels present from year to year.”

Operational and capital cost Baker Ag’s Richmond Beetham highlighted what reduced lamb growth rate due to drench resistance can cost in a recent newsletter (see table).

“I think it [resistance] is a lot bigger issue than people think and too many people have their head in the sand and have not done a proper FECRT, or in some cases even a simple drench check.

Financial impact of a failing drench Lamb growth rate reduction

On target

-10%

-20%

Sheep income

$974,391

$861,459

$778,051

Income/sheep SU

$151.93

$134.32

$121.31

$112,932

$196,340

$13.86

$24.10

Income reduction Lost income per lamb

Baker Ag modelling with Farmax based on 5000 ewes lambing at 140%, hoggets lambing at 80%, and an average lamb price of $110/head. To run your own figures go to www.drenchwise.co.nz

“The people the vets are dealing with are the tip of the iceberg.”

Besides reduced lamb growth, a product like Zolvix Plus costs about four times as much per dose as a triple, which across 3000 lambs and five drenches, would add $8680 to the animal health bill, he says.

Reduced growth rates and increased production costs due to resistance may not only have a substantial impact on returns, they could devalue a farm too, he adds, suggesting it is something prospective buyers should be asking agents.

“Ask the agent what the resistance status of the farm is. If they know, they have to declare it.”

develops to infective L3 stage inside eggcasing, helping it overwinter. Hatches in response to temperature in spring, hence pasture may be highly infective if lambs had a problem with nematodirus on it in the previous year.

Haemonchus contortus: Also known as barber’s pole due to spiralstriped exterior of the female adult worm, which is one of the largest roundworms at 20-30mm long. Lives in abomasum, sucking blood of host, causing anaemia.

Needs warm temperatures for larval development, hence more common in North Island.

Drench families and sources

Worms and drenches 101 Four main species of internal parasite affect sheep in New Zealand: Teladorsagia circumcincta: The worm formerly known as ostertagia (name changed in early 1990s). Lives in stomach.

Overwinters as L3 larvae on pasture or in host. Mainly affects lambs and hoggets.

Usually the first species to develop resistance to anthelmintic treatments.

Resistance to all modes of action of drench other than monepantel* and derquantel* now widespread in NZ. Trichostrongylus spp: Three common species: T.axei which lives in the abomasum (true stomach) and T.Colubriformis & T.Vitrinus which live in the upper small intestine. Like Teladorsagia spp, T.Vitrinus larvae develop even in cool temperatures. Multiple resistance strains of T.Colubriformis now present in NZ. Nematodirus spp: Mainly affects young lambs. Very hardy on pasture as

There are five families of drench with broad-spectrum activity (kill more than one species of worm) available in New Zealand: Benzimidazoles (BZs or “white” drenches); levamisoles (“clear” drenches); macrocylic lactones (MLs); aminoacetonitriles; spiroindoles.

In general, if a worm species develops resistance to one active within a family, it will be resistant to all other actives in that family. Source or brand of drench is important, because the quality of the actives can vary as can the formulation.

For example, there are hundreds of suppliers of the ingredient abamectin, but they vary enormously in quality and influence the quality of the product they are used in.

“There are a lot of cheap generic drenches but unless they’ve been properly validated, you don’t know if they’re any good,” AgResearch’s Dave Leathwick warns.

% of FECRTs showing resistance Active National* No. of farms tested VSHB No. of farms tested

Bz

Lev

Ivo

Aba

Mox

Mone

Bz/Lev

Lev/Aba

Derq/Aba

Bz/Lev/Aba

61%

51%

74%

37%

32%

0%

34%

11%

13%

11%

80

83

39

81

62

23

129

89

24

92

67%

14%

38%

29%

0%

0%

34%

33%

0%

13%

3

14

8

24

4

12

29

18

4

23

*Gribbles Veterinary data 2016/17 season. VSHB data from 2017/18 season.

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November 2018

LIVESTOCK | ONFARM

Hard work and genetics bring success

Kaikoura Station manager Pat Brick with Angus Hereford cows.

When a new manager took over at Kaikoura Station, west of Gisborne, it was in desperate need of new fencing. The farm’s solid flock helped turn things around.

Russell Priest reports. Photos by Joanna Higgins-Ware.

A

n immediate 15% increase in lambing percentage for Kaikoura Station’s new manager Pat Brick has helped finance an extensive development programme entirely out of income while increasing its capital value four-fold in 16 years.

When Pat came here seven years ago the station’s lambing percentage was a creditable 135%, however by exploiting the fecundity of the Teutenberg Coopworths they were able to lift it to 150% in the first lambing.

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November 2018

Since then it’s increased by an average of 1% a year by crossing with some Hildreth Romney rams to now sit at 156%.

The Romney genetics have also brought facial eczema tolerance into the flock.

The 1355-hectare (1255ha effective) station is 49km south west of Gisborne and owned by the Maori shareholders of Arai Matawai Corporation since 2002. It also farms an easier-contoured 1300ha hill country farm Arai at Manutuke, managed

by Steve McHardy and a 500ha leased finishing farm Awapuni near Gisborne, managed by John Gorringe. The three

farms complement one another by regularly transferring stock and assisting one another in other areas.

Kaikoura and Arai are used primarily as breeding units supplying store stock for finishing on Awapuni and also as wintering units for older cattle to avoid pugging damage on Awapuni. While stock move freely between the farms each is financially independent so the financial implications of all stock movements are recorded and either credited or debited to the appropriate farm. Ex-farmer Peter McKenzie oversees the whole business.

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KEY POINTS • The business has three Gisborne farms Kaikoura (1355ha), 500ha-Awapuni and 1300ha-Arai.

• The three farms complement one another.

• Kaikoura’s role is to produce store lambs and cattle for finishing • Large development programme on Kaikoura for past 7 years

KAIKOURA, GISBORNE

• All development work has been funded from income.

When Pat arrived at Kaikoura he found a farm needing a lot of work.

His directive from the shareholder committee was to improve its profitability and return an acceptable dividend to the shareholders. He could see the station was desperately in need of a lot of new fencing to enable improved grazing management.

One 150ha paddock out the back hadn’t had sheep on it since 1986 and the fences were all lying on the ground.

“Never seen sheep like it which were so used to pushing through holes in fences they would go from one paddock to the next for the sheer hell of it.”

So until they started getting some fencelines in they just had to suck it up.

They used sheer manpower and dog power to keep stock where they were supposed to be.

First they put in a number of holding paddocks in and carried out major maintenance on the main lines.

Now it’s all fenced up and they graze nearly the whole farm.

Access was also a problem as was stock water so tracks needed to be formed and dams built. The jewel in the crown for Pat was the stock. The genetics of both the breeding ewe flock and cow herd were excellent so all Pat needed to do was to better exploit them.

“I could see the immense potential of the station however it needed some bones put back into it and that’s what we’ve been doing for the last seven years and we haven’t finished yet.”

An extensive development plan involving fencing, tracking, dam building and capital fertiliser was submitted to the committee and was fully endorsed with the proviso that the programme had to be financed from income.

The improvements have been immense

52

- 14km of new fencing and 12km repaired, 8km of new tracks with turnoffs every 50 metres to prevent scouring and 36 new dams, all with resource consent.

All the new fencing involves 10 wires with permanent wire strainers, posts 2.7m apart, stainless steel foot wires and no battens.

“The aim is to build a fence that will last 50 years as the shareholders and their descendants intend to own this land forever.”

Most of the pastures are well grazed and in excellent condition with minimal roughage.

Compared with similar farms, financial

analysis shows Kaikoura is in the top 10% of those farms for return on capital.

This was the green light Pat was seeking although having to finance it from income meant that the speed of the programme would be slower than he would ideally have liked.

That was seven years ago and Pat is full of praise for the overseer Peter McKenzie, the committee and shareholders for supporting his proposal and trusting in his undoubted ability.

Pat is grateful to the staff he’s worked with since arriving at Kaikoura.

“Without them we wouldn’t be where we are now.”

JOB WELL-DONE The mantra on the station is do a job once and do it properly.

Permanent staff are Kerry Field (fencer/general) and Fiona Shaw (shepherd) who have been working on the station for five years and five months respectively.

Pat says 90% of the stock work is done on horses so this job attracts people who like riding horses and working dogs.

Pat and his wife Janelle have two sons Reece, 26, who works at AgriHQ in Feilding and Ben, 22, studying architecture at Victoria University, Wellington.

Pat wouldn’t give his age but Reece did let slip that he was in his 50s.

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November 2018

Kaikoura Station hill country.

RIGHT: Romney rams on the station.

Station’s engine room STOCK WINTERED 2018 • 5200 ewes • 1650 ewe hoggets • 115 rams • 300 MA cows • 150 R1 heifers • 130 R1 steers • 50 R2 steers • 14 bulls • Budget (conservative - first or the year) Average price (book value) of sheep and cattle sent to Awapuni this year will be: • Store lambs - $102 • Yearling steers - $1100 • 2yr steers - $1450 • 2yr cull heifers - $1000 • Gross income $1,122,455 • EFS $399,441 • ROC 5.7%

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November 2018

Farmed in such a way as to exploit their genetic potential Kaikoura’s 5200 Coopworth-Romney ewes are the power house of the business. Last year the flock docked 156% not including hogget lambing. Their role is to generate the maximum number of lambs for finishing on Awapuni.

Five-year ewes are mated early (March 15) for three cycles to South Suffolk rams, the rest of the ewes to Romney and Coopworth rams on April 15 and the hoggets go to South Suffolk rams on May 1 for a month.

Pat went to David Hildreth’s Romneys to bring more bone back into the flock and facial eczema tolerance.

Stock were going to extremely FE prone country so they had to get the tolerance through the flock.

This year two tooths scanned 171% and MA ewes 182%. Triplets are not identified by the scanner, however Pat is confident the ewes carry a significant number because some of the paddock docking tallies are over 200%.

He says at the moment many of the paddocks are too big. “..once I get the size down I will consider exploiting the potential of triplets by treating them separately as well as mating

more hoggets and the 15-month heifers.”

Last year 1000 hoggets over 42kg liveweight (LW) in mid-April were mated scanning 91% and docking 75%. Those scanned as carrying twins are lambed among the calving cows on saved pasture and weaned immediately after Christmas giving them every opportunity to reach a good mating weight.

Scanning is performed before shearing in mid-July because Pat doesn’t like to have ewes hanging about after shearing. A new comb lifter is used leaving a little more wool on the sheep and a bit more insulation.

“The shearers moan like hell using it but we pay them a bit more to keep them happy.”

Five-year ewes start lambing mid-August and their lambs are docked at the end of September/early October. Ten days later lambs and ewes are separated with the lambs being put on the top deck and the ewes on the bottom deck of truck and trailer units and transported to Awapuni where they are reunited. Five unit loads are involved - one unit load a day. The lambs are finished early and ewes sent to the works both capturing price premiums.

Removing the old ewes and their lambs from Kaikoura frees up 300ha enabling

53

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54

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November 2018

stocking rates to be reduced in other paddocks.

Lambing of the single-bearing ewes occurs on the higher, more exposed, paddocks at 6.8/ha while twin-bearing ewes stocked at 6.6 to 6.7/ha are lambed on lower more sheltered country. Singlelamb weaning takes place before Christmas with twins being weaned early in the New Year.

The later lambing followed by the later weaning allows the feed supply and demand to be well-match. It ensures the feed quality of pastures are maintained.

During the summer/autumn once lambs have reached about 35kg LW they are drafted off, valued by an independent valuer, truck weighed and transported to Awapuni for finishing. Last year in addition to finishing 7000 Kaikoura-bred lambs Awapuni finished 2000 store lambs bought before Christmas and grown out on Kaikoura.

Kerry Field (fencer/general) Kaikoura Station.

View over Kaikoura Station which is 1355-hectare (1255ha effective) and near Gisborne.

The four-legged workers Pat is proud of the stock on Kaikoura especially the 300 quiet cows. He considers them as servants to other stock classes. The Cast-for-age as eight-year-olds are on-sold to other farms for breeding or sent to the works.

“Cows are grossly under-rated in their role as pasture groomers particularly on extensive Gisborne hill country where pasture quality cannot be maintained profitably by any other means.”

No supplements are fed out so pasture covers must be managed carefully. All stock are rotationally grazed on about a 40-day winter rotation with cows being added to and taken out of rotations to ‘clean up’ areas. The cows provide a feed buffer via the fat on their backs to help get other stock classes through the winter.

“In some poorly grazed areas we’ll run out up to 2km of hot tape to subdivide paddocks and force the cows on to those areas that are not normally grazed well.

The only time cows get a spell is when they go on to saved pasture on their calving paddocks.”

Many of the cows are white-faced as a result of crossing the Hereford and Angus breeds. White-faced and all three and fouryear-old cows are mated to Angus bulls and

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November 2018

the older black cows to Hereford bulls. Pat believes the hybrid vigour generated from the cross makes them very hardy and good producers.

Kaikoura buys most of its Angus bulls from the Turihaua stud in Gisborne and the odd ones from the Atahua stud in the Manawatu. Hereford bulls come from the Maungahina stud in the Wairarapa.

Two-year heifers (100) are mated on November 25 and MA cows on December 19. Heifers are not mated at 15 months as Pat believes it is too hard on them particularly if a drought is experienced.

Bulls are out for three cycles but cows are scanned and foetal aged and any cows taking the bull after two cycles are culled.

Pat normally targets a 90% calving (9495% MA cows and 96-97% R2 heifers put to the bull get in calf).

All weaners are wintered on the station with steers being sent down to the Awapuni block as yearlings after it dries out in the spring. Some of these are finished before the second winter and some sold as 18-month stores with 50 being sent back to Kaikoura for wintering as R2s.They return to Awapuni in the spring along with the cull two-year heifers and are finished before Christmas.

55

Infrastructure top notch Kaikoura station lies between 200m and 625m above sea level and can expect regular falls of up to knee-deep snow in the winter.

“We keep a close eye on the weather over the winter and move stock to moresheltered paddocks if necessary.”

The station is all grass as it sits on the side of a hill and there is only about 15ha a tractor can get over.

Average annual rainfall is about 1800mm but can be extremely variable.

Dry autumns are not uncommon and because of the station’s altitude this can result in low winter feed covers.

