| 49 Specialised in beef bull production The farm has steep hill sections looking over Otangaroa Valley. Russell Fredric After trading cattle for more than 50 years, Jeff Martin knows a thing or two about the matrix of growing and selling bulls but readily acknowledges he still does not always get it right. “You’ve got all these little things, you can’t think in silos, every decision impacts on the other so the key is to make some of them quite early and then the others we’ve got three or four options. There’s definitely a matrix involved,” Jeff says. He and his partner Helen Linssen specialise in beef bull production, managing three independent blocks in Kaeo, Northland, with a combined farm of three blocks comprising 454 hectares/273 hectares effective. With steep hill sections looking over Otangaroa Valley and predominantly rolling pastures, they include a combined 80 hectares of native bush, 34 hectares in fenced off rivers, wetlands, gullies and water courses and 43 hectares in riparian planting. The farms carry 900 spring-born and 100 autumn-born well-bred F16 Friesian bulls and no other class of livestock. “We get as good a Holstein Friesian bull as we can get, we don’t have any Kiwicrosses, we want to have the 5 to 6 white points on them and a good structured animal. We are selling the bulls as store bulls and a lot of the sales are done over the phone; it’s having a good name and good delivering good quality bulls.” They are are sold aged about 15 months at about 350kg to 360kg. “Going forward we’ve contracted our prices for our calves; we buy on contract and sell on spot, a pretty bad business model, but at this stage they’re looking good, but they’re obviously a function of the bull schedule and there’s a few other variables like the feed supply and the space allocation. “We cannot get them to our clients until their paddock’s empty so if they can’t get their big bulls away the haven’t got room for our bulls to come in so that determines the sort of volumes that trade, and the heat of the market.” Although the price per kilogram might be dropping, the rate of growth the animals are achieving means their price per head is still increasing which means factoring this into the matrix which means it is crucial to know know how much the animals weigh while also keeping a good eye on the market. “Sometimes we get that right, sometimes we get that wrong quite honestly; everybody does.” RURAL PEOPLE » Te Karoa Farms “We get as good a Holstein Friesian bull as we can get, we don’t have any Kiwicrosses, we want to have the 5 to 6 white points on them and a good structured animal.” Congrats Je and Helen from the Team at Kaitaia motorcycles and Suzuki Phone 09 408 1950 – www.kaitaiamotorcycles.co.nz While there is a psychology to markets and people, there is no substitute for market information coupled with asking the right questions, Jeff says. It is also important to have good on-farm information and all the farms have been 3D GPS mapped for soils, contour, drainage, trough location, riparian areas. This has also enabled the creation of tightly divided grazing cells of exact sizes which allows for a rotation of 60 days and this been an absolute game-changer that allows for a great deal of flexibility to change the frequency of rotation through the seasons. “The cell system allows us to control it really, really well.” Jeff and Helen Martin on the farm. · Livestock · Logs · Water · Readymix Concrete · General Cartage 09 406 0087 | mangonuihaulage.co.nz
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