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.