Arrived Home

I have arrived home and this will probably be my final blog. I don't think I will keep up with writing a blog now I'm home. I hope you enjoyed reading my blog as much as I have enjoyed my travels.
I now have the job of trawling through my notes and all the literature I gathered to write the final report.

Feedlot visit

The visit to a feedlot today was certainly an eye opener for a number of reasons. Firstly just to see this number of cattle all in one place. But also to see the efficiency of the system and to see how healthy and content the animals looked. They said the animals health is determined by the high quality animals bought in and the environment. There are four different systems, varying in the time they are there from 90 days to 250 days and finishing from around 600kg to 800kg. They are predominantly Angus supplying the Japanese market. They are all weighed as they come in and allocated to one of the four programmes and fed accordingly. They are all inspected twice a day. When they are checked they are also risen onto their feet. If there are any signs of ill thrift they have a hospital system where they are observed and temperatures taken. If they are treated with antibiotics they are taken out of the system. All animals are antibiotic and hormone growth promoter free. They calculate when they are ready to go by the weight when they came in and their feed intakes. Overall a very efficient system.  

Second Ashburton farm visit

The second farm I visited in the Ashburton area is probably my first farm visit that gave cattle a high priority. It has 300 in calf Hereford cattle and 4,500 ewes, 1,200 hoggets. Two thirds of the sheep are Romney's, and the other third are Romneys crossed with a Texel cross East Friesian ram (1/2 Romney, 1/4 texel, 1/4 East Friesian).  About 400 replacements are selected from these crossbreds and a cheviot ram is used on these crossbred hoggets. The 800 Romney replacements are not mated. A Suffolk ram is also used on the 1,500 crossbred ewes. They scan at 173%, and start lambing on 20th September. Only 1.2 per cent of their ewe flock are dry. Ewes are fed nearly all grass all winter. Silage and baylage is made for emergencies (dry autumn or heavy prolonged snow fall). Two tooth ewes are on swedes for a couple of months. They are shorn before going on the swedes in late June/July. All ewes are shorn twice a year January and pre lambing. They finish around 85% of lambs (6,000). 1,200-1,500 at weaning. Lambs are weaned between 95 and 100 days. The ewes are weighed and condition scored 7 times each year, pre mating, at mating , ram removal, scanning, pre lambing, tailing and weaning.

The Hereford cattle are nearly all pedigrees and on breedplan. All yearlings are mated to calf as two year olds. All barren heifers and cows are sold. Cows with poor calf or bad calving is also culled. Most animals are sold as bulls or finished. Some surplus in calf heifers are sold. The bulls are sold at 2 year olds on farm. They would start out with maybe around 130 bull calves. They would take around 110-120 through the first winter. Then in October they would do a cull and reduce to 60. The surplus 50-60 would be sold as yearling bulls to dairy farmers. They would then do the next cull in the autumn and sell 40 bulls on farm. Most of the bull clients are hill country farmers. They aim for fertile medium framed animals.

The mixed age ewes are run in a mob of about 2,800 in the winter. Twins are set stocked over lambing. Singles are not, they are in mobs of 600 then they shed out unlambed ewes every couple days and move to other fields.  From January to mating, the ewes are divided into mobs according to their BCS - light medium and heavy and are fed accordingly. This is done to try and have the ewes condition as close together as possible at mating and ensures the ewes reach their weight goal of 70kg when they go to the ram. The hogget flock is mated at 47kg and lambed around October 10, three weeks after the adult ewes.

Grassland improvement is done through planting brassicas, 10ha is planted to swedes each year, then kale the next year and new pasture the third year. However the bulk of the pastures are up to 30 or 40 years old.