Severe slipping has been experienced this year following some heavy dumps of rain. During one 24-hour period 270mm fell. At the station’s own initiative 200 poplar poles a year are planted to enhance

soil stability. The varieties include Veronese for wetter areas, Crows Nest on drier soils and Kawa.

Soils are predominantly volcanic ash over compacted mudstone (papa), the latter presenting problems for poplar pole establishment and driving fence posts.

“It took us four hours to dig a strainer hole one day,” Pat says.

Soil fertility requires further capital

Romani Coopworths • Fully SIL recorded • Consistent producer of top NZ rams • Multiple winner of NZ Sheep Industry Awards (2012, 2013 & 2016 Best Dual Purpose Flock), 2015 (FE Tolerance) • Romani flock finalist for 2017 Maternal Trait Leader Parasite Resistance • Romani commercial hogget’s winner of NZ Ewe Hogget Competition Large Flock Award

Ross Richards, Taumarunui Phone: 07 895 7144 • romani@farmside.co.nz

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CC0092649©

MNCC flock has a new home at Romani Coopworths in Taumarunui

November 2018

LEFT: Fiona Shaw (shepherd) and her working companions.

ABOVE: Poplar poles ready for planting.

RIGHT: Compacted mudstone (papa) cliffs on Kaikoura’s boundary.

CAPTIVATED Pat was raised on a farm under the shadow of the Ruahine Ranges at Ashley Clinton in central Hawkes Bay. The native bush in the ranges left Pat with an indelible love of nature.

On leaving school he attended Flock House, near Bulls, then worked locally for Peter Gunson for two years before getting jobs on Cricklewood and Ruakituri Stations where he met Janelle whose parents farmed in the Wairoa/Gisborne area.

Pat has been totally captivated by the Gisborne/Wairoa area and its people ever since and it appears he has found his turangawaewae.

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dressings of fertiliser with Olsen P levels at 15-19, sulphurs at 4-10 and PHs 5.5-5.8.

No lime is applied. Fertiliser budgeted for this year (410 tonnes) includes a combination of straight, potassic, sulphur and selenised super all to be sown with 1kg clover/ha. Urea (49t) is used to stimulate pasture on the early lambing and twinning country. Budgeted expenditure on fertiliser this year is $22/SU. Big stations need good infrastructure and Kaikoura is well set up with a centrally located woolshed with several holding paddocks (used to be only two), several sets of satellite yards (four sheep and two cattle) and a laneway system for ease of stock movement.

Pat’s pride and joy is a 100ha block of native bush fenced off under a Nga Whenua Rahui covenant which not only protects the bush but also makes mustering of the area a lot easier.

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LIVESTOCK | SHEEP BREEDING

Breeders: bury your differences and work together, Edward Dinger urges

Greater collaboration needed Edward Dinger won numerous sheep industry awards during a 45-year career breeding Coopworths near Cambridge. Now retired, but still with a keen interest in ovine genetics and in particular facial eczema, Andrew Swallow asks what he sees as the challenges for breeders today and in future.

S

heep breeders and their societies need to work together more nationally, if not internationally, for the greater good of the industry. Only by doing that will genetics overcome some of the more challenging issues the sector faces, a retiring multi-award-winning breeder says.

Edward Dinger, 78, spent a lifetime selecting Coopworths to be facial eczema tolerant while maintaining the other fundamental traits for a productive sheep.

Despite his flock becoming recognised as being industry leading for FE tolerance, he still believes more could, and should be done to combat this devastating disease.

But it’s not just for FE resistance that he believes breeders need greater collaboration to spur progress, but in all aspects of sheep meat and wool production. More research targeting productive traits and traits important to consumers is needed across the board.

“The three maternal breeds [Romney,

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Perendale and Coopworth] in particular have to come together,” he told CountryWide magazine.

“The trend to composites, now the second largest group in the New Zealand flock after Romneys, should have been a step in the right direction but “it’s not unified and everyone is doing their own thing.”

Ram breeders’ collective focus should be on the things most sheep farmers want in their ewes: a low-input animal requiring no drenching, with sound feet and mouth, that’s efficient, long-lived, doesn’t need dagging and possibly not even docking/ tailing, and, of course, FE tolerant.

“But these things are seldom combined in one sheep, let alone a whole flock, which is why we need a combined effort, nationally.”

Given the “shameful” decline in Government-funded research and research institutions, epitomised by AgResearch’s once world-leading Ruakura Research

KEY POINTS • Breeder’s insights • Genetics most sustainable solution for most issues.

• Collaboration across breeds essential.

• Alternative protein threat should spur action.

• NZ sheep R&D spend pitiful.

• Breeders must drive change together.

Station, Dinger says the initiative has to come from within, from breeders themselves. Breed societies must work together on a strategy to breed such ewes, seeking to combine the best commercial traits from all breeds.

Without greater cross-breed collaboration, and in the face of competition from alternative proteins, he

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November 2018

Edward Dinger believes research is the answer to strong wool’s woes, not marketing alone.

believes sheep meat could easily go the same way as wool went.

He says 25 years ago coarse wool had little competition for carpets and furnishings. Now, thanks to huge budgets and ruthless advertising campaigns, synthetic fibre dominates the market.

“Synthetic meat could do the same… Only together will the sheep industry be able to face the threat of a world-wide demand for synthetic sheep meat.”

Dinger says how useful more recent introductions such as the Beltex will be remains to be seen. The meat yield attributes are appealing but lambing difficulties in purebred lines must be overcome for NZ systems. How Texels, which are routinely lambed by caesarean section on some studs in their native Netherlands, have been adapted and integrated into NZ breeds and systems possibly sets a precedent.

“We need easy-care sheep.”

It’s what first attracted him to the Coopworth, their easy lambing.

“I didn’t lamb a sheep for 20 years.”

But he puts most of the improvement in the performance of his 2000-ewe flock down to selecting for FE tolerance (see following

FINNS A MISTAKE One area Dinger doesn’t believe needs more breeding effort, at least, not on most farms, is fertility.

The reason some farms don’t get the lambing percentage they’d like is down to management and other challenges, rather than any inherent genetic limit on fertility.

He says fed well, and without high FE or parasite challenges, most ewes of most breeds will rear twins.

Adding more fertile genetics risks more triplets and quads which are not only more time-consuming, hence less efficient for the farmer, but due to higher death rates, less acceptable to the consumer.

“One year we did 201% and it was a nightmare. We had far too many triplets.”

Consequently, he believes Finn genetics have probably done more harm than good to the industry.

They should never have been introduced, whereas East Friesians had enough fertility and boosted milk production, and hence weaning weights, not to mention the now burgeoning sheep milk industry.

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WOOL THOUGHTS Farmers’ vote in 2009 to terminate the wool levy, was “understandable but disappointing” because it ended all research into wool Dinger says.

“We threw the baby out with the bath water: research is the answer [to strong wool’s woes] and we do next to none.”

Marketing efforts alone are unlikely to succeed given the strength of the competition, he adds.

“These huge chemical companies that produce the synthetic fibres have very deep pockets.”

He admits his own breeding efforts didn’t focus on wool, other than removing any progeny with obvious defects. “I liked my sheep to be uniform in look and not too fine or coarse, but I never found wool that interesting-also, the price of wool’s been in decline since 1952.” article). It went from 135% lambing in about 1990 to an average of 170% with 4.5kg heavier lambs at weaning and 1.2kg more wool/year 20 years later.

His ideal would be a ewe that weans twin, works-ready lambs, year after year. But in chasing bigger lambs at weaning, one eye has to be kept on ewe size to maintain efficiency, especially with sheep flocks increasingly run on more marginal hill and steep land. When he sold the bulk of his Coopworth flock, the heaviest were just over 80kg with an average of 67kg. Well-fed and empty (not pregnant), 65kg would be his target.

That shift to hill country is another reason to avoid tripletprone genetics, as lambing on such country exacerbates losses, and not just in bearings, he adds.

“Triplet-rearing ewes also need to be fed like dairy cows and on steeper hill country that’s neither practical nor feasible.”

Genetic technologies will definitely speed breeding progress, he acknowledges, but that doesn’t remove the need for cross-breed collaboration. Beef + Lamb NZ Genetics is a positive development, but Government should boost and restructure its research funding so science bodies co-operate, rather than compete.

Despite the importance of agriculture to NZ as a nation, agricultural research funding here as a percentage of GDP is way below many other nations’, he notes.

“We spend nothing on it, by comparison. We will be overhauled by other countries and it will take donkeys’ years to catch up again.”

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Edward Dinger has been a driver of breeding for FE resistance in Coopworths.

Genetics best for fighting FE Unsurprisingly, after a lifetime breeding sheep to combat it, Edward Dinger says genetic tolerance is the best solution to facial eczema. Effective though dosing with zinc is, it can be difficult and time consuming to do effectively and should be a last resort, he believes. It also tends to be used only in seasons when it’s recognised FE is likely due to elevated spore counts, but there’s a sub-clinical drag on production in FE prone areas every year.

“If you took all the subclinical cases out

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you’d probably get 15-20% better lambing percentage.”

A tolerant flock won’t be affected in nonepidemic years, and when spore counts do spike in an epidemic year, zinc treatment and/or grazing management can be used to boost protection. Having some FE safe forages, such as brassica, chicory, plantain or clover available in FE prone areas is a sensible precaution.

“It’s a very nasty strain we have here in NZ and in epidemic years even the most

tolerant flocks are affected; in other places it’s not nearly so bad,” he notes.

Awareness of the disease, and interest in tolerant genetics, leaps in years when nights are over 12C, moist conditions and abundant pasture litter favour development of the toxin-producing fungus.

“Remove one of those things and you don’t have a problem.”

To select rams with FE tolerance they’re dosed with the toxin the pasture fungus produces - sporidesmin - then blood tested for the enzyme gamma glutamyl transferase (GGT) three weeks later. The higher the GGT, the greater the liver damage and the less FE-tolerant the animal. Rams from tolerant flocks can be tested with a 0.6mg/kg LW dose or more, but there are still only a few flocks with such tolerance and lower doses are used initially until it’s clear the flock’s genetics can cope with a severe challenge.

Dinger warns that just because a breeder says they’re selecting for FE tolerance, it doesn’t mean to say they’ve got there. Ask what dose of sporidesmin is used, and to see the Ramguard certificate detailing the rams tested and results. When they were

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November 2018

GET In your Inbox Country-Wide Newsletter Edward Dinger didn’t sacrifice other fundamental traits for a productive sheep while selecting Coopworths for FE tolerance.

tested may also have a bearing, KEY POINTS as there’s some • Impact widely underestimated. evidence that high • Sub-clinical cases missed in low protein diets aid spore seasons. breakdown of the • Warming climate could spread toxin, so spring risk area. tests will tend to • High heritability tolerant produce lower genetics available.

GGT levels than autumn or winter • Still many unknowns - more research needed. ones when pasture protein content is low.

Dinger praises another retired breeder, Rex Alexander (see Country-Wide Sheep 2018) for the work he did especially with FE. He says Marion and Rex Alexander, the late Colin Southey, a MAF advisor, and some others were the true inventors of the beginning to the FE tolerance programme which was the brainchild of Dr Neale Towers of Ruakura Research station.

“They put their money where their mouth was.”

They started The Stock Safety company and got the drenching with sporidesmin on the way.

“The FE fraternity owns Rex an enormous amount of gratitude.”

Dinger’s own flock was the first in the country to reach the 0.6 testing level, doing so in about 2001, several years before any others got there. Now there are more to choose from, of various breeds, including those operating under the FE Gold brand (see www.fegold.co.nz). Genomic testing for tolerance is also possible, which has the advantage of being non-invasive and with no welfare implications for the tested animal, but to date it is not as reliable as the Ramguard approach. Testing ewe hoggets has been shown to be an effective, albeit more expensive, fast-track to a tolerant flock and effective way of identifying rams that for some reason sometimes fail to pass on the tolerance a Ramguard test indicates they should do, he notes.

A complicating factor is copper: the mineral exacerbates FE so copper supplements should be avoided in FE-prone areas.

A spin-off benefit of breeding for FE tolerance is less risk of reduced ovulation due to another fungal toxin, produced by fusarium fungi in grasses and grains, zearalenone. FE-tolerant sheep also seem less prone to ryegrass staggers, a condition caused by another fungally produced toxin, lolitrem B.

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November 2018

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LIVESTOCK | SHEEP MILKING

Taste testing panel in the final stages of confirming product recipes, From left; Ben Ravenwood, Sam Looney, Rob Pedley, Cameron Ravenwood, Jan Tatham, Shirley Ravenwood and Jeff Ravenwood.

A milky future A Lincoln University student is driving his family farm’s diversification into sheep milking. Rebecca Harper reports. Photos: Mark Coote.

W

hen Cameron Ravenwood’s father showed him a news article about sheep milking three years ago, it piqued his interest in the product.

As a Lincoln University student studying towards a degree in ag business and food marketing, and a keen sportsman, Cameron, 20, began researching sheep milk more and was excited to discover a raft of nutritional benefits.

His interest in sheep milking, and whether it could be a viable business option for the family on its Wairarapa sheep and beef farm, has led to a new venture the whole family is involved in.

The Ravenwoods are building a sheep milking shed on their Homewood farm, near Riversdale beach, and hope to begin milking 300 to 400 predominantly East Friesian hoggets in November this year.

They plan to develop and market their own sheep milk products.

Owned by Cameron’s parents, Jeff and Shirley Ravenwood, Fernglen Farm is a 1144-hectare (592ha effective) sheep and beef operation, running about 5500 stock

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KEY FACTS New sheep milking venture, involving the whole family Opportunity to diversify business, fitting in with existing sheep and beef operation Creating a value add, finished product and connecting directly with the consumer Notable environmental focus and carbon positive business - key part of branding/marketing.

units. They run 2500 breeding ewes and aim to finish all progeny, with a goal of 145-150% lamb survival to sale.

As well, they operate a flexible cattle finishing policy, revolving around 18-month Friesian bulls and other young cattle.

“We’re aiming for a high-performing ewe system that achieves finishing all our own lambs and a flexible cattle system that can convert spring feed efficiently,” Jeff says.

“We want to take a chunk of the better

country out for the milking platform and fit it in with our existing business.”

They are getting resource consent to milk up to 400 sheep, but the shed will have capacity for up to 1000 ewes and they hope to scale the milking operation up over time, if the markets and demand are there.

