40 | Selection of high-performance rams The stud operates from the Gray’s 550 hectare effective home farm at Orawia. Russell Fredric Western Southland stud Hillgrove Rams will be offering a selection of high- performance rams by private sale from late January. Located in Western Southland, Hillgrove Rams is part of a two-farm business owned by Arnie and Fiona Gray and their son Robert. The stud operates from the Gray’s 550 hectare effective home farm at Orawia which supports 4600 ewes, 1200 hoggets and 140 ram hoggets. 90 mixed age rams The second farm of 300 hectares at Lilburn eight kilometres away was purchased in 2013 and carries 2200 breeding ewes, 520 hoggets, plus beef trading cattle comprising 107 yearlings of around 300 kilograms is supported over both properties “We will take [the cattle] through to late March and either kill them or sell them on,” Robert says. MEET & WOOL » Hillgrove Rams Simon de Vries - 027 840 9867 Julie Heaps - 03 226 6212 The two farms are run separately, with the business employing two full-time staff, with 100ha planted in pinus radiata that attracts carbon credits under the Emissions Trading Scheme. Robert regards Hillgrove’s ability to offer farmers a variety of sheep breeds and genetics as one of the strengths of the stud. “We’ve got 500 recorded stud ewes at the home block; these are Suftex, Texel, Romney Texel and Romney’s. The Suffolk Texel is line-bred, it’s been line bred for 20-plus years now.” The Suffolk Texels and the Texels are recorded on Sheep Improvement Limited’s (SIL) database while the Romneys and Romney Texels are also recorded but not on SIL “The majority of the Texels and Romney Texels are Inverdale ewes; we’ve still got the Inverdale gene in the Texels and the Romney-Texels.” All Hillgrove’s stud stock are grown under fully commercial conditions, and for buyers of its rams, offers genetics with a track record of good growth rates and good weaning weights. “We are really pushing towards that, and the darkness of the face, because a lot of farmers put the rams out and they want dark rams so they can mix them with the replacements and don’t have to draft them.” All the Gray’s ram and ewe lambs are scanned for eye muscle area and their mixed-aged ewes pregnancy scan around 180% plus, with the terminal stock scanning at 175% to 180%, while lambing has varied from year to year depending on the season on what are reasonably exposed farms. The two farms typically finish between 7,500 and 8,000 lambs each season with last season’s crop being grown to 19 kilograms in favourable conditions overall, in contrast to how this season has started in the south, Robert says. “The heavens opened up in spring and it hasn’t bloody stopped.” As of early November, he estimated the farm’s work programme was running three weeks late. “Everything is well behind, we would have had tailing done by now, we would have had the summer crop in by now.” Seasonal crop comprises 32 ha of either kale or swede, with leafy turnip sown as a summer crop into the winter crop paddocks for fattening the Romney ram lambs. “Last season I did 1200 on 25 hectares and finished them averaging 20 kilos. They went really well.”
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