Farm visits Ashburton

The first farm I visited consisted of 30,000 stock units made up with deer (around 5,000), sheep (12,000) and cattle (600). They have very different weather here to just a little further south and the landscape appears very green. They did say this is the best growing season they have had and they are still restructuring the flock  after the drought in 2009/2010. They culled a lot of hoggets that year. The ewes are mostly Coopworth ewes scanning at 170%. They are tupped in April/May and moved regularly through tupping up to June. Then they are moved onto swedes and kale up to 6 weeks before lambing. Singles may stay on brassicas up to 1 weeks before lambing. The multiples are set stocked for lambing at 9-12 ewes per hectare. Singles are not set stocked, at lambing they are then shed off daily. This gives them the option to move them depending on weather and grass availability. This year they have also purchased some store lambs (1,500) in late December/early January to control the grass.
The deer herd consists of 3,500 english red hinds, 1,400 stags and 30-50 sires. There are 300-500 in the velvet herd. Half the hinds are put to an elk cross as they finish better. The deer fawn November/December on high ground and are sold between 10-18 months. Some may go at 8 months. 
Cattle mostly consists of dry dairy animals or store cattle. Both cattle and sheep graze deer paddocks. Deer are browsers and both cattle and sheep are used to control grass/clean up the paddock. I was surprised to see dogs being used to move the deer.
They make silage (grass silage and oats and peas) to feed all animals over the winter. The deer get the better quality oats and peas. Swedes and kale is also grown for all species. Sometimes they will have 800 hinds on brassica crops.

A visit to a fine wool flock

Driving up through the centre of the South Island I was amazed how dry it is and the transformation of land with irrigation made dairy farming possible in large parts of this area. However the farm I visited decided not to irrigate due to the cost. The farm I visited is 18,500 ha ranging from 500 to 2000 metres above sea level. Merinos are the only animals on the farm. There are 14,000 ewes, 8,000 hoggets, and 1,000 rams with a mean fibre diameter of 12.5 microns producing 80 tons of wool. The breeding programme has been in place for 30 years and has enabled them to screen 200,000 sheep for diameter, fleece weight and quality. All sheep in the flock are objectively measured for micron and clean fleece weight. Prior to shearing, micron and yield are measured by mid-side sampling of all animals as hogget’s. At shearing these results are used for classing the wool into lines of pre selected micron ranges (using the 9 way auto drafter). Fleeces are also weighed at this time to allow assessment to select superior animals. As well as using objectively measured data, these sheep undergo a rigorous visual assessment for structural soundness and wool quality prior to qualifying for the Elite and commercial flocks. The Elite Flock is used for breeding the stud rams that continue the unique process of producing superior ultra fine fibres. Rams are sold as four tooths to their client base at the annual auction in early January. The flock objectives are to produce maximum quantities and superior quality ultra fine Merino wool by reducing fibre diameter (micron), increasing clean fleece weight, reducing CV to reduce variability within the fleece and within the flock, producing and maintaining structurally sound and healthy animals, producing quality fibre.  The merinos lamb in October, then the lambs are marked end November/early December. They are currently being weaned and then they are shearing next week and they will go out to the high country. At tupping time (10th May) they come back down to the low country and are weekly moved. Most ewes cut a 4kg fleece. 3.7kg is the average fleece weight including the hoggets. What amused me most about the merinos is their social behaviour. Often seen in groups, lines or even circles. Helicopters are used for mustering sheep and most farm tasks on this farm.

A day at a Perendale and Cheviot stud farm

This 450 hectare farm is predominately a perendale flock (4,000 ewes) with a perendale stud and a cheviot stud and some finishing cattle also on the farm.

The Perendale stud is 550 ewes selling around 150 rams each year (just under half the male lambs). The Cheviot stud is just over 200 ewes selling around 75 rams each year. Rams are sold privately on farm with a few of the top performing rams sold at the Gore ram sale. The commercial Perendale Flock is put to the top ram hoggets from the stud every year and generally 500 + surplus ewe lambs are sold each year.

The ewe's lamb in September (155%) and the ewe lambs a few weeks later. They feel lambing ewe lambs is an essential tool for farm profitability and identifying top performers within the stud. They are set stocked for lambing. and no assistance is given. The stud flocks are tagged at marking to identify sire. At weaning (between Christmas and new year) the lambs are given a drench but not sorted. They are bought in a few weeks later and sorted according to sex and small and large ones are taken out. Lambs will be shorn in 3-4 weeks. Ewes are shorn every 6 months. They plant about 60ha of forage crops (Swedes and kale every year). However this year they have only planted 30ha so far as its been so dry and the crop is not establishing very well. The lack of rain is currently a big issue and worry in this area as its probably the driest its been for over 10 years.