At a stocking rate of 10-12 sheep/ha Jeff estimates they will need 30-40ha for the 400 milking sheep, with the possibility of growing that to 80ha, with a maximum walking distance to the shed of 1.5km.

Two years ago they started building a flock, buying mostly half East Friesian sheep, as well as some Poll Dorset and Awassi, and putting an East Friesian over them.

“We’re aiming to start milking a sheep that’s ¾ East Friesian, analyse the milk information and then make decisions about where we go with genetics.”

Jeff describes the farm as about 40% tractor country and the balance medium to steep hill, with some hard argillite country.

The coastal farm can be summer dry, but enjoys better than average growth rates in winter - a strength of the property.

The Ravenwoods won the B+LNZ

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November 2018

Livestock award in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards in 2011 and a significant feature of the farm is 170ha planted in pine trees and 382ha retired native bush - including 86ha protected with QEII. “Almost 50% of the property is ineffective and we’ve done a lot of bush retirement and fencing off waterways, to allow the native bush to regenerate where possible. We feel this is a point of difference for us.

“Our carbon footprint is zero or less - we are probably carbon positive.”

Top Left: Yard work with Jeff in spring.

Above: Pet lambs Left: Shirley, Jeff and Cameron Ravenwood and dog Zeus on the family farm.

Family affair Jeff and Shirley have been interested in sheep milk and its nutritional qualities for some time, but Cameron has been the driving force in getting the project off the ground.

Their other son Ben, 24, has completed a degree in Sport Science and Human Nutrition at Massey University and is looking at using sheep milk as part of his masters studies next year.

Daughter Baeley, 23, works for PGG Wrightson in the seed research division at Kimihia and has been exploring options for feeding the sheep, with herb mixes and brassicas that will help keep the lactation peaking and get them through the dry summers.

“Ben and Baeley are both interested, but Cam has really been relentless. We have admired his enthusiasm for this project and that’s why we’ve got in behind him.

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November 2018

He’s going to invest his own money in the venture and will be focusing on the marketing.

“We were interested (in sheep milk), but without him we wouldn’t have done it it’s his baby.”

The Ravenwoods have formed a relationship with Miles and Janet King at Kingsmeade. The Kings have been making and selling award-winning artisan cheeses using milk from their flock of East Friesian ewes since 1998 and have a factory at their farm, on the outskirts of Masterton.

As well as building their own milking shed, the Ravenwoods are investing

capital in upgrading the processing plant at Kingsmeade, where they will process their products and hope to eventually build enough capacity to take on other milk suppliers.

Jeff says the effluent disposal system for the Homewood milking shed has been a significant expense and, all up, they are investing about $700,000 in the two projects.

If successful, the sheep milking development may help create opportunities to include all three of the couple’s children in the business and increase the overall gross income of the farm. Long term, this diversification could be beneficial for farm succession.

Why sheep milk?

Sheep milk has a number of beneficial qualities, including quick digestibility and

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Buy with confidence “If one of our Romneys or Maternal Composites break out with facial eczema,, we will refund your entire ram purchase.”

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Will Jackson phone: 07 825 4480 or email: william@piquethillfarms.co.nz

www.piquethillstud.co.nz Country-Wide

November 2018

Left: Cameron in the milking shed during construction Right: Cameron gives a few treats to some of the sheep.

These hoggets will be used for milking when the operation commences.

high protein, calcium and magnesium.

“When I started looking into it I saw are cheaper, healthier and better for the sheep milk was highly nutritious. I’m environment. I want to celebrate working really into my sport and nutrition, so that with the animals and the environment and was a big tick for me and got me seriously show that it can be sustainable.” interested in it,” Cameron explains.

Cameron says sheep’s milk is better “I see how a lot of New Zealand products than cow’s milk in many ways - it’s are turned into commodities and I’m keen higher in minerals and vitamins, higher not to do that. We in protein, has more want to start a brand mono-unsaturated with value add and ‘We want to take a chunk and poly-unsaturated sell it for what it’s of the better country out fats (deemed to be worth, rather than ‘healthy fats’ and are for the milking platform linked to helping lower competing on a and fit it in with our commodity market. I cholesterol), and is high look at dad working in an amino acid called existing business.’ really hard on the leucine. farm to improve “Leucine aids recovery productivity, but and is the main amino the prices for meat are so variable, it’s acid nutritionists look for when looking at frustrating. recovery foods for sportspeople.”

“One thing that really inspired me was Sheep’s milk is also A2, which means it the rise of synthetic and alternative meat may be better for people allergic to A1 milk and milk products. It’s very topical at uni or lactose intolerant. and is a big worry, if these alternatives Cameron has been working with Massey

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November 2018

University on developing their first products - focusing on something that is practical to produce, natural and healthy.

He has also worked with the Callaghan Institute on extended shelf life for the product.

His research tells him that the lower North Island is the best market to target, initially. Work on the marketing plan, branding and website design is underway and Cameron is working with Strategy Collective in New Plymouth on this.

Jeff says sheep are kinder on the environment and tick a lot of boxes for consumers. “There are some sheep and beef farmers who are marketing their own meat, we see this is as a different product that can help us connect directly to the consumer and tell our story.

“The rest of the business can carry on as normal and we hope this is another branch that has the potential to grow. As we establish a market channel we think there will be the potential to take on other suppliers and shareholders.”

Shirley hopes the milking venture will eventually enable them to involve locals and create jobs in the district, helping to keep the small community strong.

They say the biggest challenges will be getting fresh products to market with minimal wastage, convincing people to value the benefits of sheep milk and use it regularly, and achieving good per head milk volume and quality.

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LIVESTOCK | GENETALK

Why parents count

Bulls are getting progressively better, faster and probably cheaper to produce.

Utilising the strengths of animals’ parents is something livestock farmers rely on, geneticist Sharl Liebergreen writes.

I

have it on good authority that my ‘parents’ actually are my biological parents. Based on the significant nature of my own proboscis and its strong resemblance to that of my fathers, I have no doubt that Dad is Dad. Mum’s side has the potential for a slightly cloudier tale.

A little bit of family mystery never hurt anyone though, right?

In the livestock world, utilising the strengths of all those mums and dads is something commercial farmers especially, rely on. Crossing breeds to produce, for example, that white-faced cross animal with all that hybrid vigour is touted as being the perfect genetic package for growing and finishing. Prices at sale yards sometimes reflect that.

Crossing though, is a perpetual process.

The vigour that comes with that first cross, reportedly, doesn’t last without another cross. The crossing effect diminishes over time, unfortunately. So why is that?

Well, as the amount of inbreeding increases, the genomes of parents become more and more similar. In addition, recessive genes for things that we don’t want (slow growth, poor reproduction) can increase in frequency. The genome can become more homogenous; less variable.

That first cross between an Angus and a Hereford generates a massive amount of genetic variation. But if we were to close our herd from that point on and not introduce any outside sires or buy in any new in-calf replacement heifers, the homozygosity of our herd would increase.

The white-face cross “look” may remain,

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but the benefits of the variation would be lost.

This takes quite a few generations, but it does happen. Taken to the extreme and we get something called inbreeding depression where all animals are so closely related that those rubbish genes start to spread throughout the herd. Many breeds also have specific genetic defects that we don’t want, like Hypotrichosis (hairlessness) in Hereford, Arthrogryposis Multiplex (curved joints) in Angus, or Microphthalmia (blindness) in Texel sheep.

How the heck does he or she breed an even type of cattle but avoid inbreeding issues?

So why (if crossing = genetic variation = hybrid vigour = more production = more profit) do we only use specific sire lines, year after year? Well I’m told that breeding cattle and producing beef is not only about genetics and profit.

Yes, it’s nice to have a fat wallet, but we also want our herd to look good. Ideally, we would see that lovely line of peasin-a-pod weaner steers. Also knowing that when “this very even line” is sold in a few weeks, that that is exactly what the auctioneers want, and we will be righteously rewarded.

So, the poor seedstock breeder, at times, is between a rock and a hard place. How the heck does he or she breed an even type of cattle but avoid inbreeding issues? In the past the odd outcross every couple of years was the most accessible technology breeders had. These days more options are available, fortunately.

A recorded herd, where pedigree has been loyally jotted into a note book every year since the beginning of time, is a great place to start.

Service providers who can calculate inbreeding coefficients for all the heifers, cows and herd sires just before mating are relatively easy to find. Even a herd average level of inbreeding is good information to have.

Tracking this, understanding when things are starting to get a bit too close and when that outside sire might be needed, is a great monitoring tool.

Mate allocation is another tool.

Scientifically, with like, a computer, allocating cows and heifers to specific sires to breed that nice, even type of calf but also squeeze every drop of genetic variation out of the herd, is another way to go.

The ultimate these days is using DNA technology, drilling deep into the genome of the herd. Maximising the genetic diversity at the “SNiP” level, being completely aware of those genetic defects (that in the past have meant that some matings are too risky), save time, get sleep and most importantly, spread the cost of technology out over yet another aspect of cattle breeding, is the way to go.

Ensuring the return on the technology investment is of course paramount and as breeders understand how technologies work, where and when to use them, bulls are getting progressively better, faster and probably cheaper to produce.

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LIVESTOCK | STOCK CHECK

Keep it simple Excessive layers of rules imposed by bureaucracy can cloud the message about disease prevention, veterinarian Trevor Cook writes.

E

xcessive rules and demands are constantly imposed on us because for the people behind them, that is the centre of their world. Farming is just as exposed to this over-hype as anyone. Local authorities and insurance companies are good examples.

But this same psyche applies to areas of advice and instruction. Managing Mycoplasma bovis is the case in point livestock farmers are grappling with at present.

There is no shortage of lists of actions to take to minimise the risks of importing the disease. That list covers checking the source of animals, avoiding contact with neighbours’ animals, cleaning the wheels of visiting quads, making sure that trucks have been washed down, controlling the movement of visitors to the farm, and the list goes on.

The risk of such a list is that the most important bits that make the biggest difference get swamped. Not importing the disease on a purchased animal is by far the most important action. This means knowing its birthplace, where and how it was reared and how it was transported.

If all energy went into this then risks of getting the disease are tiny. But washing mud off visiting quads is more about feeling good about doing something than preventing this disease coming on.

One-metre-wide boundary buffers, detailed maps of farms with off-limit areas identified, for example, will have little impact if care has not been taken in sourcing animals. For beef sire bull breeders the need for certification is greater

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November 2018

One-metre-wide boundary buffers will have little impact if care has not been taken in sourcing animals.

so being seen to be doing some of these things is more important.

The same issue applies to the management of internal parasites, in particular, managing drench resistance.

There is a list of things to do and there is always the proviso that every farm is different. First there is little difference between farms because the same rules apply to all. How they are applied will vary

alone issue whereas it is just one of a myriad of activities that make a farm work.

I have concern that updated animal welfare guidelines, or rather rules, can run into the same barriers. The long list of “do nots”, and the associated penalties can have the effect of the focus all being on being seen to be complying. Most farmers really care for their animals and just a few transgress.

Not importing the disease on a purchased animal is by far the most important action. a little but only by a little. The proviso that every farm is different I believe gives farmers an out that certain messages don’t apply to them.

This list of do’s and don’ts is valid but as for M. bovis prevention just a couple will make most of the difference. Using an effective combination product is number one which does require doing drench testing. Number two is using this product in conjunction with refugia. The refugia tools are simple in being leaving animals not treated, extending drench intervals or using adult (sheep) to dilute drenched lamb grazing areas. Which of these is appropriate for a particular farm will vary.

Using adult cows to have that protective effect on a calf growing area is probably not enough.

For these actions to work they need to be part of a farm management plan. I have been frustrated that worm management has been promoted too much as a stand-

Setting up the systems in response to these extremes can capture everyone in an almost fear state and detract from an objective of helping animals being comfortable most of the time. This will continue to challenge farmers as perceptions grow.

My recent visit to the United Kingdom has given me an insight to what we can expect. I really hope the irrational sentiments over there don’t make their way here.

From a TB perspective we must count ourselves lucky that the vector we despise is a rogue in other areas, so culling is well accepted. Unlike the lamb-killing badger in the UK that is loved by too many to the extent that TB management is compromised and too many ewes are lambed indoors.

It seems the health risks and losses associated with indoor lambing are preferable to mutilated lambs outside.

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CROPS & FORAGE | LEGUMES

Counting sub clover coverage.

Checking for sub clover.

Clovers a good story Three farms in the east of the North Island are part of the Beef & Lamb New Zealand innovation programme developing management practices for growing legumes on hill country. Each has a slightly different focus and there are environmental variances between the three farms.

R

ichard and Becks Tosswill farm Te Awaawa, a 646-hectare hill country farm near Masterton in the Wairarapa.

As only 9% of their farm is cultivable, they are limited with the area they can put in crops and new pastures.

Rather they are looking to improve the quality of their hill country pastures to drive livestock performance.

The Tosswills have purposely minimised the use of chemicals in getting legumes established by focusing on one or two paddocks a year. Richard acknowledged that increasing legume content required a change in mindset in that this was going to cost them in year one, but they could expect a positive flow-on effect in subsequent years.

So far, the project has been very positive and Richard jokes that he now has more photos of clovers on his phone than he does of his children.

“I’m sold on this, I think it’s really exciting and it’s a good story in the environmental space.”

For the Tosswills, the success of the

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Richard Tosswill, Wairarapa

annual sub clovers is the most exciting as it is these early season legumes that drive lactation and pre-weaning lamb growth rates, but Richard admits it has required a change of mind-set and management to make the most of these legumes.

“The critical factor is to change your management and you need a proper plan around it.”

In year one they tried five different treatments; these were 12kg/ha of Antas and Woogenellup subterranean clover, 12kg/ha of arrowleaf clover, 12kg/ha red and white clover and 12kg/ha balansa clover.

These were hand-spun on to the block

and stock used to push the seed into the ground. Richard says it was a growthy summer making for challenging conditions for new clovers to establish.

Cattle were used to open the sward up to allow light through and the results were positive.

He was encouraged by the growth of all the varieties and the clovers flourishing without the use of suppressant sprays.

“It’s impressive to see and make me realise what the farm could look like if you could get it right.”

Alongside the introduction of the new varieties, Richard has identified resident clovers and sought to manage them to increase their content from 13% of the sward to 30% plus.

