18 | Station a ‘bog hole’ after year of rain Set stocking ewes at Hauiti. Sire bulls purchased from Ratanui and Tangihau studs. Titrangi flats and Tolaga Bay river mouth Russell Fredric RURAL PEOPLE » Hauiti Station Despite the intensity of Cyclone Gabrielle and the location of Hauiti Station in Tolaga Bay, the large scale sheep, beef and cropping operation emerged relatively unscathed. However, it is the bigger weather picture that has had a longer lasting negative impact, general manager Chris Torkington says. Hauiti incorporates Iwinui Station, Titirangi Station, Pukemaewa Station and Seaview, employs nine full-time staff and covers 2750 hectares of which 2529 hectares is effective. Of the total area, about 690ha is steep hill, 1072 medium rolling and 693ha flat. About 75% of Titirangi lies on the coast, has good carrying capacity and works well as a breeding unit in conjunction with the other blocks. “We definitely got plenty of flooding, but on the scale of the damage that the east coast suffered, we were probably pretty lucky,” Chris says. “We had some fences and other stuff taken out by (forestry) slash and a reasonable amount of silt sediment on our flats and trees blown over. Our next door neighbours, they probably had 80% of their farm taken out, basically 90% of their flats got damaged, fences completely taken out and silt and slash just destroying their pasture.” The difference between the two farms is that Hauiti is closer to the mouth of the Uawa River while his neighbour’s farm lies at the junction of this and the Mangaheia River. “There are some horror stories out there. You just go another two kilometres up the (Uawa) river past us and its just another story up there.” However, it is not just Gabrielle and her cousin Cyclone Hale that hit early January that have been ill-tempered. It has rained consistently virtually for the past year, Chris says. “We’ve grown plenty of grass, it’s been complicated. As a finishing property the feed’s been there but the stock need the daylight. They’re just like a human being; they don’t like these wet miserable long weeks, so it hasn’t been the greatest for them.” “It’s basically been raining here for 12 months straight because last March (2022) was when we had out first major flood and it’s just been a bog hole all summer; we hardly got spring and autumn just turned up maybe about a week ago really, we’ve just seen finally some actual nice weather, something we can work with.” Hauiti supports 5000 breeding ewes, 1800 two-tooths and 2200 hoggets, around 8000 finishing lambs each season and 600 Angus/Hereford breeding cows. All black bulls are mated to a Hereford cow while any white-faced bulls are mated to an Angus cow in order to maximise hybrid vigour. “We finish approximately 800 bulls a year, so we are looking for a high yield fast growing cattle beast and we’re looking to feed our finishing unit [Pukemaewa] with fast growing bulls.” The sheep genetics were solely Romney for the past few decades, but two seasons ago the commercial ewes were crossed with Coopworth, again to produce some hybrid vigour, combined with the aim of increasing production, reducing facial eczema and improving worm tolerance while mothering ability and survivability are also factors. There is also a focus on pasture quality to enhance the growth rate of stock. “We’ve got a pretty tight pasture renewal programme on our 650 hectares of flat to ensure that we are producing quality feed for quality stock.” HINENUI 100% SIL Recorded Flocks NZMW + Meat 100% DNA Parentage 5K and 50K Genomic Evaluation FE GOLD Status - Over 30 years dosing Nil drenching of ewes GENETICS Proven Performance Genetics - Leading Facial Eczema Tolerance COOPWORTH - ROMNEY - ROMWORTH Ryan and Claire Teutenberg - 021 610 664 Phil and Deana Cook - 027 952 6048 Brett and Lucy Teutenberg - 027 446 3684 www.hinenuigenetics.co.nz GISBORNE
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