Perendale and Cheviot ram sale and Perendale field day

Perendale

Experiencing a ram sale in NZ is a little different to one in Wales. Most rams are sold on farm and only the top performing rams go to this sale. They have to be in the top 20% and have a minimum fertility potential of 160%. All rams are individually penned at saleyard. Individual details were stapled on each pen, which included sire, dam and sire and dams, sire and dam, date of birth, 100 day weight, 200 day weight, fleece weight, single or twin (birth & rear rank), carcass measurements and any further comments such as CT scanned and FEC. The veterinary certificate is also shown on all pens. A vet has to check for testicular anomalies, under sized testicles, sheath abnormalities, mange, scrotal abscesses, lameness etc. There is also a panel from the society that goes round and checks them all the day before that they are true to type, sound on their feet etc. Each stud has one vote for the best ram in the Perendales. The perendale is a cross 

Cheviot

between a cheviot and romney and is now recognised as an official breed for over 50 years.Both the cheviots and the perendales had good sales mainly due to the fact that there were some Australians over purchasing quite a few.

After the sale I went to the perendale progeny test field day where they had lambs to view from each of the 9 sires used. The North island also carries out progeny testing and they use a link ram between the two groups. All lambs will be killed on the same day towards the end of February. As all lambs go the same day to get progeny information the abattoir agree not to penalise for over weight or over fat lambs as they realise the importance of the trial. Ultrasound scanning, CT scanning, viascan, pH fat colour all have a huge variation from top to bottom sire. They are also tested for taste and tenderness. Lambs from high performing ewes are 25 days quicker finishing. They aim to get the information to breeders before mating.  They have a selection committee of 5 people (1 independent and the rest perendale society members) to select the 9 best performing sires to test in the trial.

Meat processor meetings

As meat processors are predicted to be responsible for only 3% of the lamb carbon footprint I was very impressed by everything this processor is doing to reduce the lamb carbon footprint. But I guess as it has one of the largest plants in the world (slaughtering 32,000 lambs a day at peak season) some might say it should be leading the way. It has introduced many processing energy efficient programmes and alternative energy projects in the plant as well as encouraging on farm production efficiencies. This includes Viascan for yield grading assisting with on farm management decisions. There is an yield bonus on a per lamb qualifying basis, if they get 80% + lambs qualifying they get paid more if they meet target yields for leg, loin and shoulder within the correct weight. Producers receive annual reports on how their yield performance varies from year to year and where they sit compared to averages. This processor has also carried out many trials with genetics, diet, growth rates, yield and castration status to asses production efficiencies and meat quality traits. Forage type appears to have the greatest effect.
They are also involved with the central progeny testing programme to improve on farm production efficiencies using animal genetics to prove the genetics of the ram comparing how his progeny perform relative to progeny from other rams under the same conditions. A meat value index is created from these information gathered at the abattoir in a monetary value with the top ram $5.45. The top performing ram has a combined meat and growth index of $6.89!
There is also a facility that farmers can pay for postmortems, collect liver samples for Trace element analysis and worm egg counts to identify any efficiency problems the health of the animals my have on those remaining on farm. 
They are also currently developing a farm based Carbon footprint calculator. This has been rolled out across producer groups. The farmer enters the data on a web based system and it may be audited. 
Farmer suppliers already have to minimise land and waterway degradation and responsibly dispose of chemicals and containers under the farm assurance programme. Over 90% are farm assured and are audited every every 18 months by the processor and every 3 years independently. The antibiotic free claims are audited the same time as the farm assurance audits.
There is great focus on stock cleanliness. If a proportion are dirty a letter is sent to farmer with photographs and deductions are taken. Mostly no farm assurance premium and this will be removed for the future. They may even stop slaughtering that group. They request that stock must be taken off feed a minimum of 12 hrs before transportation for improved presentation and hygiene. The livestock transport accreditation programme also has some strict requirements, it requires trucks to have effluent tanks and dispose of waste responsibly. All animals transported in New Zealand have to have an Animal Status Declaration, similar to the AML form but with some very different questions e.g. have the animals been imported, have they been fed anything other than milk and pasture!
I was surprised that the plant only runs for about 6 months  most years with peak season lasting 4 months, with the boning rooms working an extra few months. However the scale of this site allows it to be very efficient when it is running. Carcasses can be allocated to chillers and boning rooms according to fresh lamb, aged lamb, chilled lamb, mutton or portion cutting and carcass weight and fat score to make sure waste is reduced. Meat leaves the site in containers on energy efficient rail and international transport mostly by sea freight.