Grazing management is critical in building sub clover populations. In the Wairarapa, the Tosswills close the paddocks up in early September to allow seed-set and stock is reintroduced in December. The area is grazed over summer and winter and by late winter/early spring there should be a bank of high-quality feed for lambing ewes.

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Richard admits he had never really understood the timing of germination and the change of grazing management required to allow set-seed and germination.

Another treatment involved flying 12kg/ha of Woogenullup and Antas subterranean clover on to a hard face without any fertiliser (but with insecticide and slugbait). Richard says initial signs are positive as some very good populations have established.

Other cultivars being trialled this year include a mix of Antas and Denmark (sub clover), Zulu 11 (arrowleaf) and Coolamon (sub clover).

These were oversown using a helicopter in less than ideal conditions in April and the germination does appear to be very slow.

This year the Tosswills will carry out fertiliser trials on the different treatments to determine what mix gives them the best response and find out the role micronutrients play in driving legume growth.

As part of the project, Richard will be using Farmax and Farm IQ to record weaning weights and ewe weights coming in and out of the clover blocks to see what impact these forages are having on their whole farm system.

While already performing well, with an average lambing percentage of nearly 150 and an average weaning weight of 30kg - Richard would like to see the weaning weight increase to 32-33kg and is confident he has the plants to do it.

Rob and Sandra Faulkner, Gisborne

Rob Faulkner

In early July, Rob and Sandra Faulkner were lambing ewes on 2000kg DM/ha of arrowleaf clover. These ewes were stocked at 12/ha which is a big jump up from the Faulkners’ traditional set-stocking rate of 7/ha on pasture.

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For Rob, this highlighted the value of this clover in increasing production on their 600ha hill country farm, Wairakaia Station.

After all the ewes had lambed, the ewes and lambs were put into more of a rotational grazing system and the clover spelled. While rewarded with this bank of high quality feed over lambing, Rob says the clover does have specific management requirements and a lot of forward planning needs to go in to getting the legume established.

Rob and Sandra established their first oversown paddock of arrowleaf more than two-and-a-half years ago. While they allowed the crop to set-seed in that first spring, Rob says they couldn’t rely on germination in that first autumn post-establishment so oversowed a “cover crop” of plantain and subterranean clover.

After being grazed over summer and autumn, this year the paddock was spelled in early winter to allow the arrowleaf to build the 2000kg DM/ha covers upon which the Faulkners lambed.

This initial crop gave the couple the confidence to sow another north-facing block in this clover in autumn this year.

The paddock was sprayed with glyphosate and an insecticide and it was a matter of waiting until there was sufficient moisture in the ground before they flew the seed on.

“It was a matter of getting all the ducks lined up with the weather, helicopter etc, but it’s really important to get those ducks aligned and not to be too impatient,” Rob says.

The seed was not flown on until May 12 and while this was later than ideal, they needed to wait to ensure the moisture was there.

“It’s not like going into a cultivated paddock.”

The seed struck, and despite insecticides and slug bait, the crop did suffer a small amount of insect damage. The paddock was grazed in late August and will be shutup in October to allow plants to seed and the seed to set.

Rob has found the most challenging part of the project has been in getting the legume established.

“Once you get that right everything else takes care of itself, but it does require a lot of forward planning.”

Wairakaia Station is about 30 minutes from Gisborne. Topography ranges from flat to steep hill country and the farm runs 5000 sheep and beef units.

The Faulkners also grow a mix of crops, forestry and citrus.

Pete Swinburn, Hawke’s Bay Pete Swinburn and Suzanne Hoyt farm at Tourere, Hawke’s Bay. Pete’s focus is on using spray and seed to establish clover seed and using spray to increase the content of resident sub clovers in the sward.

Pete says timing is important in establishing annual clovers. Ideally, they should be sown before a decent rain in autumn.

“If you get it right they will produce twice as much high-quality drymatter as grass.”

With the right management and conditions, Pete has found he can grow 10-11 tonnes drymatter (DM)/ha/year of high metabolisable energy (ME) feed on hard, north-facing slopes which previously were growing 4-5t DM/ha/year of poorquality feed. The key, says Pete, is letting the clovers seed in spring and this will generate up to 1100kg of seed/ha and the measure of success with this project is the quantity of clover he will grow in 2019 from regenerated seed.

“That’s the big prize.

“If we could get 5-10t of drymatter from resident seed that’s the game breaker.”

He is focusing on finding out the management required to produce 10t DM of quality clover from regenerated seed and determine the impact this has on sheep production and the farm system when this is replicated at scale.

“When you are growing 5t DM/ha of high quality feed at a specific time versus growing 5t DM/ha over the entire year it shifts the feed curve significantly and you need to understand the impact that has on the farm system and how to capture the benefits.”

Pete farms 1300ha effective 20 minutes south of Waipukurau. Watergreen Tourere winters 10,000 sheep and 700 cattle, is easy rolling hill country the majority of which is cultivable. With an annual summer rainfall of 1000mm, Pete describes the farm as moderately summer dry.

He says that they are using glyphosate to break down the thatch in some of their hill country pastures and insecticide and slug bait are also applied at clover establishment to protect the clovers over the germination period. They have used weed sprays to control weeds after the sward is opened up but ultimately, they hope to see the clover compete with the weeds.

- Supplied by Beef +Lamb NZ

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CROPS & FORAGE | SATELLITES

Eye-in-sky service pitched to growers Extra-terrestrial imaging is giving farmers the opportunity to be more precise with cropping. Andrew Swallow reports.

F

or as little as 90c/ha cropping farmers can now get regular satellite imagery of their paddocks during the growing season, and some are thinking it might have pastoral use too.

The satellite service is offered as part of the ProductionWise recording package administered in New Zealand by the Foundation of Arable Research. While ProductionWise’s core functions are free to all levy-paying growers, the satellite imagery is being provided as an additional subscription service by ProductionWise’s Australian owner, Grain Growers.

Earlier this spring, Drew Christian and Ben Jones of Grain Growers ran a series of workshops in Canterbury to familiarise growers with the service which provides an image of paddocks at least every five days

Wet start: April waterlogging in the paddock Stuart Macauley had in the satellite imagery pilot.

during the subscription period, cloud or fog permitting.

The subscription period is three, six or 12 months, which may be going into the future or partially or entirely retrospective, allowing growers to look back at how vegetation cover of the paddock changed over a certain period if need be.

“We can provide retro imagery going back to 2013 if you want to look at a paddock’s history,” Christian told the FAR

workshop in Timaru.

For dates prior to mid-2015 images would be at a lower resolution and frequency because the Sentinel One and Sentinel Two satellites, which together now provide an every-five-days service at a resolution of 100 square metres per pixel (10m x 10m), only became available in mid-2015 and mid-2016 respectively.

The images show NDVI (Normalised Digital Vegetative Index) for the selected

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KEY POINTS • ProductionWise satellite service • NDVI images supplied every five days.

• 100sq m per pixel resolution.

• Minimum 50ha subscription area.

• Three, six or 12-month subscription costs A$0.80/ha, A$1.20/ha or A$2/ha.

• Retrospective images also available. areas. ‘Change’ images, comparing the latest readings with previous ones, are also available.

“People use the change images to pick up on the ripening of crops at harvest,” precision agronomy specialist Jones noted.

“It helps show which fields will be ready first.”

Graphs showing NDVI change over time for each paddock are also available.

The satellites pass over NZ about 9am and images are downloaded and emailed to subscribers the same evening or by the next day at latest. Growers get an image every five days. Speaking to a farmer after the meeting Christian noted that routine image supply is a key difference to drone imagery: the satellite image comes in

without any effort or time committed by the grower whereas the grower has to make the decision to get the drone out, make the time to fly it, and then download the imagery.

While drone images are typically higher resolution, that also means they require more powerful computers and faster data links for download.

In Australia, drones are also prone to attacks from wedge-tailed eagles, a protected species with a wingspan of more than two metres and weighing up to 5kg.

One grower at the Timaru workshop said he’d had magpies attack his drone here.

Once downloaded to a phone or tablet with a GPS system, users of the satellite images should go into a paddock to ground-truth what is causing the different colours in the image. Typically a red area indicates very little vegetation, through yellow and green to blue, which indicates a dense green canopy, hopefully of crop, but the images can also help spot areas of weeds for patch-spraying, or which may have survived a spray treatment alerting growers to a possible herbicide resistance problem (see panel).

One grower who’d had a play with the satellite imagery before the workshop was Andrew Darling, who brought along an image of a barley paddock which clearly

Grain Growers’ Drew Christian explained how the ProductionWise satellite service works at a series of FAR-organised workshops.

showed thin areas due to bird damage and gullies, and denser stands on some faces.

“It should help us see the variability in the crop during the growth season: by the time you see it on the yield monitor it’s too late to do anything about it,” he told Country-Wide after the workshop.

He’s planning to use the images to target herbage tests, and possibly variably apply trace elements or other nutrients based on the results. This year he booked imagery for an 80ha block of wheat for six months, but already he’s thinking he’ll sign up all crops grown on the 560ha farm next year.

“The resolution’s not quite as good as a drone but it gives you a snapshot every week and it’s a lot cheaper without all the software and time needed to fly and interpret drone data.”

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SPONSORED CONTENT | CLOVERZONE

Lifting the clover love

W

hile clover has long been recognised as the key provider of nitrogen (N) in New Zealand pastoral farming systems, however, it’s been a bit forgotten over the last 20 years with the reduction in energy costs globally and the substitution of

urea.

So let’s have another look at the economic benefits of maintaining a healthy proportion of productive clover in your sward.

“White clover benefits pastoral agriculture through it’s ability to fix nitrogen, it’s high nutritive value, it’s seasonal complementarity with grasses and it’s ability to improve feed intake and utilization rates. The annual financial contribution of white clover through fixed nitrogen, forage yield, seed production and honey production is estimated as $3.095 billion. The impact of white clover has resulted from understanding how it grows, and then developing appropriate management systems, fertiliser strategies and improved cultivars.”

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Table 1: Breakdown of the Financial Importance of Clover to the NZ Economy Annual Value (Billions of $) Nitrogen Fixation Herbage production Enhanced value Seed production Honey production

1.57 million T

1.49

15% of total

1.33

10 of total diet

0.22

5000 MT

0.03

White clover contribution

0.03

TOTAL

3.10

Nitrogen fixation “The potential N-fixation rates from white clover are in the range of 600-700kg N/ha/year, however, the presence of mineral nitrogen and factors which limit white clover growth (ie moisture stress, low soil fertility, grazing, temperature, grass competition, and appropriate Rhizobium strains) result in much lower nitrogen fixation rates.

As a result, annual nitrogen fixation levels from white clover in grazed pastures are extremely variable, ranging from 17kg N/ha/year in infertile, unimproved hill pastures, to 380kg N/ha/year in intensively

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SPONSORED CONTENT | CLOVERZONE

managed pastures. Increases of 3 to 4-fold in N-fixation at the lower end have been achieved with improved cultivars.

White clover growth and nitrogen fixation rates are dependent on seasonal variation in soil temperature and moisture, and management factors which affect its competitive ability. In the absence of mineral nitrogen there is a direct relationship between nitrogen fixation and white clover growth, but increasing the supply of mineral nitrogen reduces nitrogen fixation.” * Extracts from the Agronomy Society of New Zealand Publication No.11/Grassland Research and Pracitce Series No.6.

Clover root nodules produced by the infection of Rhizobium bacteria showing the pink colouration of leghaemoglobin.

In order to achieve the best performance from clover cultivars the soil pH and nutritional state need to be at optimal levels. Even more importantly no one key element can be lacking or the “strong as the weakest link” adage will apply and performance and nitrogen fixation will be compromised.

Fertco has developed the CloverZone® programme to identify limitations to clover growth. This programme was developed in consultation with Doug Edmeades for nutritional requirements and ranges and Graham Shepard for the soil component of the visual soil assessment (VSA).

By incorporating soil and herbage testing along with the VSA the CloverZone® programme will identify the limitations to clover performance and subsequent nitrogen fixation. This comprehensive science-based approach is the fundamental tool used by Fertco technical staff to formulate fertiliser programmes tailored to specific farms to maximise clover production.

“White clover is the key to our competitiveness on international markets, it has been the nitrogen base of our pastures for more than a century except in our very driest regions providing a cheaper source of nitrogen than fertiliser nitrogen, even with the cost of phosphatic and other fertiliser required to maintain clover productivity.

The challenge over the next decades will be to improve the reliability of white clover to increase annual inputs from N-fixation and effectively integrate the strategic use of fertilser nitrogen without losing the benefits of clover.” *Extract from Agronomy Society of New Zealand Special Publication No. 11/ Grassland Research and Practice Series No.6

Grazing management White clover is particularly vulnerable to mismanagement and environmental stresses during spring when the size of individual plants is at its smallest (Brock & Hay 1993). During winter up to 90% of the stolon mass can be buried by the combined action of stock treading and earthworms (Hay et al. 1987). New stolons are produced in early spring and once they become established above the soil surface, older stolons and their associated roots start to die.

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This causes large plants to break up into many smaller clonal units (Brock et al. 1988). Stolon death frequently exceeds stolon growth in spring and plant size decreases. This reduction in plant size is occurring as the companion grasses are growing most actively, and the frequency and intensity of defoliation become critical factors in the persistence of these white clover plants. Frequent grazing during spring favours the growth and survival of white clover under both sheep and cattle grazing (Brougham 1960; Bryant 1991; Brock et al.

1988). More frequent defoliation reduces competition for light and leads to much higher stolon growing point densities (Brock & Hay 1996).

In late spring and early summer plant size and complexity (i.e higher orders of stolon branching) increase rapidly and rates of stolon formation and death reach a balance, which is generally maintained until late winter. During this period soil moisture stress can disrupt this balance by slowing the rate of stolon growth and causing rapid loss of existing stolons. A clear interaction exists between grazing management and drought stress. Brock (1988) showed that under set-stocking there was very little reduction in stolon mass or clover content during a spring drought but under rotational grazing there was a 75–90% reduction in stolon mass and clover content decreased from 15% to 2%.

• Proceedings of the New Zealand Grassland Association 58: 229–235 (1996) 229 Factors affecting white clover persistence in New Zealand pastures D.R. WOODFIELD and J.R. CARADUS AgResearch Grasslands, Private Bag 11008, Palmerston North

“All our Fertco field consultants have been trained in assessment of soil physical conditions, we are able to make improvements if required in this area within the fertiliser program,” Ferco sales manager Arthur says.

