Monitor Farm owners tick off objectives

Kirsty and Ken Shaw.

01-07-2009 | Marie Taylor

Ken and Kirsty Shaw are looking forward to the financial payoff two years of significant changes to their farming model will bring.

The couple, who farm Elmore Station near Matawai, Gisborne, have been in the Monitor Farm programme for two years and ticked off many of their objectives in that time.

Many of the changes have not impacted their bottom line yet, so they are really looking forward to the next two years.

One of the changes they have made which has benefited them financially is selling their deer-the same deer they said they would never sell.

The couple farm Elmore Station near Matawai, and hosted 150 people in May at their annual Monitor Farm field day.

"Deer have been a contentious issue from day one," Ken says.

"We were buying in weaners and killing them at 18 months on the spring market and thinking we were doing quite well. But when the figures were analysed they were half the returns of sheep. We couldn't get enough liveweight on them."

This year on a rising market they were sold at $317, and their replacement cost would have been $250, leaving an even smaller margin.

"People always say you should go out on a high, and we have done it. Hamish Newman, (the Monitor Farm chairman) is quite excited but he's trying not to say anything about this," Ken says.

A major focus for the pair has been pasture quality, which was identified as a limiting factor on the very first day of the programme.

Winter cropping 30ha has made a big change to their pasture supply curve, filling in the usual winter deficit.

"It's a really good feeling to know that next week I can put some of my cattle on to them. I think we can winter 360 cattle on crop for the next 100 days."

The cows have been used as a tool to fix the pasture, and have done a huge job in improving the pasture quality from Yorkshire fog and browntop.

The Shaws have also made many changes to streamline their farming system, including stopping rearing calves.

"We were getting the results but it was tying us up all spring," Ken says.

They cut out the ewe mob lambing six weeks early, and now only have a mob of mixed-age ewes and a mob of two-tooths. There was no real gain in killing lambs in late December after the peak of the schedule.

The ewes are still mated to terminal sires, but lamb at the same time as the maternal ewes.

Now before Christmas all the ewes and lambs are handled in their top yards, instead of bringing them all home.

"It was good for huntaways but not good for lambs," he says.

The stocking rate has dropped from a "knife edge" 11/ha down to 9.6 for this winter. Most of that overall drop of 600 stock units was deer and some as a result of dropping ewe numbers.

However, because hoggets are now mated, the same number of sheep go to the ram.

The flock has enjoyed the change of regime, with weaning weights up from 26-30kg, hoggets at 42.5kg versus 38kg last year, the two-tooths 59kg versus 55kg, and the ewes 60kg up from 58 kg last year.

"There's a lot of emphasis on growing the ewe lambs, and they have to be 40kg by May 15 to be mated."

Shearing has moved to once a year in March for the ewes, and the ewe lambs will only be shorn in August before scanning.

The cattle operation has changed significantly, with performance suffering last year because of the drier year, higher stocking rate, and taking 30ha out from November onwards for the crops. Cow numbers are back to 155 from 210 last year.

Calving during the first cycle of lambing was quite disruptive, so has been put back 10 days, and the bull now goes out on January 15.

They used to run a lot of young cattle but have now moved to a two winter system to put more pressure on pasture quality.

"There was quite a bit of cost in doing that last year, which was another reason for our pretty average financial performance last year."

Weaner heifers are sold and replaced with weaner Friesian bulls. This year 288 rising yearling cattle and 228 rising two-year cattle are being wintered.

Already cattle liveweights have improved, with bull weights now 417kg compared with 364kg last year. This increase has not yet flowed through to the accounts.

Another goal was to set up a farm succession plan, and they have set up a land trust and a farming company.

Other progress includes starting on a land environment plan, and doing a faecal egg count reduction test to find out what drenches are working or not.

Now they use software tool Farmax for feed budgeting, and have discovered it has "a little thing called a red line on it".

Ken says the red line is a good tool which gives advance warning of a feed deficit.

"If you see a red line you have to change something."

He says their greater emphasis on balancing pasture supply and maintaining quality is making farming a lot less stressful.

And he says by writing down their goals it tends to make things happen.

"If you just keep dreaming, it keeps being put off."

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