| 57 300 rising two-tooth flock rams available Andrew says Matakanui prides itself on having some of the best fine wool, if not the best fine wool in the country, for its type. Richard Loader Embracing 8700 hectares that rises to a mountainous 1524 metres above sea level, Matakanui Station, 20 minutes north of Alexandra in Central Otago, has been in the Paterson family for 65 years. The station is also home to the Matakanui Polwarth stud that was established by Martin Paterson in the 1970s, with rams offered for sale since the ‘80s. Martin’s son and daughter-in-law, Andrew and Tracy Paterson, now own and operate both the station and the stud. “We usually commence the sale in late January and sell through February,” says Andrew. “This year we will have three hundred rising two-tooth flock rams available for sale. The rams are all independently ranked and priced by a Nextgen Agri. The ranking is based upon the rams hitting specific production criteria - the more criteria they hit as a target, the more valuable they are. There are three prices, ranging from $1600 to $800, for the flock rams.” In addition to flock rams, Matakanui will also sell some stud sires for breeding purposes, and they are set at a different price level again. “Those rams really are industry leading sires, and at the very top in terms of criteria. We usually have up to thirty of those available for sale but generally only sell ten a year. They don’t necessarily go to other studs - they might also go to people who are breeding their own rams.” Andrew says that Matakanui is an industry leading stud for footrot resistance and a number of years ago the station embarked on worm resistance traits, importing genetics from Western Australia. “We have undertaken a very comprehensive worm challenging programme ourselves and now have very strong worm resistance genetics within the stud. We’re focusing a lot on animal health traits and the latest project we have embarked on is sheep methane emissions, with the first round of methane testing last summer in conjunction with AgResearch. We’re also involved in another breeding group, investigating facial eczema which is a problem that is slowly creeping down the country.” Andrew says Matakanui prides itself on having some of the best fine wool, if not the best fine wool in the country, for its type. “We did very well at the Christchurch A&P Show, and we always win our sections in the annual New Zealand National Golden Fleece, where we’re often at the top table winning the champion fleeces.” Matakanui’s wool genetics is complemented with very good meat genetics, producing a heavy lamb for Alliance Meats’ Silere lamb programme. Matakanui Station winters 22,000 Polwarth sheep, comprised of just over 10,000 breeding ewes with the balance hogget and fattening and finishing stock. There are also 1500 Hereford cattle which will go into hand-picked programmes with Alliance. MEAT & WOOL » Matakanui Station “Those rams really are industry leading sires, and at the very top in terms of criteria.” Alexandra Office 69 Tarbert Street | (03) 440 0100 Ranfurly Office 11 Charlemont Street | (03) 444 9158 Leading accounting and business professionals - providing specialist advice to farming, business and rural communities for over 60 years. Proud to partner with Matakanui Station FOCUS ON YOUR FUTURE enquiries@iclca.co.nz www.iclca.co.nz D www.ceneng.co.nz 03 447 3757 The farm that was first bought by Andrew’s grandfather also includes over 100 hectares of well-established and regenerating alpine totara trees. “Combined with our neighbour we are putting nearly 200 hectares of alpine totara into QEII Covenant, to protect it for future generations. It is one of the biggest surviving alpine totara plantations in Otago. Some of it is grand-daddy stuff and under current management it is slowly regenerating too.”
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