Velvet focus for herd

01-02-2009 | Not Specified

Top velvet production is the focus of the Temco Ag deer policy.

This year Temco Ag came second in the North Island for velvet production with 37.5kg for their top five commercial heads, and first in Hawke's Bay.

Deer have been farmed on the Tikokino property since 1987 when the family started grazing up to 2500 head for Eastern Equities.

When George left school he fenced non-stop, helping build 46km of deer fencing that year.

"As soon as we finished fencing a paddock 250 hinds were dropped into it.

"We grazed them here for five years, and we were making more out of grazing them than they were making out of deer altogether, so that finished and we bought our own deer.

"Dad was always really passionate about velvet, and we've always had good velvet genetics from when we started in 1992. Initially they were Raroa and Windemere stags then better animals out of Windemere and Foveran."

The sires they have been using hold the Hawke's Bay open record and the Hawke's Bay four-year record.

Most of their sires are still young, including progeny from a Foveran four-year-old stag which cut 8.4kg.

"He will be going over some hinds sired by a Windemere stag that did 10.7kg, so fingers crossed we get one or two from him," Ken says.

Anything cutting less than 1.8kg as a two year old is culled or sold to other people for velveting.

"We might have to lift the cull criteria up to 2kg, but keeping it at 1.8kg is good for the slower maturing stags."

George admits it hasn't been a very good decade for the deer industry, but they fit well into the farm system, producing twice the income per hectare of sheep but with much less work. There are 370ha deer fenced altogether.

The hinds run on the hills, and the smaller paddocks on the flats are used at weaning to get the weaners used to going through gateways before they are put out onto the hill country.

About 6ha of flats are also used during velveting. During winter the velveting stags are fed on average 500g of maize every day as well as lucerne or pea vine bales until button drop.

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