“For example, we use products like Lime and Gypsum to improve drainage on wet farms, all farmers know clover hates wet feet so it won’t matter how much you spend on fertiliser if you have a compacted wet soil.

The easiest place to start is a farm visit by a Fertco field consultant, there is no obligation other than lab test cost, around $80 per sample if you chose to have a CloverZone soil test taken, and about half an hour for a quick yarn and to point us in the right direction to take our soil samples.

Phone 0800 fertco (337 826) to arrange a visit.

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The Valtra S394 coupled to 8.6-metrewide mowers.

PLANT & MACHINERY | VALTRA S394 TRACTOR

Finnish muscle Valtra has at last brought its latest heavyweight tractor to market. Nick Fone reports.

A

t the tail-end of 2013 Valtra announced the launch of its fourth-generation 270hp390hp S-series tractors but we’ve had to wait until now to see any production machines in the flesh.

We put the new tractor to the test in probably the most common reverse-drive application - with a set of triple mowers.

The main man in the seat was been Dave Birch who works for a contracting firm . Each year he knocks down some 2000 hectares using Claas Disco 8600 mowers in reverse. Who better to put the 390hp Valtra to the test?

Plugging the ISOBUS cable into the Valtra’s socket we were pleasantly surprised to see that the tractor’s touchscreen computer recognised the mowers almost instantaneously. It all looked good until it came to working out how to hoist each of the three beds in the air independently.

Usually this task is fulfilled by joystick buttons assigned to the individual ISOBUS functions. Unfortunately the S-series

doesn’t yet have this functionality - Valtra promise a software update - so we were left with operating the mowers as one on a spool-valve. The alternative option was to lift them individually by tapping the appropriate icon on the screen. That’s all good until you realise that the ISOBUS screen is only accessible by flicking through the display pages - it cannot be assigned to one of the quarters on the fourway split home screen. Again the Finns say they’re working on this.

To get the big tractor moving it’s simply a case of lifting the shuttle lever out of its park-lock into its forward position.

Default start-off setting for the transmission finds the pedal as the master control - a bit of right boot sets it moving, the tractor’s computers working out the right gearbox ratio and amount of throttle according to load. Given the S-series’ 12-tonne working weight, it’s quick to accelerate to its 50km/h top speed.

Once up to speed, knocking the lever to the right and holding it there for a couple of seconds activates the cruise

With its sleek lines, curvy cabin and angular LED lights, the S394 certainly has the looks.

Valtra’s green-liveried Bavarian-built Agco stablemates) but what about the rest of the tractor?

Muscle is provided by an 8.4-litre AgcoPower (Sisu) six-pot that can generate up to 1600Nm of torque according to the spec sheet.

Like second and third generation S-series models, this version is a common platform shared with Massey Ferguson’s largest 8700 tractors.

That power is put to the ground by a Fendt stepless Vario gearbox.

Two critical things set the Valtra apart - it’s on offer with the Finnish-firm’s TwinTrac reverse-drive system and has the company’s new SmartTouch armrest, joystick and computer controls.

So the driveline is pretty well-proven (some might say the Finnish power-plant is a better bet than the Deutz used by

76

control. With no real load on the engine, the stepless box quickly closes down the swash-plate pumps and eases over from hydrostatic to mechanical drive.

That immediately does away with that trademark Vario whine and you can settle into what has to be one of the most comfortable, quiet cabs on offer in the high horsepower game.

Visibility is particularly good. Decent split mirrors with a concave lower half mean it’s possible to see everything you pass at ground level too.

With 2300kg on the nose and the triples stacked on the back it all feels pretty stable on the road, the combination of hydro-pneumatic cab suspension, front axle springing and a Grammer Evolution active seat make for a particularly smooth ride.

Trundling down rutted tracks the cab springing can make the driver feel like they’ve mistakenly mounted a bucking bronco. That’s resolved by accessing the suspension settings on the touchscreen computer.

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November 2018

LIKES

Vital stats Valtra S394 TwinTrac Max power (with boost)

400hp (405hp)

• Quiet cab

Max torque (with boost)

1540Nm @ 1500rpm (1600Nm)

• Easy-to-navigate touchscreen computer • Heaps of power

Engine

8.4-litre AgcoPower (Sisu) 6-cylinder with AdBlue

Transmission

Two-range Fendt stepless CVT, 50kph

• Good visibility.

Pto

540E and 1000

Max linkage lift

5t front, 12t rear

GRIPES

Hydraulics

205-litres/min closed centre, load-sensing

Spool valves

2 x front, 4 x rear

Tank capacities

Fuel – 630-litres, AdBlue – 60-litres

Turning circle

16.8m

Weight

12t

Price

£233,521 (NZ$473,380) plus £5412 (NZ$10,975) for TwinTrac reverse-drive system

Field work Once in the field it’s a case of swinging the seat into reverse-drive position. Even with the main steering wheel flipped right up, it’s still a bit of a faff to get the armrest and computer display round without clashing.

Once it’s done you’re positioned centrally facing directly out over the mowers with a much smaller column, shuttle and wheel nestling between your knees. (Unlike the Fendt that takes everything, including the main steering wheel round with it).

Again it scores well for visibility, the rear screen curving round to the B-pillars making it possible to see out to the outer tips of the 8.6m-wide mowers without craning your neck. Whether that would be the case with a 9.5m set we’re not so sure.

Once mowing, it was clear we were never really going to test the Sisu motor even in heavy, waxy crops of ryegrass.

Usual mowing speed for the Targett 930 is 13-14km/h - we got the big Valtra up to 1718km/h before there was any discernable dip in engine note. Even then pto revs barely flicker - not surprising given its got nearly 90hp more than the Fendt and max torque comes in at a whopping 1600Nm in boost compared to the 930’s more modest 1278Nm. Although not necessarily to be relied

• Smooth on the road

• Gearbox loses cruise speed presets when operator leaves the seat • Can’t run ISOBUS as part of split screen or assign ISOBUS controls to joystick buttons • Awkward to swing seat around to reverse-drive position.

upon, the Finnish tractor’s fuel readout suggested the S394 was burning between 44-47-litres an hour.

Shuttle controls are handled either by the standard column-mounted stalk or by a thumb flipper on the joystick. There is a required activation procedure that we never really mastered so the traditional wand got most of the action.

Rather than standing upright, the handgrip is horizontal, falling much more naturally to hand. Rockers for linkage, two spools and the shuttle are closely grouped but could do with a bit more differentiation to avoid any accidental mix-ups.

Cruise control is activated by knocking the stick to the right. Just one annoying feature here - you lose your preset speeds every time you get out of the seat. Best way to re-instate them is to get back up to speed and hold the handgrip to the right again. Alternatively in the main touchscreen homescreen swipe left or right to rotate the image of the tractor and select the gear/sprocket symbol to enter the transmission settings page. Pressing the forward or reverse blobs takes you to a slider dial that sets the preset. This same menu page has a slider for engine droop settings, biasing the transmission towards

maintaining engine revs for pto type work or for maximum speed with minimal revs for transport, etc.

Steering is handled by a Trimble box on the roof, running through the SmartTouch display. It’s dead easy to set up with an ‘idiot’ Go setting which just requires you to input implement width and A and B way-markers. Alternatively there’s an advanced menu that lets you alter all manner of fancy stuff.

Without an active SIM card for a mobile correction signal, we were running on bog basic EGNOS which was fine so long as you were running up and back on every bout. But missing every one for lazy, wideswinging headland turns, when you come back up the field satellite drift becomes apparent with strips missed. Paying for mobile correction is well worth it in our book. While on the subject of steering, initially we struggled to pull the tractor round in a tight arc.

Winding the stops in seemed to have little effect and it wasn’t until we applied a little bit of extra welly for that last turn of the wheel that we found the big Valtra is actually quite a nimble beast. Steering with the rear-facing wheel is free and easy for almost the entire length of the ram stroke but requires that bit of extra forearm force to get it around to the stops.

VERDICT Power and torque were never going to be an issue. Where the S394 scores is in the comfort department. The cab has to be one of the quietest on the market and the ride comfort is super smooth.

The other industry beater is the SmartTouch screen - with its smart phone-style swipe-ability, it’s clearer and easier to navigate than even Deere’s latest CommandCenter. Just a shame it can’t run ISOBUS through the four-way split screen run page and those ISOBUS functions can’t be assigned to the joystick buttons. Minor things we’re told are set to be resolved.

The Rivals Model

Valtra S394

Fendt 939

MF 8740S

JD 8345R

Claas Axion 950

Case Magnum 340CVX

NH T8.410AC

Max power

405hp

396hp

405hp

394hp

410hp

409hp

409hp

Base price

£233,521 (NZ$473,380)

£267,681* (NZ$542,903)

£208,577 (NZ$423,030)

£243,609 (NZ$494,031)

£285,000 (NZ$577,981)

£187,762 (NZ$380,790)

£215,288 (NZ$436,614)

*Reverse drive adds £6807 (NZ$13,804) Country-Wide

November 2018

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ENVIRONMENT | IRRIGATION

Lessons from Nebraska Crop circles: Pivot-irrigated farms in Nebraska.

Irrigated agriculture is vital to the mid-western US state of Nebraska. Keri Johnston reports on the challenges farmers there face.

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arlier in September, I was part of a 24-person group who went to Nebraska on a study tour organised by IrrigationNZ. It was an amazing opportunity to go and see how another part of the world deals with similar issues to what we have here.

The tour focused on two issues – regulation and technology. This month, I will focus on the regulatory side of things.

Nebraska is a conservative state, in the heart of Trump country. The church was often the largest building in the rural towns we visited.

The importance of agriculture to the state economy, with the irrigation of almost four million hectares of corn and soy beans grown, is well understood by all.

Despite the widespread use of intensive farming methods, and the water quality and quantity challenges facing Nebraska, the one issue not facing farmers at the state level is pressure from the anti-farming lobby or environmental groups.

The University of Nebraska research and extension service runs an outreach programme to attract the next generation Making silage Nebraska scale.

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to agriculture. This interacts with one in every three school-age children in the state, providing an agriculture ‘101’ and highlighting the exciting career opportunities that exist within it.

GOVERNANCE OF WATER The governance of water in Nebraska is really complex. There is federal legislation, such as the Endangered Species Act, which the state must abide by. Alongside this, other federal agencies control most of the surface water through storage and diversion infrastructure. The state then sets its own laws around how it will manage its water.

In Nebraska, surface water is manged at state level by the Department of Natural Resources, but the groundwater, which accounts for more than 80% of water abstracted, is managed by the Natural Resource District’s (NRD) at a local level.

For a number of surface water bodies, there are also interstate pacts that determine how much water must remain in the river to reach downstream states.

The NRD’s have a board that is democratically elected, and the boards are often dominated by rural people including farmers. Despite this, the boards have been proactive in driving change amongst their peers – very similar to the Good Management Practice approach being implemented by the primary sectors in New Zealand.

Both of the NRDs we visited had

invested heavily in science to help them better understand their resource. They also look to a range of solutions – both farm and catchment based, the latter including raising capital to build environmental infrastructure, and therefore, river augmentation and managed aquifer recharge projects are common.

MANAGING WATER QUALITY Nitrates in groundwater are of significant concern in the heavily irrigated districts of central Nebraska. In some areas over 50% of the land is now under irrigated crop-farming. Historic poor nutrient management and poor irrigation practice resulted in nitrate concentrations being frequently observed over 30ppm – well above the United States drinking water standard of 10ppm.

However, in recent years there has been a significant declining trend, and this has largely been brought about by a non-regulatory approach. Incentives, knowledge and enabling peer to peer learning in combination with environmental infrastructure is currently seen as the way forward for water quality.

The widespread move from flood to centre pivot irrigation has been instrumental in reducing nitrate losses to groundwater. This has enabled soils to be irrigated on an ‘as and when’ basis to minimise nitrate leaching. There is now also a push towards the more widespread adoption of fertigation, as it allows ‘as and when’ nutrient applications – significantly reducing the risk of leaching from rainfall events.

Next issue I will look at the technology focus of the tour.

Keri Johnston is a natural resources engineer with Irricon Resource Solutions.

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ENVIRONMENT | FARM FORESTRY

Seeing taxation for the trees Farm forester Denis Hocking sifts through the Tax Working Group’s Interim Report for scant mentions of forestry.

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ack when I was young and overwhelmed with enthusiasm, forestry was a regular target for changes in tax regimes and/or various changes in government support.

In the mid-1980s then New Zealand Farm Forestry Association president, John Mortimer pointed out that there had been 13 tax changes since 1960, an average of every two years. Since then there has only been one major tax change, along with plenty of changes in government policies, subsidies and regulatory changes, notably the ETS, Afforestation Grants Scheme, National Environmental Standards, etc. So foresters may be interested to see whether forestry surfaces in the Tax Working Party’s Interim Report released in September.

The answer would appear to be no, though I certainly can’t guarantee not missing some references in a lengthy document on a subject I find less than gripping. The only reference I noticed was on P27 - “Some industries benefit from deliberate tax concessions. Examples include accelerated deductions for certain types of farming, film and forestry expenditure as well as petroleum mining.

The Government should keep these concessions under periodic review to ensure they remain consistent with its policy intent”.

I remember well the evolution of this concession - immediate tax deductibility for forestry development against any income.

After the Brash Committee report on tax in 1986, the Labour Government wanted to put all investment on an equal footing, including forestry, despite its much longer time horizon.

However, this meant that repairs

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after a storm could be tax-deductible “maintenance”, while planting trees to mitigate such damage would be taxable expenditure.

The compromise was allowing farmers to spend, annually, $7500 tax-free on trees.

This covered most farm foresters’ tree budget but left the corporates and larger foresters without any concessions.

They had to put their establishment and silvicultural spending in a “cost of bush account”, and only deduct it from taxable income when they sold or harvested the trees.

Only one country, Israel, has tried a form of inflation proofing which they abandoned in 2008.

This attempt at ideological purity overlooked the fact that they were trying to squeeze a 25-30-year investment into a taxation system based primarily on a oneyear financial cycle. In addition, with the 1980s’ double-digit inflation the real value of your “cost of bush” deduction would look rather pathetic by harvest.

In 1991 the Bolger National Government with John Falloon as Minister of Forestry, removed restrictions and made all expenditure on forestry deductible in the year spent. This was probably one stimulus for the 1990s planting boom, along with the price spike of 1993.