South Island

As I landed in Queenstown I wondered if I had flown to another country. The South Island of New Zealand has had totally different weather than the North Island. They have not had much rain for two months and had numerous fires and very little grass growth. Many farmers have needed to sell animals early. Selling stores when they normally finish them. Many crops that have been planted are unlikely to establish very well and is predicted to be problems for the winter feed. However I seem to have brought the rain with me. My first visit on the South Island was to one of the largest stations in NZ. The station has 100,000 stock units. 38,000 ewes over 32,000 acres. The ratio of sheep to cattle is 70:30 with income 65:35. This is influenced by the stud, they sell 350 Angus bulls each year. The cattle are only really kept to groom pasture for weaning lambs onto and parasite control. They are thinking about growing this to 700 as one bull client has asked for 400-500 bulls annually. The cattle stud has been electronically tagged since 2005. The commercial herd has not but they have been EID tagging calves for the last two years. The stud measures 17 traits - calving ease, gestation, birth weight, 200 day weight (gives milking ability), 400 & 600 day growth rates, Carcass data (weight, eye muscle, rib fat, rump fat, IMF, retail beef yield), mature cow weight etc. A cow has to have a weaned calf at half its body weight e.g. 520kg cow has to wean a 260kg calf. If not they are not kept. They aim to kill steers at 18 months with a target kill weight of 300kg deadweight, 560kg liveweight. The finishing cattle are weighed once every 6 weeks and they check if they are not hitting the targets if there is a problem with worm burden or pasture. The mating target for heifers is 325kg at around 14 months and sometimes they are nearer 390kg. They have an annual sale of surplus in calf yearlings (350 heifers). They fatten and finish the barreners.
The sheep enterprise sells around four to five thousand lambs a week and aim to get them all out by March to focus on getting the ewe hoggets up to weight to go to ram and to get good grass for the ewes pre tupping. All the ewe hoggets go to the ram and they don't keep anything that doesn't go to the ram. They put 10,000 hoggets to the ram with an aim of 80% conception rate.
At weaning lambs are split through the auto drafter four ways at weaning 33kg + are killed, 30-33kg go in one group to keep an eye on and weighed regularly to see when they will be ready, then the next group are 26-30kg and then the under 26kg group, the bottom two groups wont be given much attention for a little while. They will be weighed again 8 weeks after weaning. These are not EID tagged the shedder just does it according to weight. The lambs that went to the works at weaning this year had an average carcass weight of 17.5kg. After weaning they take them through to 44kg.
The 1,500 stud ewes are run slightly different to the station ewes. All ewes and lambs on the genetic unit are EID tagged at birth.  The priorities for selecting rams are survivability, reproduction, growth, meat, dag, parasite resistance/resiliance. If there are any bad mothers or other negative remarks given to them over lambing they are killed. Before weaning they take a sample weight and aim to get an average weight of 30kg at 85days weaning. DLWG are often up at 300g with the singles sometimes up nearer 400g. The rams are sold on farm and they mostly sell 300-400 rams a year. I asked about the clients focus and 90% focus on records. Many of them are now looking at the meat trait, growth and survival with some looking at reproduction value and dags.
Animal health issues are slightly different down here to some of the farms I visited up north. Barbars pole worm or facial eczema is not a problem down here. However Nematodirus in lambs is an issues on the south island. This farm carries out regular fecal egg counts. On the stud they try to stretch out worming to cull tailenders. They would drench when about 10-20% are struggling when the rest are thriving. Every time they take a cull, weigh and look at figures per sire, number of culls per sire and weight per sire to see if they want to use that sire next year. They use 500 of the stud ram lambs on the station to assess them and check their condition after tupping. If they are in bad condition or are not happy with their performance they are not sold on as Rams.

