Cattle and deer double sheep profit on Bay farm

01-02-2009 | Not Specified

Cattle and deer return twice as much as sheep for Tikokino farmer George Williams.

So despite having a strong focus on meat production in his sheep policy, ewe numbers are likely to drop by almost a third in the next year or so, he says.

"It's a sad story, but in saying that, we may finish more lambs or take on more bulls or deer; it is pretty flexible."

The current mix of stock is 45% sheep, 45% cattle and 10% deer. About 100ha a year are cash cropped.

He runs 3000 mixed-age ewes and 520 ewe hoggets, and puts his best ewes to White Suffolk rams and the B flock ewes to Awassi rams.

White Suffolks are a cross between Poll Dorset and Black Suffolks. "I was always a bit of a fan of black Suffolks for finishing lambs and the Poll Dorset keeps it white.

"The idea is that they don't grow as much wool. If you grow less wool you grow more meat, and shearing costs are reduced with  once-a-year shearing now."

George is building up the White Suffolk flock from a predominantly Perendale base by keeping the progeny, and now about 50% of the flock is half White Suffolk.

"We were looking at going to Dorper. They still grow wool but you don't get to harvest it because it all falls off. It does pay to actually shear; you just don't want to do it too often."

Moving to White Suffolk has also put additional weight into the lambs, he says. For example lambs from hoggets drafted for the works in February last year were 19.6kg. All the ewe hoggets are put to the ram.

This year they killed 870 White Suffolk lambs straight off their mothers, which is more than 50% of the ram lambs. They kept 700 replacements, leaving 1000 still to finish. George wants to increase the percentage sold at the weaning draft, and hopes this will occur as the flock moves more towards White Suffolks.

Awassi sheep are the other part of the policy, which George began when he started farming in 1998.

It's been the same since the beginning: Awassi rams arrive and are crossed over the B flock; the lambs are born and farmed through to Christmas, a bit later than weaning.

All the halfbred lambs are sold store at a store price plus a premium back to Awassi NZ.

Earlier on all the lambs went for live export, but in recent years they've been killed in NZ.

This year 1100 lambs were sold in this way. Both George and his stock manager Ken Rowe enjoy working with them, as they mob up very easily, even when just weaned.

Ken says they're like a little cloud going around the paddock.

They lamb around 125-130%, which is the same percentage as the main flock.

George says when the Awassi rams first arrived, he decided to watch them in action. "They are really different looking rams, and not what we are used to. I thought the ewes would run a mile, and for a while that happened, then they came around. That gives a slight delay at the start of lambing."

Temco Ag's cattle operation is 100% flexible, with 1000 bulls and steers wintered last year.

The emphasis is towards bulls, with good 100kg calves bought in and finished at 18 months in the autumn, with a carcaseweight of more than 270kg and averaging 295kg.

A second class of bulls - poorer 18-month bulls - is bought in and taken through to finish as two-year-olds in spring.

About half the steers are bought in as weaners, the other half as yearlings. Both classes are taken through to be killed as two-year-olds, when they are finished at 320kg plus.

This year George only bought 40 weaner bulls but bought another 150 head later.

Through winter the rising two-year bulls are stocked at 2.5/ha, and in mobs of 15 to 32 depending on paddock size. "We have stocked the bulls higher but it didn't work because of our cold winters," George says.

They are shifted twice a week, on Monday afternoons and Friday mornings, so there's no weekend work.

Most paddocks, sown into Moata, are divided into eight cells, and the bulls are rotated around these.

At the beginning of winter they try and keep pasture covers down so that they don't get too yellow underneath, George says. Ken adds: "That's one of the issues with Moata; you have to be early because by the time you get to the last cell you will be late."

While he says he doesn't carry out formal pasture measurements, he spends a lot of time doing stock reconciliations and working out stocking rates per hectare and trying to keep them around 12.5su/ha over the whole farm during winter.

"If you have it around 12.5 you know you will get through. If around 13, you know you will have some issues."

Ken says if the winter rate is below 12.5 then in spring there's not enough animals to keep the growth under control.

That's another reason for cash cropping which enables land to be taken out in spring.

They consider the flats provide a double crop: the bulls are on Moata for the winter and gone early at premium prices, which allows the cash crops to be sown.

"We can't cash crop early here because it is later country," George says.

Of the 800ha effective, there are 290ha of flats, 200ha of which can be cash cropped. There's a further 60ha of easy rolling country and 451ha of medium hills, in a landscape dissected by deep bush-clad gorges and scattered with mature totara trees.

The soils are free-draining Takapau silt loams and ash on the flats over a red metal base, which means there's no winter pugging problems from the heavy cattle.

George runs the bulls to be finished on the flats which will go back into cash crops, while the smaller bulls are kept on the hills.

Of the 200ha which are not effective grazing, there is 60ha of pines, 50ha of bush protected with the QEII National Trust, 60ha of gorges not covenanted, 8ha of houses, buildings and yards, and 30ha of scattered trees and bush.

As they develop more areas on the farm for finishing, and effectively intensify these, then they are continuing to fence out creek beds and protect bush areas.

They've recently fenced off 800m of creeks as part of an intensive bull finishing unit.

Since George started leasing Te Maire he's done a lot of fencing, more than doubling paddock numbers to 94 now, with a total of 146 including the leased land. This gives an average paddock size of 5.5ha.

"We did a fair bit of fencing with Sam Meadows, and started out doing 14km of five wire electric fences, but we have realised they are not really adequate. Now we do an eight wire fence with two hot wires and number one rounds, it's a really solid fence. We've also built 11km of deer fences."

They have also built 13km of laneways and two lots of cattle yards, both about 2km from home.

"I am passionate about trying to develop the farm to its full potential. I like designing laneways to make the farm more efficient, and making it more productive. We are trying to enhance the property as well such as fencing off blocks of bush."

In a relatively unpopular move at the moment they are continuing to plant pines, replanting and enlarging on areas which have recently been harvested. And they're continuing to retire areas which don't have a huge productive value, and planning to add these to the existing areas of QEII National Trust covenants.

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