12 | 90% of animals bred offered for sale This year’s live on-farm auction will be held on Tuesday the 14th of January. Richard Loader DEER » Tikana Any auction is a combination of our input over the previous four years, right from when we decided who was going to be mated to who, the progeny being velveted, eye-muscle scanned, saliva tested, and weighed,” says Dave Lawrence, who along with his partner Donna Day, owns and operates Tikana Wapiti stud in Central Southland. “All of those things will be on display on auction day. We haven’t had an unsuccessful auction yet and if ‘average price’ is anything to go by there’s certainly an upward trend since we commenced the on-farm auction of stags and hinds in 2005. That’s positive reinforcement for the effort put in.” Tikana differs from other studs in that the animals offered for sale represent 90% plus of what has been bred in any particular year, while other studs and breeders may have the luxury of selecting the top 20% of males born in any year. “We have to be right on our game as to how we select and use genetics because virtually all animals born need to have sale potential. We’ve carefully selected genetics from other breeders throughout New Zealand to get out- crosses. I’ve spent hours researching the background of individual animals to ensure I can cross that bull over that cow and be confident of not running into inbreeding problems. The four traits we principally breed for are: growth, meat, velvet and parasite resistance.” This year’s live on-farm auction will be held on Tuesday the 14th of January, and is likely to include 20 three-year-old stags and 4 mixed-age hinds. “The stags are of very high quality,’ says Dave. “From the amount of information that’s provided with them, be that their genetic merit or percentage of elk through their DNA, buyers know they will be getting quality. The hinds are also very high quality and while we will have had a number of progeny from each, they will still be exceptional value to the buyers.” The stags will be yarded for viewing prior to the action, while at that time of year the hinds will have fawns afoot and be in the paddock. “The hinds will be sold based upon a positive pregnancy scan. We will indicate who they will be mated to, so buyers will know not only who the female is, but also the likely off-spring for when they take possession in the winter.” The picture of each animal and its detail will be displayed on a screen, and a Bidr on-line platform will also be used, enabling buyers unable to attend to also participate. Dave says the recently signed-off North American Retail Accelerator Project between MPI, Deer Industry New Zealand and all the different venison processors around the country has opened new opportunities for commercial deer farmers.“This accelerator programme and its funding is about marketing the product as elk to the North Americans, but it must be true to label; you can’t promote elk meat if it has no elk meat in it. Any commercial farmer wanting to supply that market needs to be aware of what percentage elk the animal they are buying has got. On average, ours are around the mid 80% range.”
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