Wellington

The first meeting I had in Wellington was with an organisation that has a number of focus farms working with EID technology. The aim of the seven year R&D programme is to make the industry more sustainable. There are currently 8 focus farms and 250 farms using the database (cattle, lambs and deer). They are planning on increasing the focus farms to 12. The focus farms are a cross section in terms of geography and farming type. The focus farmers are the drivers, making decisions what they would like to get out of the project and they get assistance on how to achieve it e.g. what information they need to record etc. Most farmers are recording weights and animal health, DLWG, groups of animals, forage and animal health. These farms host a couple of field days a year where they discuss financial issues and implications, animal health and agronomy. The focus farmers also meet a couple of times a year. The database holds information from the abattoir on individual lamb basis including Grade, x-ray weight, rib count, % hind, % middle, % fore. It was interesting to see how this varied. Other things they are looking at is taste, tenderness, aroma, colour, juiciness. It was interesting to see the taste panel results from a number of forages. On two crops the females were a lot worst than the males for taste. They were slightly better than males on some other crops. But not to the same extent.

The second meeting I had in Wellington we discussed the importance of agriculture in NZ and this is the reason why so much focus is on reducing green house gas emissions. There are some options but they are to expensive and not significant enough. The cost of them does not make practical sense. Their three main aims are to enhance productivity, reduce methane and nitrous oxide and explore international opportunities. Discussions revolved around similar topics covered in Palmerston North.  We discussed how the sheep decreased from 55 million in 1999 to 33 million with the same number of lambs produced so emission intensity has decreased in the sheep industry, however dairy cattle have increased from 3.5 million to 6 million, while beef cattle have stayed similar. Generally dairy are responsible for 40-45% emissions while beef and sheep are responsible for 55-60%.

Palmerston North - GHG's

After meetings with six different scientist I have certainly learnt a lot about greenhouse gas emissions in Palmerston North.                            As New Zealand is such a green country, agriculture and in particular ruminants are responsible for a large amount of the greenhouse gas emissions in NZ and this is the reason why so much research is being carried out here. They all felt strongly that many things that had been suggested, are not as good as they are sometimes made out to be and have not always worked when they tested it in the chambers. They may work on the laboratory level but they need to get it to work on the animal level. There are three main ways of testing it on an animals level, FS6, greenfix and the chambers. They found that FS-6 is quite variable and not replicated in chambers. Chambers are more accurate. Since they first installed the chambers they have compared lambs and ewes, grass quality, lactating ewes, cattle and sheep, beef and dairy cattle and done some alpaca work. The greenfield system is more accurate than PS2 but there are issues with some animals going in more regularly than others and concentrates are not used that much in NZ. 

They feel the four challenges are manipulating rumen function, reducing nitrous oxide emissions from soil, manipulating the rates of soil carbon change and creating tools for farmers decision making. The six key objectives are:
1.Rumen microbial ecology and rumen microbial strategies to reduce methane emissions
2. Methanogen genomics
3. Methanogen vaccines
4. Exploiting animal to animal variation
5. Low GHG emitting farm systems
6. Nitrous Oxide Mitigation
The main area of research and progress has been with nitrous oxide. Applying DCD can reduce nitrous oxide by 70%. The problem is breaks down at 12 degrees celcius. The next biggest break through has been finding low and high emitting ewes. These have been mated with low and high emitting rams and they are investigating this further with the offspring. There is 9-40% difference in animals. However heritability has a low value.

