6 | DEER » Glacier Deer ‘Pure English herd’ a 40-year journey Nearly 40 years in the deer industry after starting out by rearing wild fawns off the helicopter runs sees the Williams family of Fox Glacier now running about 230 hinds from top English bloodlines, producing velveters with good clean heads and meat fawns weaning at 87kgs. On the farm established by his great-grandfather, one of the rst settlers in Fox Glacier, Wayne Williams was running the South Westland stud Glacier Horned Herefords as started by his grandfather in 1939. He got into deer in 1983, after taking over the farm from his father. As helicopter ground crew in Haast, Wayne decided to have a go at rearing the fawns off the helicopters. “We had to learn how to rear them and at the start, they would die pretty easily,” he says. “I would feed them dried milk powder and milk, and once you got them past a certain stage they were good. One year I reared about 60 fawns. I would have had a bit of a loss, but I was starting to get good at it.” After a couple of years, Wayne bought some hinds straight off the helicopter and out of traps on the West Coast. He decided to move away from wild deer and invested in ve F1 English-bred red hinds from John Kempthorne of Windemere Stud in Hamilton. “They were rst crosses, so they were half English. It was a lot a harder to source pure or F2s.” Then he needed a stag, so with a huge investment, he bought an F2 English red stag for $10,000 from Clive Jeremy of Stan eld Oaks Stud also in Hamilton. Then it was time for another big investment for Glacier Deer, and Wayne bought an in-calf imported Warnham Park red hind for $6000. She had a stag fawn sired by Shogun, one of the top Warnham Park sires of the time. “It was a lot of luck and a way of getting ahead. I was into the early genetics, all those very early Warnham Park genetics that were the good genetics of the time. My herd of hinds is built from there and that’s what we’ve got nowadays, a pure English herd. That’s what we set out to do and we worked at it and got it together.” Today, Wayne is using some good quality, good value genetics from Peel Forest Estate. He puts the older half of the herd to a wapiti stag and the fawns are sold as weaners. Their average weaning weight last year reached 92kgs, and this year came in at 87kgs. The younger half of the herd goes to elite English stags. Stag fawns are sold to different clients around the South Island for velvet, while the hinds are kept for replacements. The hinds are run in small mobs of 25 to 35, and they stay with their mob for life. They do well on Fox country, where the tucker is softer so it doesn’t wear their teeth, and they remain productive for about 15 or 16 years. Wayne has concentrated the whole time on temperament. “Personality counts when it comes to deer. It’s a health and safety thing, for them and for us. I don’t like getting knocked around in the shed.” Marking fawns at Glacier Deer in South Westland. Alexanders are proud to support Wayne & Maggie Williams. Kelly Deeks Hinds mating with a red stag. SERVICING We deliver nationwide however we specialise in: • Greymouth • Westport • Hokitika • Christchurch • South Westland DISTRIBUTORS FOR Mainfreight West Coast, Aramex Couriers, Refrigerated & General Freight, Bulk & Livestock Specialists • BP Oil NZ Ltd – Bulk Fuel Delivery • BP & Castrol Lubricants Phone Greymouth: 03 769 9081 | Phone Hokitika: 05 756 8012 Phone Mainfreight West Coast: 03 769 9081 | Email: freight@aratuna.co.nz
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