4 | An easier, more lucrative lifestyle Out of the couple’s daughters, Jorja,14, and Charlene,12, their youngest may yet be a fourth-generation farmer. Tracey Edwardes RURAL PEOPLE » Glenlands Farm Self-shedding sheep mitigate the hard graft - and can provide an easier, lucrative lifestyle. Glenlands Farm is a shedding sheep stud in the Esk Valley run by Dean and Antoinette Martin, who focus on the SheepMaster breed from Australia. They are off to the sale in November to look at the parent stud rams, in NSW Australia, and source more semen. “They’re more like little cattle, taking the labour out of the system,” says Dean. “No lice, fly, shearing or crutching. I’m in my 50s now. and can’t be running around crutching like I did in my 20s. “We tried Australian Whites alongside our SheepMasters, with the SheepMasters coming out on top, with hardiness and better worm tolerance than the Austrialian Whites over the last two extremely wet summers with higher worm challengers. All replacement SheepMaster hoggets are being FEC tested under a worm challenge before entering the stud flock. Now breeding SheepMasters with self-shedding Wiltshires, Glenlands has three quarters, halves and quarters on the Hawkes Bay farm. It is 245ha, 145ha effective, ranging from 40m to 280m in altitude on the first hill on the Napier-Taupo road. After the cyclone, lack of access to half the farm on the other side of the creek, made the 2023 breeding season a challenge and delayed the AI program. “To get the breeding ewes back to this side of the farm and into the yards, we ended up cutting fences and needing extra help to push them through challenging areas. Luckily fly wasn’t an issue as bike access across the creek didn’t happen until May - one less worry! The aftermath lingering more this year with all the infrastructure repairs. I bought a digger to fix ongoing issues myself, and have had to reinstate creek crossings, after rains, four times.” Up to three metres of silt and debris still remains on the creek flats, and planting Lucerne in some areas is on the cards. The farm practises self seeding for diversity - cocksfoot, prairie and paspalum grass, not just rye. “SheepMasters love browsing on the rough stuff, and leave the low-fibre lush spring grass and clover more than other breeds. The lambs love running over to eat the blackberry. The Shearwell business is delighted to be the tag supplier of choice and work with Dean and Antoinette to support their Australian White and SheepMaster breeding programme EID & visual tags for sheep & goats Tag well with Shearwell Aidan Ellims North Island 027 556 2256
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