They have also found variation in pasture (high sugar grass and brassicas lower emissions). One trial showed that brassicas reduce emissions by 20%.
They are working on vaccines and inhibitory compounds to raise antibodies in animals against the gut bacteria that produces the methane. The question is is this successful how much will the vaccine cost and will it be worthwhile. Carbon trading is also a reason for research in this area and a lot of decisions remain to be made. It is likely that the processors will be the point of obligation e.g. milk factory, meat processor etc rather than the 40,000 farmers. This will reduce it to around 300 points of obligation and average it out across the farmers. It may be possible for farms to claim they are better than average but then this creates a lot of work to prove it. Improving intensity may reduce liability. There is now becoming more of a focus on emission intensity. Emission intensity has been reduced in the sheep sector by over 20% as they have 20 million less sheep but the same amount of lamb produced. However intensification and dairying has increased Nitrous Oxide emissions.

Farm visit - Featherstone

This farm visit focused around breeding as they sell over a thousand rams each year to 150-160 clients. In the 80's they averaged 14 rams per client but as people have increased fertility in their flocks people are purchasing less Romneys and more terminal sires. People also now have a higher ewe to ram ratio. All rams are sold on farm. About half of them go to the South Island, of which many go to the Gore area. They have 4,600 ewes fully recorded to 70 different sires. These are all recorded electronically. They said it was costly but it has saved a lot of man hours. They have two electronic weighers and automatic shedders that divide up to five different ways. The ewes are set-stocked for lambing. They said that tagging at birth can be a difficult job. 730 lambs were tagged one day last year. The lambs are docked at 160%. They also keep 15% more two tooth's than they require to have a good bunch to select from and then the surplus are sold on farm. They feel that this year is the best for twenty to thirty years considering the good spring they have had and the price of the animals. New season lamb is currently $7.40 per kg compared to $6.11 in January 2011 and $4.58 in January 2010. They are predicting that hoggets may sell for $250 this year (£125). Old ewes are currently worth $4.50-$5 at the works and ewes going through market are making $150+ (£75+)

We discussed their breeding policy and how they have been involved in developing the gene marker for Footrot resistance and facial eczema. However, their selection emphasis is on three key priorities, early growth rate, lamb survival and internal parasites.
We also discussed shearing and the best time to shear the rams so that they have about two inches of wool when they are sold, to have wool long enough to see what the wool is like, but short enough to see what the animal looks like. Barbar's pole worm and facial eczema seems to be less of a problem the further south I go. Facial eczema may occur once every ten years on this farm.
300ha of the farm is irrigated. This is the area that most of the crops are grown and lambs are finished.  One fifth of this is put into Chicory each year. The irrigated paddocks are split into 3.5-4ha.
They also buy in steers, currently on the farm there are 400 two year olds nearly finished and a further 400 to finish next summer. They know there is not much money in doing this but know they are good for pasture management and worm control, and again this is the main reason for cattle on the farm.

Masterton Farm Visits

The first farm I visited in Masterton feels that EID is central to the operation's decision making and allowing them to farm with maximum efficiency. The farm carries 10,000 stock units. 6,300 ewes scanning at 194%. All lambs are finished on the property. Ewe lambs are sent away and come back as 2 tooths. Some ewes are also on other farms and he pays people to look after them on a per head basis, but he goes to do the major jobs.  He also runs 240 Angus breeding cows, mated to Angus bulls, These are also finished on farm from 18-24 months. The cattle are predominantly there to support the sheep policy. All animals are EID tagged. Information such as singles, twins, triplets, mothers age, sire breed, drench/health records, weights and yields from abattoir are all recorded on the system. The main thing he uses it for is to compare weight on lambs that have received different treatments under the same environmental conditions, for example some lambs are given B12 and some left without to compare. He has also compared lambs on different pasture and lambs on crops were 3kg heavier than those on grass. He has also found that lambs grow better on some crops, however the yield is better from other crops. This has made him change the system to move the lambs onto certain crops just for the last couple of weeks to get better yields after they have been on the crops to improve growth rate. The automatic drafter is used at weaning to draft three ways depending on daily liveweight gain. If its growing well on grass he doesn't see any point on moving it on to more expensive crops. The automatic drafter was doing 500 per hr, however he has added more to the selection criteria and its now only doing 350 per hour this year. The lambs are weighed 10 days after putting them on crops to check they are improving, if  they aren't doing well, theyare put on a different feed. EID is used to select replacements; selceting multiples, and those with good DLWG. 3000 are sent to another grazer soon after weaning and underperforming ones are taken out. He thinks EID is the best tool on the farm for calculating, measuring and analysing data and ultimately informing financial policy changes. 

