36 | Continuing a strong family legacy Graham and Lisa bought the farm from his parents Neil and Phyllis in 2007. Virginia Wright RURAL PEOPLE » Waitawhiti Station Graham and Lisa Richardson have been farming on Waitawhiti Station since they were married 28 years ago when Graham began working in partnership with his father Neil, just as Neil had done with his own father Charles Thomas Richardson before him. It was Graham’s great-grandfather, also named Charles Thomas Richardson, who established the farm in 1864. On the upper slopes of the Wairarapa hills in the Tiraumea district its 2500 hectares are high enough at 500 metres above sea level to see snow in the winter. Perhaps that’s why the block of 150 hectares of untouched, original native bush is known as Siberia. Another 570 hectares has been planted in pine forest, 1400 is pastoral farm land, and the remainder has been left to regenerate to native bush. Graham and Lisa bought the farm from his parents Neil and Phyllis in 2007. It’s medium to steep northern Wairarapa hill country on which they farm a herd of 400 pure Angus breeding cows and 7300 Perendale-Fin-Texel cross ewes (half Perendale and quarter/quarter Finn and Texel) plus replacements. The switch to this breed of sheep from straight Perendales was a strategic decision made by Graham and Lisa in 2015. They source their rams from Robin Hilson’s One Stop Ram Shop in Hawkes Bay, Robin having been one of the rst sheep breeders to introduce the Finn breed into the New Zealand sheep ock. “They’re a high fertility sheep,” says Lisa. ‘The Perendales suit our country with our cold winters but the Finn have increased our scanning and our lambing percentage, they tend to have twins instead of triplets. We still have around ve percent triplets but they are a predominantly a twinbearing ewe with no bearings (prolapsed vagina), which is also one of their characteristics.” They’re happy with the lambing success they’ve achieved with the quarter Finn while the quarter Texel brings with it some additional weight. “They’ve de nitely bulked up our sheep,” says Lisa. “They live off the smell of an oily rag when needed we haven’t weighed our mixed age ewes lately but they would be circa of 80 kilos.” They cull rigorously to keep the Perendale look which AFFCO is proud to support Waitawhiti Station Everything You Need from Agricultural Operations to Scenic Tours. . Base 06 376 8000 Manawatu, Tararua tararuaheliwork@xtra.co.nz www.tararuaheliwork.co.nz , . . . . .nz Proud to be Providing Shearing Services to Waitawhiti Station. 0800 OUR WOOL (687 9665) info.nz@woolsnz.com 21 Jipcho Rd, Wigram, Chch Wools of New Zealand are proud to support Waitawhiti Station they prefer. “A sheep with a nice clean head, her wool comes around her jawbone, nice strong feet, strong head and black nose and just nicely presented sheep,” says Lisa. Unlike many farmers these days, the wool clip is an important part of the Richardson’s income stream, sold for carpet production either through Wools of New Zealand or directly to Cavalier Carpets through their subsidiary company Elco Direct. “We produce strong, cross-bred wool,” says Lisa. “it’s an awesome colour, never over 2.5 and the lambs no greater than 0.5.” Which for the those not in the know means it’s bright and white wool without the yellow tinge that creeps in with higher numbers. Their other big shift from earlier farming practices is that they’re now predominantly a store market. They keep 100 replacement heifer calves from their 400 Angus pure breeding cows, selling all weaner calves as weaners. Their choice of bulls is tailored to their system: their R1 Heifers are mated as yearlings to low birthweight bulls sourced from Glanworth Angus in Pahiatua, to ensure the a calf size is not too big for the cow to birth, while the R3 and R4 cows are mated to bulls sourced from Turihaua Angus from Gisborne this helps to mix up the breeding lines, they are then mated back to a Glanworth bull as MA Cow. Their focus on the store market has simpli ed their approach to farming as well explains Lisa. “By the end of February, the majority of our lambs have been sold and we can then concentrate on maintaining our ewes at a condition score of 3 up until lambing, and growing our ewe lambs out to a 65 kg 2-tooth. It also reduces priority feeding as well, if the winter is tight the only stock classes that need priority feeding are our weaner heifers and ewe hoggets, with our MA ewes and cows on maintenance feeding.” Apart from casual staff when needed, and their fencer-general Owen Young, it’s all in the family with the two 2IC’s on the farm being Lisa and Graham’s son Charlie (24yrs), and their daughter Zoe’s partner Cody (25 yrs). Zoe herself works for Farm Focus an accounting software company based in Masterton. “We have a great team and we have a lot of fun during worktime, you have to make your own fun when you live out here,” says Lisa with a laugh.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NDc2Mzg=