34 | Top quality from Altrive Red Deer Glaisnock (Altrive 142-17) 11.4 kgs at 4 years old. Kelly Deeks DEER » Altrive Red Deer Award-winning velvet stag farm, Altrive Red Deer, is consistently proud of the quality of stags and hinds it presents at its two annual sales, and discerning buyers have more to appreciate at the 12th on-farm sale, coming up on Thursday, January 12 2023 at Waipounamu, Southland. Altrive is recognised as one of New Zealand’s elite red deer velvet farms, producing valuable velvet and trophy deer. Breeding bigger and better heads that produce excellent quality, tidy, and correct velvet has always been the goal, and this goal is achieved by acquiring the best stags available, as well using Altrive’s own top home-bred velvet stag sires. Altrive was born out of Geoff Elder’s passion for deer and his diligence for performance recording, which he started doing when he took over the family sheep farm in 1979. With a view to diversifying and developing his stock, Geoff started performance recording 200 of his commercial ewes which resulted in him selling rams and starting a registered Romney stud. In 1985, he bought his first hinds and naturally, recorded them too. After five years, he was running about 200 share-farmed hinds, all recorded, as well as his own small herd of 50 hinds. In the early years, Geoff selected on growth rates, then moved on to velvet, keeping two year old stags that cut a minimum of 1.3kg. Since 2008, Altrive’s two year olds have been achieving average velvet weights of more than 4kg, and now their two year old keepers are averaging 5kgs. Geoff’s son Andy moved home to Waipoumanu after working for a decade as a shepherd on Whare Creek Station in the Te Anau Basin. Like Geoff, Andy is very passionate about all aspects of deer, including farming, hunting, and eating! Andy particularly enjoys hunting in Fiordland and he sits on the committee of the Fiordland Wapiti Foundation. He is also helping to manage the pest population by volunteering on the trapping, and recently he has built 20 traps and placed them around the farm. “We enjoy wildlife, and would like to see more birds around,” says Andy’s wife Sam. Sam is a veterinarian at Northern Southland Vets in Riversdale, where she has worked for the past seven years. Sam is also extending her passion for deer into the wider industry, as she sits on the New Zealand Veterinarian Association Deer branch committee, is the veterinary rep for the Southland Deer Farmers Association, and she facilitates a P2P deer advance party. With their complementary skills and experience, Andy and Sam make a good team at Altrive. Andy has learned the ropes from Geoff, with Andy doing the velvetting and stock work, and Geoff continuing to manage breeding objectives and performance recording. Meanwhile Sam does all the veterinary work for the farm, including scanning and reproductive programming for the embryo transfer programme. This season, Altrive’s 150ha farm has run 320 hinds, 150 weaner hinds, 150 weaner stags, 140 rising two year old stags, and 195 mixed-age velvetting stags. The online in-fawn hind sale in August this year, run through the online platform BIDR, drew strong interest and top prices, as Altrive annual sales consistently do. “This year we had a huge 60 people log in to view the sale, with the top price being $8800 for a hind in fawn to Glaisnock 142-17,” Sam says. Altrive held BIDR’s first ever deer sale in 2019 and have used the platform at every sale since. Andy says it has almost doubled the amount of potential bidders at each sale and offers studs in particular a new and improved way of running their sales. Altrive’s annual on-farm sale in January will offer sire stags, two year old velvetting stags, and yearling hinds for sale. Geo , Andy and Sam Elder 25Waipounamu Road, Riversdale On farm 2023 SALE Join us on 5pmThursday 12th January o ering approximately 25 sire stags, 50 2 year velveting stags and 50 yearling hinds for sale Watch out for our online catalogue on our website or follow us on Facebook: www.altriveredeer.co.nz AltriveRedDeer 145-17 x Joseph 7.8kg @ 3yr cut 7 days after velvet awards. Retained in Altrive stud. 34-14 x Netherdale’s Harlem. 10.4kg SA @ 4yr sire at Altrive. 4th place 4yr olds Nationals 2018 • 145-17: Pictured above. 6.45kg @ 2yr SuperA, 7.8kg@ 3yr, 8.6kg at 4yr. A tidy Joseph, out of top Altrive hind, his ET brothers include 142-17 retained at Altrive, and three other sires all sold in the 2021 sale. • 34-14: Pictured above. 5.0kg @ 2yr, 7.85kg @ 3 yr- (5th place national 3-year competition 2017), 10.4kg @ 4yr (4th in 4-year category in national velvet awards 2018), 13.3kg @ 5-year-old. • 106-18: Harlem son we have used since 2 yr. 7.0kg @ 2yr, 8.9kg @ 3yr, 10.4kg @ 4yr. • 211-15: First lot of 3yr olds being o ered this year for sale. 8kg @ 3yr, 9.5kg@ 5yr, 10.4 @ 6yr. • 22-14: By supersire Everest, 9.5kg @ 3yr (Winner 3yr competition and people’s choice in the 2017 national velvet awards), 10.5kg @ 4yr, 14.4kg@ 5yr, 12.5kg @ 6yr. Other Altrive Sires Include: • Glaisnock (Altrive 142-17): A sire retained at Altrive. 6.6kg @ 2yr, 9.4@ 3yr, 11.2kg@ 4-yr and a huge 16.75kg SA @ 5-yr. This stag is an ET brother to sire 145-17 out of top hind 82-14. • Worsley- ND 224-18: Bronx son purchased in 2021 from Netherdale 7.9kg @ 3yr, 10.5kg@ 4yr.
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