The focus of the second farm I visited is Ram breeding. They are part of an improvement group that sells the majority of the Romney rams. This farm runs 2000 romney ewes, of which 800 are fully recorded. The scanning percentage has been around 170% for a number of years. They winter around 300 recorded ram  lams and sell around 100 rams each year. They said they really need to sell more rams to be viable and worthwhile recording. All lambs are tagged at birth and remarks are noted such as bad maternal instinct, small, dead, weak etc which would would make them not considered for future breeding. The next record taken is the weaning weight, then the eight month weight and the fleece weight at shearing. A percentage is taken out at weaning if they have low DLWG, wool is marked, daggs etc. No lambs are kept from ewes that don't catch in the first cycle. Rams are sold in November at 13/14 months to use in March/April. Some are also leased out in February. All rams are sold on farm on a one to one basis. They also sell females for further breeding. Facial eczema is less of an issue here than further north, however it is still considered in their breeding and they have purchased a ram that has good values for this. They also winter over 100 cattle, 57 breeding cows and the rest are finishing animals. The cows are Angus cross Hereford and an Angus bull is used. The farm is usually summer safe however a couple of years ago they sold all the cattle due to the drought and only last year purchased cattle again. The cattle were sold to save the sheep. Again cattle are not that important to the farm.

Abattoir visit - Hawke's Bay

The scale and efficiency of this abattoir was very impressive, slaughtering 12,000 a day. 10 per minute. They have 2 lines and each line slaughters 4,000 in the morning shift and then the evening shift starts at 4pm through to 11.30 when only 1 line runs. This is only a lamb and mutton abattoir and sometimes veal. It was interesting to compare this abattoir with the one I visited in Australia. I felt this one in NZ is more similar to the UK than the Australian abattoir. The security was very strict and they required identification of who I am and what I do before they would show me around. No dogs are allowed in the lairage, lambs can arrive anything up to an hour before they are slaughtered, especially at the moment when they are short of lambs. Due to it being a good growing season and plenty of grass around many farmers are holding on to the lambs to get them heavier. The animals are all slaughtered according to Halal with a lot of meat being exported to the Middle East. 90% of the meet is exported to many countries around the world. There was very little wastage. Some livers are condemned due to facial eczema, liver fluke or c. tenicolis. These are all sent to be made into dog food. Most carcass weights were between 16.5kg-19.5kg at this abattoir today. There were some 22kg but these were over fat and the farmer is penalised for this, unlike in Australia. Some carcasses are exported whole, however the majority go to the boning room. As the carcasses go into the boning room they go through a X-ray machine that calculates where to cut them into the three sections to get the best value for the carcass. The yield of each third is fed back to the farmer. This allowes the farmer to see what area he needs to focus his breeding on.

Farm visit - Waikukurau





Romney rams

The farm I visited in Waikukurau is run as part of her father’s farm and her brothers farm and they have another farm and ground to finish lambs on nearer Hastings. Just on this farm there are 3,900 Romney ewes and 210 cows. Her father purchased this farm in the 90’s to expand his system. He has a Romney and Parendale stud. It was interesting to hear about their breeding system and how 500 two tooth ewes are sold annually for further breeding in a sale early in January. Looking at the animals on this farm they all looked very strong and uniform.