Foresters were generally happy, but there are situations where the “cost of bush” tax rules still apply.

If an established forest is sold, the

vendor must pay tax on their returns as income for the year of sale, but the purchaser must put the purchase price into a “cob” account and only deduct it from the proceeds of harvesting, or on-selling the trees.

While inflation is no longer the wrecker it was 30 years ago, it still has the ability to shrink the deduction’s real value significantly.

Over 20 years an average 2% inflation will shrink the real value by 32%, and an average 5% inflation by over 60%.

As my accountant is quick to point out, other industries work under similar rules, eg: land developers, but I am not sure any regularly operate on such long time scales.

It is probably a significant factor in reducing the liquidity of forest blocks and thus making them less-appealing for retail investors.

Establish a new forest and your deductions are immediate, buy an established forest and your deductions are delayed.

One palliative might be inflation adjustment and here we do get a good lead on the Tax Working Party’s thinking.

In an appendix on inflation they recognise the greater equity and efficiency of a tax system that corrects for inflation and its corrosive effect on the value of money, but they then look at the technical and administrative problems of managing it.

Inflation adjustments would have to be pushed into all corners to avoid people gaming the system. Only one country, Israel, has tried a form of inflation proofing which they abandoned in 2008.

The Tax Working Party doubts it is worth the effort. Any tax changes for forestry seem unlikely.

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TECHNOLOGY | REMINDERS

Keeping track Making lists of things you have to do can be a chore. Kirstin Mills reviews some apps that make it easier.

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s I get older I have discovered I can no longer hold information in my head as well as I could in my younger days. Or maybe I just have more information now to think about.

Either way, I find myself reliant on an app and its accompanying website to keep track of what I need to do.

I had tried paper to-do lists and even a spreadsheet, but I find the Remember the Milk app better meets my needs. I can access and update it either via the app on my phone or tablet or via its website on my PC. It doesn’t matter which device I use - the information is updated on all of them. The app is free, but I have a paid subscription to unlock more of its features.

There are many similar apps to choose from. Some of the top ones include Wunderlist, Todoist and Any.do - but just Google to find one that works for you.

I wanted one that let me group my to-do list by topic (all my clients for work plus non-work things like errands, things to do around the house, calls to make and emails or texts to send). I also wanted sublists within each list and the ability to set deadlines and reminders.

It may sound obvious to say that such an app can help you sort your priorities for the day/week/month, but it really is impressive what a difference it can make.

Remember the Milk allows you to set a priority number and this forces me to think about how important a task is.

By also including an optional deadline, it forces me to work on what is due next, rather than what is the most appealing project to work on.

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I also like the fact that I can create different smart lists.

The one I use most is the “Today start date” but I can also look at things by other settings including the date things are due or things I have tagged as yet to start or items I’m waiting on other people for before I can move ahead.

Where the to do list has made a big difference is my email inbox. I have five email inboxes to keep track of - a mix of client and personal accounts. Without a system it could be a nightmare to keep track of so many email conversations, but the main inbox in all my email accounts is pretty much always empty. That is because as soon as I check my inbox I deal with the emails.

If it is something I can easily deal with I reply and file the mail in one of my Outlook inbox folders (or delete if it is unimportant). If it is something that generates a task that does not need my immediate attention, then the task goes into Remember the Milk under the appropriate client and project, and I file the email in the relevant Outlook folder.

The odd personal email from friends might sit in the inbox all day until I reply to it, but generally by day’s end the inbox is empty.

It has also made a difference to my brain’s inbox. It means I don’t have to keep it all in my head because I know I won’t. This is evidenced by the fact that things that do not make it on to Remember the Milk usually do not get done. For people who can keep their projects and lives in their head then an app would be overkill; for the rest of us, it’s a lifesaver!

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TECHNOLOGY | HEALTH AND SAFETY

Blue light (not red light) dangers?

Suffering migraines, headaches, or other issues – you might be suffering from blue light from LED screens. Alan Royal reports.

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he blue light emitted from our modern computer, tablet, smartphone and TV screens is being blamed for conditions such as migraine, headache and more serious health issues including macular degeneration. It is suggested it is the blue light component of the spectrum causing these issues.

I have suggested in past articles that using the free f.lux programme (www. justgetflux.com/dlwin.html), on your computer could be a great help in easing eye strain, especially at night. The f.lux app makes the colour of your computer’s display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day. It is suggested using the f.lux app also makes you sleep better. The app is also available for your tablet and smartphone, including Android, Apple and Windows. The Windows version is still useful if you have not upgraded to Windows 10.

While the evidence for ‘blue light’ health issues is subject to debate, all major computing manufacturers are including, as a standard feature, blue light filtering apps. Regardless of health issues you will find using these filters makes your

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screen easier to read at night, and with less eye strain.

The Windows 10 Microsoft app is called Night Light. It can be accessed in the Settings by typing ‘night light’ in the search box. The app allows one to set times when the app turns on or off. It also allows you to set variations in screen colour to suit yourself.

The Apple equivalent is called Night Shift. To load the app open the Control Center from your Home screen. Firmly press the Brightness control icon, then tap to turn Night Shift on or off. You can then Go to Settings > Display & Brightness > Night Shift. On the same screen, you can schedule a time for Night Shift to turn on automatically and adjust colour temperature to suit your needs. By default, Night Shift turns on from sunset to sunrise.

The more recent versions of Android phones and tablets have a blue light filter included in the Settings under the Display heading. This is simply an on/off button.

For older Android versions f.lux (above) is a suitable alternative. It can be loaded from Play Store. By default, f.lux turns on from sunset to sunrise.

The blue light issue is not confined to your computing machines. It also affects your LED television. I cannot give a standard approach on how to change your television settings to reduce blue light. The general answer is to change your screen settings (through the Menu) to ‘Cinema Mode’. This is said to effectively reduce the blue light component on the screen.

I have done this. I can assure you that while it makes the screen colour appear slightly duller, it makes for a more pleasant viewing.

It is also said that exposure to LED lighting can create the same issues. As a recent example the new Wellington city buses were fitted with blue ceiling lights.

Immediately the complaints rolled in.

Users have complained of headaches and dizziness.

A Google search will reveal the blue lighting can also cause, or trigger migraine.

An optometrist has warned that the neon blue lights in New Zealand buses could disrupt people’s sleeping patterns, but says it’s unlikely the intensity could do lasting eye damage.

Other recent articles are associating an apparent rise in macular degeneration as an outcome of prolonged exposure, over some years, to the rise in computing screen and the newer television use.

A hard copy of this article can be made available by emailing Alan Royal at alanroyalnz@gmail.com.

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WORK HARD, PLAY HARDER

Getting in behind:

The road to a shepherding career P84 Country-Wide

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Bark off: Introducing the steering gear P87

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SHEPHERDING

Getting in behind A lack of practical experience made it hard for Ashley Greer to get a foot on the career ladder in the sheep and beef industry, but she refused to take no for an answer.

After years of trying, she has landed her dream job shepherding on a progressive sheep and beef farm near Masterton. Rebecca Harper went to visit her.

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f at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again. It’s an old proverb, but one that is particularly relevant for 28-year-old Ashley Greer.

Ashley set her heart on a career in the sheep and beef sector and began studying towards her Bachelor of Science, majoring in agricultural science and minoring in animal science, at Massey University. In her holidays, she needed to obtain placements onfarm.

The problem was, most farmers wanted prior practical experience. But how to gain that experience if no one would give her a shot?

“One year I applied for about 20 jobs, only heard back from three and got an interview for one. I wondered why I wasn’t getting anywhere and it was my lack of experience.”

She discovered the dairy industry was more

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open to employing a female who was just starting out, and decided working in dairy would at least give her some practical farming experience to build on.

Flipping things around, she switched to working full-time as a relief milker and studying part-time. She has almost completed her degree.

“I think a lot of it is to do with networking.

It’s often about who you know in farming, in my experience, and I had none of those contacts.

“The plan was, if I still didn’t have a sheep and beef job by the end of my degree, I would go to Taratahi or do a PrimaryITO course to gain more practical experience.”

From relief milking she moved to a sire proving farm, running a small herd of heifers,

before taking a dairying job in Ashburton.

About a year ago, Ashley and her partner, Thomas Higgins, moved to the Wairarapa to live on his parents’ farm, where they operate their Oregon Angus cattle stud. This allowed her to help out at key times, like docking.

Still no luck getting a job on a sheep and beef farm, though, so she took a job calf rearing. “That job was a very intense operation.

I ended up calf rearing and milking, then on the vet stand to pick out the ones for mating.”

Although dairying wasn’t her cup of tea, she saw every job as an opportunity to learn.

“I always tried to take something away from every job, but in the back of my mind it was always sheep and beef. I grew up on a sheep, beef and cropping farm at Bulls and loved it.

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‘Many farms have experienced the young male shepherd who is great some days, but hungover or injured from rugby others. We wanted someone who valued the job opportunity, would treat it as a professional role and be rewarded accordingly.’ my idea of farming – I’d rather be out shifting breaks than stuck in the shed.”

Not deterred, she continued applying for shepherding jobs and couldn’t believe it when she was offered two within a week, opting to take the position as a shepherd with Andrew Freeman at Ngahere, east of Masterton. She started her job in mid-June.

“Thomas said to me, before I got this job, I’ve never known someone to keep going after being turned down so many times. But I still wanted to be a farmer and I 100% didn’t want to be in dairying. I like the lifestyle and the variety of sheep and beef, both of us grew up on sheep and beef farms and we want that for our kids,” she says.

“I was stoked to be offered a different job three days earlier, when I got the phone call I actually cried – someone was finally taking a chance on me. It definitely made the hard work pay off. When it rains it pours, I’d had nothing and then two job offers in one week.”

Long term, Ashley’s dream would be to get into stud work and one day, have her own stud.

“Probably Charolais. I think they’re beautiful and have a lot of great attributes – although my boyfriend’s father would say Angus... Genetics is pretty exciting.”

The dream job Ngahere is a progressive and innovative farm, with plenty of exposure to new things and opportunities to upskill for Ashley.

Located in the hills east of Masterton, the 760-hectare (615ha effective) farm is traditionally summer dry with contour evenly split between flat, rolling hill and medium hill country.

The farm has excellent infrastructure, with laneways and well-subdivided paddocks.

A large portion of the farm, 250ha, is in herbs and clover or brassicas.

Andrew describes the farm as an opportunistic, flexible system focused on trading ewes rather than capital stock. The well-publicised triplet transfer programme he has run in the past is not happening this year though, with no ewes on the farm, only trading stock. Instead, they have on trade lambs and about 500 in-lamb hoggets, with hogget grazers coming on soon.

Ngahere was a family farm and has been restructured into a corporate entity. There are three investors, including Andrew, and the farm was sold to the new company.

Ashley’s top tips for landing the job: • Network at any opportunity – it’s who you know, not what you know • Attitude is king • Show initiative • Give it a crack – even if you don’t think you meet all the advertised criteria, it’s still interviewing experience • Value yourself – don’t put up with being treated badly by an employer, no matter how much you want the job • Identify your strengths and weaknesses and be honest about them – as long as you’re willing to learn.

Ashley works closely with the other shepherd at Ngahere, Junior Taulago (left).

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Coming from a dairying background, dog work is relatively new to Ashley, who is working to improve her skills in this area.

The family was bought out, with Andrew retaining his share.

“At that time we recapitalised it very positively, so it’s a farm with an appetite for risk and innovation. We are prepared to play at the edges of the square, and outside, if we see opportunities.”

The farm carries a low stocking rate over winter, cranking up to 14-16 SU/ha in spring to aggressively match the feed curve.

A classic spring has them carrying 2000-3000 winter hoggets for fattening, 2000 hogget grazers, and 500-700 bigger spring/summer finishing cattle, mostly bulls. Most years they also have 2000 older in-lamb ewes, lambing at 150%.

“Really the whole system runs around growing as much as we can in spring and harvesting the whole lot. The rest of the year is strategic trading.”

Farmax is an important tool and they undertake a lot of feed budgeting and modelling. All trades are based on efficiency of cents/kg drymatter.

Ashley’s position as junior shepherd involves things like checking and moving stock, repairs and maintenance, checking fences, feed levels, water and power.

It’s all about making sure the animals are happy and the farm operates at an individual animal level – if there is anything wrong with a single animal, action is taken.

“We are only as strong as our weakest animal, we try not to have underperforming stock,” Andrew explains.

A different approach to staffing Andrew is known for his innovative farming practices, so it’s probably no surprise his approach to employing staff is somewhat different to the norm.

“Ashley is our second female shepherd. We took a punt on what we had been told by other farmers – good attention to detail, better with stock, things like that.”

Andrew is more focused on attributes like loyalty, honesty and good work ethic than he is hung up on practical skills, which he believes can be taught.

He saw Ashley’s dairying background as a positive. “We try to run the farm towards a semidairy model – growing large amounts of feed and trying to harvest it all,” he explains.

“Many farms have experienced the young male shepherd who is great some days, but hungover or injured from rugby others. We wanted someone who valued the job opportunity, would treat it as a professional role and be rewarded accordingly.”

Recent major back surgery has put Andrew out of action and meant he is more reliant on his two young shepherds, Ashley and Junior Taulago, who has been with him for two years.

This, along with a move towards more off-farm work as a mediator over the last two years, means Andrew has had a rethink about staffing.

“I’m shifting the day-to-day farm work towards young, fit staff and I’m honing more on the analytical decision-making side of the business.

“Staff on a dynamic farm like this need to be motivated, self-starters and able to run their own day a bit.

“As a boss you have to be realistic too. Ash’s dog skills were not strong, so we have challenged Ash and Junior to spend a few afternoons a week on dog work. We see that as an investment… you can’t just expect people to get better without giving them space to practice the skill. The aim here is for experienced staff to share their knowledge and help grow new staff.”

Despite a lack in some practical skills, it was her attitude and work ethic that shone through in the interview and convinced Andrew she would be a good fit for the team. She also showed enthusiasm for things like EID tagging, weighing and break feeding.

“Junior was part of the employment process and identified Ashley as someone he could work and grow a good relationship with. Her high level of intelligence and the fact she was local were huge pluses. She had also shown the initiative of approaching us two times in the previous 12 months.”

Lambs at Ngahere, east of Masterton.

