| 25 Farm recruitment an ‘exciting new project’ Monitoring and sticking to a game plan are bringing good steady results in genetic gain across the traits identified as being important. Sue Russell Some 40 minutes inland from Napier/Hastings in Hawke’s Bay, lies Glenross Station Romney Sheep Stud, an impressive 830ha sheep and beef property, overseen by Marcus Hildreth. It’s been quite a year with the impact of Cyclone Gabrielle causing some slips, but, as Marcus says, nothing like the destruction felt in other parts of the province, particularly further north. This is the second time Rural North has had the opportunity to talk with Marcus about the station, it’s activities and priorities, and as one might expect and happens invariably in farming, there aren’t massive changes in breeding policy, just carefully thought through incremental steps towards impovement on a number of fronts. “We are doing a lot more monitoring on worm tolerance. RURAL PEOPLE » Glenross Station We did a test on 600 lambs taking individual targets, as with anything in genetics, it will take time,” Marcus says. Brought in FE rams are sourced from the Waikato region where spore counts are typically the highest in the country. The home bred line of FE tolerant rams are now being tested at 0.63 and carrying the solid traits of our main flock. Monitoring and sticking to a game plan are bringing good steady results in genetic gain across the traits identified as being important – fertility, survival, weaning weights and worm tolerance. Lambing was well underway when the phone conversation took place in September. “We’re coming to the end of our mixed-age flock and the hoggets will come on in a couple of weeks.” It’s been a really successful lambing experience this year with excellent survivability helped by the fact that this is one of the first years where there hasn’t been significant rainfall, giving progeny the best possible start. In all 2,500 breeding ewes lamb over a three week period. Weaning is complete just before Christmas. Added to the stock count are 1200 hoggets along with 140 mixed age cows. In all 1300 ram hoggets are put up for private sale following wintering. “We sell over a three-week period. Clients come through with a time-slot to look over the stock. It’s a chance for me to hear what each client is putting up with and get a good sense of the commercial sheep farming situation.” Marcus had just returned from a month in England, taking the opportunity to visit some enterprising farmers. It gave him an opportunity to see how much more valued the sheep sector is there, in terms of meat price. He also bought a Wiltshire Stud in February. It presented with an opportunity to good to ignore, to breed the self-sheeding breed, given the sad reality of the value of the wool clip. “I have 160 breeding ewes and will slowly build it up. It’s good to start small to really focus on getting a good solid base with desirable traits.” Marcus is pushing drenching of Wilshires out to 3 months and seeing good results. The weight gains are slower but through careful selection this can be advanced reasonably quickly. “They are a well established breed but there is still a lot of genetic progress to be made.” Marcus says he’s pleased with the impact using Agriwebb software over his stock management and recording systems is having. “It basically is at arms length any time you want to access data and it monitors the whole farm. It’s really good at extracting information and provides an interactive map for the shepherds to know where all the sheep are and the health history on every animal.” A new initiative Marcus and partner Sarah are just getting into is to establish a farm recruitment business, to allow farmers here to access farm staff from the UK. “We think it will really help a pretty tough situation a lot of sheep and beef farmers have in sourcing good, hard working staff. “We have contacts back in the UK who can be the link for us in finding those keen to travel to this country to work for a while. It’s an exciting new project for us.” “We think it will really help a pretty tough situation a lot of sheep and beef farmers have in sourcing good, hard working staff. We have contacts back in the UK who can be the link for us in finding those keen to travel to this country to work for a while. It’s an exciting new project for us.” We can help you with: Direct drilling Conventional drilling Rotary hoeing Agricultural spraying Discing Ploughing Roller Drilling Rolling Ripping Tyne cultivate Power harrowing Plus plenty more agricultural services Phone Roger to discuss Your requirements: P: 021 245 1472 E: hunterag@xtra.co.nz For all your agricultural cultivation and spraying requirements Proud to support Glenross Station
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