Angus Bull with Angus cross Hereford cows and calves

She also uses some Suffolk and South down rams. The cattle on the farm are Hereford cross Angus calving in November. The cattle are kept for grassland management purposes and are always mixed in paddocks with lambs or hoggets, preferably not ewes as ewes keep the paddocks reasonably good, grazing shorter than lambs. This farm only shears the ewes annually and this does cause some problems with ewes getting stuck on their back at lambing time, but they don't feel it is cost effective to shear them more often. The farm is farmed extensively and is set stocked. They have not put fertiliser down for a few years as things have not been very good. However thing have improved financially and they will probably apply fertiliser this year. We discussed the regulations they are under and she said that they are increasing quickly and thinks it will be similar to the UK within 10years.

Wool shed - tourist attraction

As NZ has an extended holiday over new year it has been difficult to get visits arranged for this week. I thought that this would not affect farmers, however even farmers take holidays over here! If they are not on holiday they are really busy weaning. Therefore I decided to do some tourist things and found an old woolshed with original, 100 + year old farm/wool equipment which explained the history of wool and sheep in NZ very well. The owner was also very helpful and he answered a lot of my questions. I felt that I learnt a lot about the sheep industry in NZ and how its got to where it is today with the various breeds. However Romney's are still the dominant breed in NZ by a long way.  There is great detail in this wool shed on how the wool is sorted. Wool is not sorted to the same extent as it used to be, but it is still sorted and bales labeled CRT (Crutching), LBS (lambs wool), E/S (Ewe’s wool), NKS (Neck wool), B/S (Belly wool), 2/S (second shear). We discussed frequency of shearing and he said most shear ewes every 8 months and lambs at 5 months. We also discussed sheep diseases and in particular facial eczema.

He also had a pet possum which led to discussing the problems they cause. He said the biggest problem is they carry TB and damage trees. This was definitely the most interesting informative shed I have been in and a great way of educating the general public and the displays were fascinating from various shearing equipment to pictures of old saleyards, various wool types, wool insulation, posters of the beef and lamb cuts and information on farms in the area. As well as a range of animals, various sheep breeds, pigs, sheep dog and a possum.  

Hawke's Bay

After seeing the New year in at Taupo I headed over to Hawke's Bay. The first meeting I had in this area was with a company that is now nearly as active in the UK as it is in NZ. However the nucleus and multiplier flocks are on a much larger scale in NZ (10X) to reflect the farm sizes in each country and the NZ flocks were developed a few years before the UK flocks. The main reason they are working in the UK is to try and get a year round supply of lamb. NZ lambs from June (some in Hawke’s Bay area) through to October (in the South). However, most lamb in September with most lambs sold between December and April.
The focus of the maternal breeding programme combines fertility and survival rates to deliver an efficient and profitable ewe system. The targeted breeding objectives are; lamb as a hogget, rear two as a two tooth and onwards, longevity (lambs over lifetime/liveweight), efficiently wean their body weight plus, all of these contribute to a more efficient sheep system. The focus of the terminal breeding programme is designed to provide high performance finishing lambs which excel in meat characteristics. These include; to lamb unassisted, fast growth and early maturity, efficient conversion of grass to carcass and selection for market required meat characteristics. Many of these are essential in reducing Greenhouse gas emissions from the flock e.g. lamb them as hoggets, number of lambs (fertility), ewe liveweight, longevity, efficient conversion of grass to carcass.
The flocks are recorded and DNA pedigree tests are used to get the parentage at marking when they are also EID tagged. EID has been used on some of these farms for 12years. Dock weight, weaning weight, post weaning weight etc is all recorded. All nucleus flock lambs are weighed at birth and aim for 5kg birth weight.
We discussed feed conversion rates and this is an area they would like to look into and conversion efficiency is next on the agenda. They have carried out trials on improving efficiency of the rumen e.g. vitamin to reduce stress at weaning and different weaning treatments e.g. early weaning to develop rumen. They have also carried out many eating quality trials to see the variation in the breed and have worked with organisations on developing the meat quality DNA marker. This is all considered in the ram selection. They have also looked at meat eating quality and taste on five different forages including high sugar grass, lucerne, chicory and brassicas. It is obvious from driving around that brasicas are used widely to finish lambs and I have been surprised by the landscape that they are planted on.