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BARK OFF

Having sheep in front of the dog gives it something to focus on.

Introducing the steering gear With stage three of training your young dog, Lloyd Smith advises on the commands to steer your dog while controlling sheep.

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he third and final stage of training your heading dog involves teaching your dog steering gear which allows you to send it and then keep it running in the appropriate direction by the use of run-out sides. In conjunction with run-out sides a run command is an important component allowing you to keep the dog running hard but changing direction when required.

I would usually have introduced a run whistle before this stage simply by using it when the dog is running out on to stock at any distance, I use the command to encourage the dog to run hard and with purpose and also as re-assurance that it is heading in the right direction.

I prefer whistles for teaching both run and side commands as I believe they are more precise and also more demanding impressing upon the dog the need for compliance. They are also more accurate at a distance or in wind.

Another important aspect relative to the success of this stage of training is I believe your dog has to be fully familiar with stage two, off-balance work, and has to be able to operate confidently and competently between you and the sheep. If your dog is not up to driving sheep away from you and struggles with this aspect of training then it will also struggle to understand what run-out sides are all about.

Confusion in this, between the trainer and the sheep is something we create by never letting

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the dog operate in there until now as it has always been around behind us or around the sheep, crossing between the trainer and the sheep has previously been discouraged.

But now to teach the dog run-out sides we need it to be comfortable in this area as your commands are just an extension of your pulling sides and overlap in their use to a certain extent, and some trainers use the same sides for running their dog out and pulling the sheep back which is fine.

I prefer to introduce whistle commands at this stage and use them for steering my dog out on to stock. Because by this stage I can get my dog to drive sheep away from me by the use of its pulling sides I now add a whistle to that side command and use this as a run-out instruction.

To teach the dog these run-out side whistles I go back to the merry-go-round as in stage two where I taught the pulling sides and now add a whistle to the verbal pulling side that the dog is already familiar with and because of this I teach both sides together.

Once the dog has a good grasp of these whistle commands and changes direction accordingly I take them off the merry-go-round and drive them on a pole, teaching them to walk directly in front of and away from me.

Upon gaining compliance with this I replace the pole with a harness and light rope and once again get the dog to walk directly away from me toward sheep which allows me to introduce the newly taught side whistles. By holding the

KEY POINTS • Your dog must be ready before teaching run-out sides • Be comfortable working between you and the sheep and competent in driving stock away.

• Whistles preferred for these commands as they are more precise, demanding and heard better at a distance.

• Your pulling sides and run-out sides will overlap to a large extent and you can use one set of commands to cover both aspects as many do.

• A definite change of direction is required or your sides are not effective - exaggerate the move at this stage of training. rope tight I can insist on a definite change of direction when the dog is instructed to do so.

By having sheep in front of the dog this gives it something to focus on and the change of direction is relative to where the sheep are. An exaggerated move at right angles to the sheep is required at this early stage to emphasise the need to change direction. If this is not evident then the side commands are not effective. Once again, a good Stop allows you to enforce these instructions by positioning yourself to insist.

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COMMUNITY | DOG TRIALLING

Three out of four ain’t bad

Alex Matthews and Rex wait for the zig-zag run off.

Humble Alex and his winning Huntaways Dedicated dog triallers gathered at Marlborough’s Meadowbank Station in June for the national championships. Annabelle Latz was there.

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aying “thank you” was most important to Alex Matthews.

Standing beside his ute at Meadowbank in Marlborough, with a fond eye on his dogs, the 27-year-old farm manager from Wanganui spoke calmly and humbly about his history-making performance with his two Huntaways at the Tux New Zealand and South Island Dog Trial Championships.

Crowned the national titles for the zig-zag hunt and the straight hunt, with two different dogs, is a first in the dog trialling history books. Alex’s first point was to name and thank those instrumental in his success – on two legs and four.

His two former bosses, Bruce Parkinson and Craig Johns from Wanganui who have helped him out so much, and Alastair Ward, who has been great over the years and taught him at Telford Farming Training Institute.

“Everyone has been all too willing to show knowledge and help.”

With just five years of trialling under his belt, Alex is chuffed with the way things are going.

“Yeah it was pretty overwhelming I guess!” he says, recalling hearing his name over the loudspeaker on the Thursday afternoon at the conclusion of both the runoffs.

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Alex paid tribute to his Huntaway Kate for his slice in the history books at this year’s Nationals, who has performed very well over the years, and is subsequently the mother of both Rex and Bonnie.

Alex was in the NZ runoff with Kate in Geraldine in 2014 in the zig-zag hunt, finishing fifth.

“I was lucky enough that she bred on and I got my whole team from her.”

Before each hunt runoff at Meadowbank Alex was both “nervous and confident,” quietly patting his counterpart and giving a friendly scratch behind the ear as he waited for his turn in front of the judges.

“You only get one chance to perform.

Then with 12 months to wait for another opportunity, and only four or five years with each dog at the top of their game, the opportunities can pass you by.”

He doesn’t really have a recipe for the success with his Huntaways. It’s more a case of putting in the time on the farm, and remembering that every dog is different.

“I work with dogs all day on the farm, and they have to be of a high standard to get the day-to-day jobs done. Taking them off the farm to compete in events like this is a bonus really.”

S

uccessful dog trialling draws a fine line, and Guy Peacock has nailed it.

The fertiliser rep from the Hawke’s Bay now has three National Dog Trial titles to his name; the most recent being this year with his heading dog Chief, crowned the short head and yard title winners at the National Sheep Dog Trials at Meadowbank, Marlborough, at the end of May. From his mark in the run-off Guy ‘suggested’ a couple of ideas to Chief, but his five-year-old Border Collie ran with his own canine gut instinct, and went about things a little bit his own way.

“At this level you have got to learn to trust them,” Guy said, adding that Chief picked up the sheep really well.

A good friend Craig Johns from Raetihi bred Chief, a dog Guy says “just has good station blood lines, nothing too fancy, just a good hard dog… He was a serious young dog, didn’t run around playing.”

It was Guy’s heading dog Hutton in the mid-1990s with whom he had his first taste of success.

A dog he broke in when working on the training farm Smedley Station in the Hawke’s Bay, he made three New Zealand run-offs and a couple of Island run-offs.

With dog trialling such a great leveller with its many variables: the course, the sheep, dealing with two sets of animals, it is an addictive sport.

TOP DOGS Also Wattie Ross, won all four titles, (five in total) between 1949 and 1959, and trialled for another 30 years after 1959 with continuing success. Lloyd Smith (Palmerston), Don White, and Murray Child (Whangarei), are the only current triallists who have three titles on different courses, Lloyd needing a Long Head, Don and Murray needing Short Heads.

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“Once I started to do well, I got hooked.”

There’s a painting of Hutton on Guy’s wall at home from his win at the Island in Hawke’s Bay in 2002, his “pretty cool dog” who got him started.

“He certainly let me know when I got things wrong.”

Frank the Huntaway Guy won the zigzag title with in Masterton in 2011, was “half human,” the kind of dog you could ask to do pretty much anything and he would work it out.

“He was a real perfectionist, if he made a mistake he would punish himself, he would not look at you when you came back down the hill if he had a bad run.”

In 2015 Guy won the long head with Falcon, who is now a retiree at home.

“That’s pretty cool to have two New Zealand champs in the kennels,” Guy has had the same line of Huntaways, having bred Frank, and Frank’s father and a half brother too. Frank

Guy Peacock with Chief.

fathered Alex Matthew’s Rex, who won the zig-zag National Title.

“That was just as much of a thrill as anything, seeing that, having had a hand in breeding him.”

Dog psychology has played a big part in Guy’s thinking and methods of dog trialling, figuring out how the dogs tick. In dog trialling, the owner is being challenged as much as the dog, allowing the dog to express itself.

“It’s about giving the least amount of commands as possible, really seeing how far the dogs could take it before I had to intervene.”

And every dog is different.

“Chief, when he gets on the mark and he looks like he’s going for world domination, it just shows how different they all are.”

Where the line to success thickens however, is in Guy’s attitude.

“Never accept just a level, always keep striving.”

Out there doing it, two decades on Twenty years ago three lads from the Child family of Whangarei stood at Meadowbank Station with their dogs, competing at the National Sheep Dog Trial Championships.

Neville and Stuart, father and son, and Neville’s brother Murray, always look forward to their annual boys’ trip.

It’s social, spells quality family time, and serves as a great way to catch up with old dog-trialing friends from around the country.

“It’s just a special week to go together; some people go away on holiday, we do this,” Neville says.

It’s the icing on the cake that these three men are also very good at what they do. At Meadowbank this year Neville took out his second national title for the Long Head, with his five-year-old collie Harry.

Murray, who has captained the New Zealand trans-Tasman dog trialing team for the past four years, was half a point behind his brother in second place, with Dice.

Stuart, who now lives in Waitomo, finished fifth in the Short Head and Yard, with Mitch.

Neville says it’s always a special thing being in the run-off.

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“And you’re never too old to learn, you’re learning all the time.”

There was a good bit of friendly banter going on over the bonnet of their ute after the run-off, they all knew it was tight.

Murray, who has four national titles under his belt, says it’s the camaraderie of the sport that means the most.

“There’s no bad people in dog trials, because if you can’t take being beaten, you shouldn’t be in the sport,” he says with a smile.

“You can be the best today, and take a duck tomorrow. It’s a lot like cricket, and I’ve played a lot of cricket.”

The trick to remember about dog training, is that they’re like children.

“It’s about respect, discipline and being consistent.”

Stuart has learned a lot from his dad and uncle over the years about training dogs, and his daughter Kate has also picked up the bug with her natural stock sense and ability to be in the right place at the right time when working dogs.

Stuart emphasises that manners from his canine team are a huge part of doing this sport well, and treating the dogs and stock well.

Stuart, Murray, and Neville Child with their dogs Harry, Dice and Rod. “A stop is a stop. A right is a right, a left is a left.”

The prime age of a working dog is five or six, and Stuart looks at how natural the dog’s ‘stock sense’ is, which translates into their ability to be in the ‘right place at the right time’ when working a mob of sheep.

“It’s quite relaxing to work that dog nicely.”

Stuart says the best part of this sport is also getting to catch up with everyone.

“It’s the things you learn being with people.”

An increase of both the professionalism of the competitions and the standard of dog trialling has been the major change this trio has seen, but when it comes to being out on the course working with your dog to move a mob of sheep, they’re still just out there doing it, exactly like 20 years ago.

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Take in the views from the paddock gate.

Listen to Jamie, Rowena & Sam for the lay of the land every weekday from 12-1pm.

Find your frequency at thecountry.co.nz/frequencies

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SOLUTIONS | TRAINING

TRAINING AT THE WHEEL

S

tudents at Rangitikei’s Otiwhiti Cadet Training School are adding tractor driving experience to their skill sets thanks to a new partnership with Feilding’s Massey Ferguson outlet, TRC Tractors.

Otiwhiti’s owner Charlie Duncan took delivery of the keys for the school’s new 150 horsepower Massey Ferguson 6713S Dyna 6 last month. The new tractor was also fitted with a set of Farmguard GB300 offset discs and FL4125 Front End Loader.

Charlie says the new tractor and equipment will be put to good use mostly at the school’s Westoe block at Kakariki, just south of Marton, where each of the school’s 16 students will receive at least 30 hours of tuition on a range of tractor tasks during their time at the school.

“Our students need to be competent tractor drivers and that means driving one for a minimum of 10 hours each. So, we’ll treble that and for our 16 cadets, that means 480 hours of tractor work,” he says.

Charlie says adding the tractor skills is a necessity for any cadet after leaving the school, especially in areas like Hawke’s Bay or Canterbury.

“When I get phone calls from TRC sales manager Aaron Meurk and Otiwhiti Cadet Training farmers looking School boss Charlie Duncan at the handover of keys to the for cadets to take school’s new tractor and discs last month. on, many of them ask me if they leave the school with and Massey Ferguson’s unique ‘brake-toenough tractor driving skills. We can now neutral’ system which returns the machine be confident of that thanks to this new to neutral when it stops. machine and our partnership with TRC,” An important component of the he says. partnership for TRC is use of the Westoe TRC Tractors branch manager Aaron property for demonstration days in the Meurk says the new tractor is fully set up future, starting Friday, October 26. with GPS self-drive technology, so the Charlie says the school, Otiwhiti Station students will be learning to handle a stateand the Shepherd’s Shemozzle will be of-the-art machine. The MF 6713S comes featured on Country Calendar later this with a six-speed powershift transmission year.

TOUR TO THE ST JAMES HORSE SALE

T

he biennial St James horse sale – a much-awaited country event for horse lovers from throughout New Zealand – features in a three-day high country van tour Will and Rose Parsons of Driftwood Eco Tours in Marlborough are offering.

Two years ago unbroken two and threeyear-old horses sold for an average of $3100 with a top price of $10,000. The breed is sought after for hunting, show jumping and endurance riding. The high country horses live wild on the St James Conservation Area which was bought from Stevenson family by the government in 2008. The horses have roamed the alpine flats since the 1920s, originally bred by the Stevenson family from top bloodlines. The herd are now looked after by the DampierCrossley family who try to keep the herd at about 80 horses.

The tour, starting in Blenheim, will trace the back-country roads of the Rainbow and Molesworth Stations, some of the

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most rugged and beautiful scenery in the country. The tour overnights at the thermal resort of Hanmer Springs in North Canterbury.

The tour includes a visit to the farm of Bill and Nicky Stevenson, of Upcott Station in the Upper Awatere Valley. The family have farmed in the valley for more than 100 years.

“It is really hard to get guests to leave Bill and Nicky’s home as they love to engage with everyone,” Will says.

Will and Rose set up the tour two years ago, but it was thwarted by the November 14 Kaikoura earthquake due to road closures.

“It is great that finally we will be able to take people booked two years ago to see the wild horses,” Rose says.

The tour departs Blenheim on Friday, January 25, 2019. The horse sale is on Saturday. Limited seats are available.

More? Call Will or Rose 03 5777 651 www.driftwoodecotours.co.nz

Photos: Jane Thompson

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SOLUTIONS | FACIAL ECZEMA

B

PICKING TOP FE RAMS

uying facial eczema-tolerant rams is the cheapest way to reduce your losses from the disease, Wiltshire ram breeder David Arvidson says. Buying the correct ram requires an understanding of the data available for you that ranks each animal.

