the heifers and late August for the cows. When selecting herd sires Tim targets 200 and 400-day weight EBVs and for heifers, direct calving ease. He would like to increase the size of the cows a little but doesn’t want massive ones.
CROPPING ALLOWS LONGER FINISHING
Willow Lucas with pet pig.
Cropping is a vital component of the business enabling finishing lambs to be carried deeper into the summer, ewe hoggets to be grown out to good weights for mating and R1 Friesian bulls to be wintered. It’s also an essential part of the development work enabling contouring to be carried out and old run-out pastures converted to high quality finishing and wintering crops and eventually more productive pastures. The business requires about 120-130ha of crops to be grown for both the spring/ summer and the winter periods. All cropping work is carried out by Tim and the staff as is all the spraying. “Without the crops we’d have to sell 30%40% of our lambs store,” Tim said. The main crops sown are Spitfire and
Goliath rape followed by P/C in the spring. Poorer grass paddocks are sown in Goliath rape and turnips in the autumn (March) as a winter crop for Friesian bulls and poorer summer crops are replaced by young grass in the autumn. The rape is grazed up to 10 times by finishing lambs before being closed up. The regrowth, boosted by an autumn dressing of urea is break-fed to bulls during the winter. “The cropping programme is about identifying poorer producing paddocks and turning them over,” Tim said. Poplar poles are being planted on Mamaku at the rate of 500 a year at the maximum allowable spacing to capture carbon credits, for soil stabilisation and for stock shelter. “Dad used to say a happy stock unit’s always a profitable one,” Tim said. The staff on Kenmore include stock manager Shaun Dunbar, tractor driver/ general Alan Pankhurst and Kendyl Hall (shepherd) while Andrew McDowell manages Longridge. Tim is extremely grateful for their contribution as well as that of his wife Nicola and mother Jo towards making the business the success that it is.
MOUTERE DOWNS 42 YEARS OF RECORDED BREEDING
ROMNEY & POLL DORSET RAMS TOP 1% IN NZ FOR WORM RESISTANCE
STUD FLOCK RUN COMMERCIALLY
HIGH GROWTH RATES
NO DRENCH POLICY
HIGH FERTILTY
EASY CARE SHEEP
HIGH SURVIVAL
HILL COUNTRY RAMS
Breeding High Performance, Low Input Sheep Since 1978 PETER MOORE 027 267 7370 (03) 543 2729 romneyrams@gmail.com 223 ROSEDALE ROAD RD2 UPPER MOUTERE SIL FLOCK 124
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Country-Wide
October 2020