If you can’t predict the performance of progeny from a ram then you could be going backwards or your progress could be so slow that you incur bigger than necessary financial losses.

Even some rams who have passed their FE test do not pass the gene on to their progeny and so the next generation can be less-resistant than the previous one.

The process in brief for choosing an appropriate ram is: • Breeder’s credentials • ID for each animal • Records to view • Ramguard certificate • Decision.

Do you trust your ram breeder to be telling you the truth and to be doing his job with accuracy and integrity so that the breeding records he shows you are true and accurate?

Does the ram you are buying have an individual identification that allows you to trace his parentage for a number of generations?

Ask the seller for his “sire summary” (SIL

printout) and look at the information for the sire of the ram you are assessing.

Compare the SIL DPX number for the sire and the animal you want to buy. DPX gives a number that can then be compared between animals within the same flock. I would suggest that if the progeny you are buying is half or less of the DPX of the sire then you will not make fast progress in breeding for resistance to FE. Look at the SIL “DPX acc” figure (accuracy of the DPX figure) for the sire in the sire summary. If it is under 50% then his progeny have probably not been tested yet and so you can not be sure how well he passes the gene on to the next generation whereas a sire over 70% accuracy you can be very confident that his progeny also perform well.

Ask the seller for his “Ramguard” certificate to show if the sire was tested, at what dose rate and what his reaction level was.

“I have found that rams that passed their test at 0.35 and higher tend to show no reaction to even extreme paddock exposure, but you will not normally be buying the tested ram but rather his progeny so the ewe has a big influence as well,” Arvidson says.

Decision time. What you buy will depend on the level of protection you need and if you need to quickly increase protection levels. If your breeder is testing at 0.6, a very high level, then the offspring from non-FE ewes will have reasonable protection whereas if you buy from a flock testing at 0.3 it will take a long time to get any protection, but that may be appropriate if you only get hit once every 20 years.

Tours to Remote Kiwi Locations to Refresh and Excite You! 3-5 day vehicle tours departing are from Blenheim: • St James horse sale via the Molesworth Station • D’Urville Island, Marlborough Sounds • Muzzle Station, Inland Kaikouras Hear the stories from the locals, eat from the land, a holiday legends are made from…

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Learn about our other tours at driftwoodecotours.co.nz

BOOK NOW

03 5777 651

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SOLUTIONS | DIAGNOSTICS

Technology keeps AsureQuality at the forefront of seed and plant health testing innovation.

TESTING IN REAL TIME

T

echnology, science and innovation is at the heart of everything for the scientists at AsureQuality’s Plant Health and Seed Laboratories, and their most recent investments - the Digital Microscope and PCR testing are gamechangers for the industry.

The AQ team recently had their new Digital Microscope, or Tagarno at NZGSTA Conference 2018 to demonstrate its capabilities.

“We can now do such things as permanently record images and share these immediately with anyone from customers in the paddock to experts overseas. Among other benefits, this technology allows us to do testing in real-time with customers watching so that they are intimately involved in the entire process,” AQ’s Seed Laboratory supervisor Sue Cousins says.

Polymerase Chain Reaction or PCR testing now plays a crucial role in the

arsenal of the AQ Plant Health Laboratory in Lincoln.

“This technology can turn a single DNA strand into a billion copies in just a few hours,” Plant Health Laboratory senior scientist Rouke Bakker says. The high-sensitivity of PCR testing means viruses can be detected soon after infection, but crucially before the appearance of any disease.

“Perhaps the biggest impact for our customers is the speed at which PCR testing delivers results. What once took weeks can now be sent to the farm in hours, allowing producers to make timesensitive decisions about their crops almost immediately,” Rouke says.

The AQ’s Plant Health Laboratory

provides a diagnostic service for common and unusual diseases caused by fungi, bacteria, viruses and physiological disorders, as well as seed health testing.

The AQ Seed Laboratory manages seed quality testing, seed inspection and identification, and certification of compliance with regulatory standards.

Visit: www.asurequality.com or call 0508 00 11 22

PGGW SEEDS DEVELOPMENT AT LINCOLN

A

building development by PGG Wrightson Seeds at AgResearch’s Lincoln campus is a significant step forward for both parties, and for the burgeoning research and innovation hub, leaders of the two organisations say.

“It makes good sense for us to join our key research and business partners.

Collaboration with our partners is an intrinsic part of how we work,” PGGW group general manager seed and grain John McKenzie says. “Science and people are closely linked, so our shared approach will be further enabled by a closer proximity.”

The building is on the Springs Road frontage of the AgResearch campus opposite Lincoln University.

“Our Christchurch-based team are looking forward to being closer to their Lincoln-based Kimihia Research Centre colleagues, as well as our strategic partners,” McKenzie says. The building is intended to house 90 staff.

“Moving our Christchurch office-based

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team to Lincoln provides our staff with the opportunity to work even more closely and interact with our key partners. In addition, being based in Lincoln will expose our operation to Lincoln University students and provide more opportunity for post graduate students to work with us.”

AgResearch chief executive Tom Richardson says this investment by PGW Seeds further advances the innovation precinct concept proposed by AgResearch in its campus development strategy which seeks to enable more seamless collaboration between students, academics, researchers and business.

“We will soon see construction starting just across the road from this PGW Seeds development, at the site of new Lincoln University-AgResearch joint facility, which will house 700 scientists, academics and students working side by side to address New Zealand’s biggest challenges and opportunities,” Richardson says.

“Our plan has always been to catalyse a rejuvenation of the wider Lincoln precinct by our significant investment and staff movements to Lincoln and the PGW Seeds development is a major milestone towards this.”

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ESTATE | RANGITIKEI

Pukeokahu

– from the mountain to the river

W

hile Pukeokahu Station is a well-developed breeding and finishing property, one of the other features of the 976 hectares is the sheer beauty of the property and the surrounding country-side.

From a 4km boundary with the upper reaches of the Rangitikei River, the property rises above 980 metres above sea level to the top of Mt Pukeokahu.

Almost fortress-like, the top of the property features steep rock formations, that disguise an easy plateau with 45ha of easy and cultivated country. The view to the other side of the Rangitikei river includes the Ruahine Forest park and the table top Mt Aorangi.

The property bounds River Valley Lodge, the white-water rafting, horse trekking and accommodation business established in the early 1980s. Still owned by one of the founding families, this large employer adds vibrancy to the district, with one of the dwellings and shearers’ quarters on Pukeokahu used by the lodge for staff accommodation. In addition horse trekking conducted

by River Valley over parts of the property adds another income stream. The farm is a well-balanced, breeding and finishing property with about 265ha cultivable, of the 845ha effective area.

Another 480ha is easy hill, with the balance steeper country.

The easier, cultivated country on Pukeokahu, is generally Ohakune silt loams and Moawhango sandy loams. These ashbased soils are well-drained and capable of high-performing pastures and crops. Okahune soils at the foot of Mt Ruapehu are typically used for horticulture. The easier hill country comprises, Rawea sandy loam and Mangaweka silt loam hill soils, formed over grey siltstones and fine sandstones while the steeper country is typically Waiaruhe silt loam (steep) soils.

Stock water is a mix of spring-fed reticulation to about 400ha which is deer fenced, with the balance naturally watered from reliable sources, including the Okoeke and Ngutuwhero streams.

A large cropping (both cultivated and aerial) and capital fertiliser application has seen a significant area of the property undergo pasture improvement over the past five years. Along with this has been significant track and access development to enable the property to be more easily managed, as well as new sheep yards adjoining the woolshed.

Buildings include a substantial 380 square metre homestead, plus 50 sq m garaging set in extensively landscaped grounds, with wide landscape views over the property and surrounding country.

Other dwellings include a 140-sq m three-bedroom manager’s home and relatively modern three-bedroom 117 sq m cottage.

Additionally, there is a one bedroom “single persons” quarters and the former shearers quarters.

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The six-stand older woolshed in sound condition, has a night pen for about 1000 ewes, with various other implement sheds in good condition.

Pukeokahu is one of two sheep and beef properties owned by German-based Aquilla Capital being marketed this spring, by NZR Real Estate directors Jamie Proude and Peter Barnett. The other is a well-developed 551ha property north of Taumaranui.

Both were purchased by Aquilla in 2012, via a fixed-term investment fund. The fund has a maturity date whereby the properties are sold and proceeds returned to the investors, MyFarm Sheep and Beef business manager, Tom Duncan says. MyFarm Sheep and Beef oversee and manage the farms for Aquilla.

Pukeokahu is being sold by tender, closing December 6.

More? Contact Jamie Proude, NZR Ohakune,027 448 5162 or Peter Barnett, NZR Feilding 027 482 6835

New Zealand’s leading rural real estate company

Jewel In The Crown - Rosebery Farm • The property is the heart of the once larger Rosebery Estate • 149.5162ha Freehold, 93ha irrigated by K-line with low cost reliable water supplied by the Airedale/Rosebery Irrigation Company. Balance of farm is fertile limestone hill grazing

Oamaru DEADLINE PRIVATE TREATY Plus GST (if any) (Unless Sold Prior) Closes 2.00pm, Thursday 15 November

• 60ha of property is deer fenced with a deer shed complex • Large five bedroom homestead, separate two car garage with second storey room, modern three car garage with attached self-contained unit. Four stand raised board woolshed with 600 sheep covered pens, several implement/store sheds • Currently farmed as a high end stock finishing and dairy grazing support property, located only minutes from Oamaru

Dave Heffernan B 03 4331340 M 027 2158666 david.heffernan @pggwrightson.co.nz

pggwre.co.nz/OAM27977 PGG Wrightson Real Estate Limited, licensed under the REAA 2008

pggwre.co.nz

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ESTATE | NORTH OTAGO

High-end finishing and dairy support

R

osebery Farm in North Otago is a high-end stock finishing and dairy support property with the ability to add more diversity and income streams.

The 149-hectare property for sale just minutes from Oamaru is the heart of the once-larger Rosebery Estate which was owned by Oamaruâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first mayor John Gilchrist and stretched over 2430ha as far as the Waitaki Plains.

Gentle rolling downs rise up steeper sidlings to a plateau that provides fertile limestone hill grazing, while 93ha of the gentle country is irrigated by K-line irrigation with low-cost, reliable water.

Sixty-five shares held in the Airedale-Rosebery Irrigation Company deliver pressurised water to the property with a $300/ share running cost that enables it to run as a high-production unit.

In the past five years, 64ha of the farm has been regrassed, often following crops and in early spring it had 11ha in four-yearold lucerne, 4ha in fodder beet, 6ha in regrowth rape and 12ha in new grass.

Dave Heffernan from PGG Wrightson Real Estate says the key to the property is its diversity and while it is already finishing stock to good weights and grazing dairy stock, it also has a good deer-handling complex and 60ha of good deer fencing. Today it is used as a finishing property for lambs, bull beef, boer goats and dairy grazing.

Hedges of eucalyptus and macrocarpa, plus poplar and willows provide both shelter and shade for stock, while a 0.7ha area of native bush has a QE11 covenant.

The original five-bedroom homestead is close to numerous farm buildings that are integral to the farm business and include a four-stand woolshed, barns, workshop, implement shed and the well-appointed deer shed complex.

The deadline sale closes on November 15. To view Rosebery Farm visit www.pggwre.co.nz/OAM27977 and for further information contact Dave Heffernan on 03 433 1340 or 027 215 8666.

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ESTATE | OVERVIEW

Finishing beckons for marginal land WORDS: ANNE HARDIE

F

inishing properties have been in short supply around the country as much of that land went into dairy and dairy support, but Real Estate Institute New Zealand’s spokesperson Brian Peacocke expects some of the marginal dairy farms will probably head back to finishing.

In recent times, dairying has pushed into the fringes of dairy country and the support blocks have established on finishing properties. But Peacocke says a raft of issues such as compliance, water, living wage, labour shortages and the volatility of the milk payout is pushing some of those farmers on marginal dairy farms to think about selling.

All those issues influence demand which in turn influences prices. So far with few on the market, there’s a volatility in prices for those properties and he says a trend

will develop in the next few months as more become available and then a price range will emerge.

“Some of the older farmers are saying the compliance issues are helping them make the decision to sell. Labour is one of the major issues – the cost and availability and in a number of industries, not least the pastoral industry. Some of those properties will come back into the market and will be bought for dairy support or finishing purposes.”

Water quality is another driver putting pressure on some dairy farms and he says the question of sustainability will prompt some to sell up.

“It’s a constantly moving and evolving market place with pressure from central and local government on environmental issues and population issues which impact on the productive sector as well.”

Uncertainty over milk payout especially after Fonterra cut its forecast for the season will be another factor that prompts some dairy farmers decide to sell their marginal dairy farms, he says.

Those properties are likely to be in demand as finishing blocks as well as dairy support.

Peacocke also expects more finishing properties to be listed on the market this season as some farmers held on to their properties last season rather than try and sell them due to the cautionary impact of Mycoplasma bovis.

Here’s our promise Our people have the experience and expertise to support your needs and deliver you the best results.

Our True Team promise is our undertaking that when you work with us, while you’ll still have a lead agent, you’re guaranteed to have a true team of equally committed agents, marketing experts and support staff working for you, right across the country. They will put your interests first, to get you and your farm the best result.

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Call us on 0800 367 5263 or go to pb.co.nz

pb.co.nz Property Brokers Ltd Licensed under the REAA 2008

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FARMING IN FOCUS

Super sale day The annual surplus plant and machinery sale near Timaru recently had more than 600 lots to clear. Run by Peter Walsh & Associates, the auctioneers set a cracking pace, leap-frogging along the lines and running simultaneous sales over the peak period.

Feeding the crowd: Pleasant Point Lions Club was kept busy serving up patties and onions throughout the sale.

Closer look: A potential buyer takes a closer look at this Reid & Gray four-furrow plough which, according to the cardboard sign attached, was the harder-legged Blue Model. Originally from the Temuka area it had been a YFC ploughing class winner in the 1960s.

Newer model: this Heiniger shearing plant made $900.

Young buyer: Lily Cunningham bought this trolley to run hay bales out to her pet sheep.

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A pile of New Holland gears, shafts and fly-wheels went for just $40.

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Cameron gives some treats to some of the milking sheep.

Horse shoes ready to fit.

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Kaikoura Station manager Pat Brick.

R1 Hereford Angus heifers.

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