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Transcript

The Muster Full Show: 13/10/26 · The Muster on Hokonui

0:05
Speaker 1: Good afternoon and welcome to the muster on Hokonui.
0:08
Speaker 2: I'm Andy Muir.
0:09
Speaker 1: The show's brought to you by Peters Genetics. Thanks for
0:11
Speaker 1: your company.
0:13
Speaker 2: On a rather overcast afternoon here in Gore, currently the
0:17
Speaker 2: temperature is 19.
0:19
Speaker 1: We'll look at the forecast.
0:20
Speaker 2: Shortly, but it looks as though there's a bit of
0:22
Speaker 2: rain on the horizon over the next couple of days,
0:25
Speaker 2: especially on Thursday. But nonetheless, you can only play what's
0:28
Speaker 2: in front of you to coin a phrase.
0:29
Speaker 1: And at the moment, I wouldn't say it's muggy, but.
0:33
Speaker 2: Anything's better than after the single-digit temperatures of the last
0:36
Speaker 2: wee while. But anyway, hope the day's going well as
0:39
Speaker 2: the afternoon starts to crank into gear proper. Super Tramp
0:42
Speaker 2: is our tunes, or our tunes for Tuesday.
0:50
Speaker 3: Hockanui's five-day forecast with Twin Farm, Tefrom and Softex.
0:56
Speaker 1: The proof is in the progeny.
0:58
Speaker 2: Tefrom.co.nz Well, you know what they say, if you push
1:03
Speaker 2: a button, it doesn't work.
1:05
Speaker 1: Panic for a split second and push it again and
1:07
Speaker 1: see what happens.
1:07
Speaker 2: But anyway, this afternoon, showers of breezy nor'westerlies and a
1:12
Speaker 2: high of 21. Tomorrow, Wednesday, rain developing in the afternoon
1:15
Speaker 2: with breezy easterlies, 7 and 14. Thursday's the kicker, rain
1:19
Speaker 2: with breezy south easterlies, 4 and 9. Friday, correcting gradually,
1:24
Speaker 2: cloudy with breezy south westerlies 2 and 11. And on Saturday,
1:27
Speaker 2: partly cloudy with breezy westerlies 4 and 14. Soil temperatures
1:31
Speaker 2: for your Tuesday. Winton 12.8 and Woodlands 12. Grant McMaster
1:45
Speaker 2: at Closeburn Station. Kicks us off this afternoon, of course,
1:48
Speaker 2: thanks to the team at Arby Rural. Matt Ward farms
1:52
Speaker 2: at Morton Mains. Last time we caught up with him,
1:54
Speaker 2: he was in the middle of lambing, but time's moved
1:57
Speaker 2: on since then, so we catch up to see how
1:59
Speaker 2: the feed situation is. It was pretty wet last time
2:02
Speaker 2: we spoke, but by all accounts, things have corrected gradually.
2:05
Speaker 2: We catch up with Matt. Graham Butcher, farm consultant, talking
2:10
Speaker 2: ewe milking. And a few topics around that, as only
2:14
Speaker 2: Graham can bring to the table with his words of wisdom.
2:18
Speaker 2: Josh Bennett of Waitangi Young Farmers in the Young Farmers chat.
2:22
Speaker 2: And Hamish and Alex McCallum in a boa charge. Join
2:25
Speaker 2: me in studio for a chat. Andrew Martin of PDG
2:28
Speaker 2: Wrightson gives us a rundown on the Lawnville stock sale report.
2:32
Speaker 2: And then we'll crank the hour up after that with
2:34
Speaker 2: Grant McMaster. This is the muster until 2 o'clock. Thanks
2:37
Speaker 2: to Peter Genetics, 6 after 1.
2:45
Speaker 1: Grant Disaster McMaster joins us once again.
2:47
Speaker 2: He's based at Closeburn Station on the edges of Lake Wakadipu.
2:51
Speaker 1: Good afternoon, Disaster.
2:52
Speaker 2: The logical song.
2:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, probably doesn't apply to me, but good afternoon, Andy.
2:57
Speaker 3: Good afternoon, everybody.
2:58
Speaker 4: Good tune for all that.
2:59
Speaker 2: A really good tune as we see the weather continue
3:03
Speaker 2: from where it's been over the past seven days, especially
3:06
Speaker 2: here in Gore. A bit of a correction over the
3:08
Speaker 2: next couple, I understand. Up there at Closeburn Station, how
3:11
Speaker 2: have you fared?
3:13
Speaker 4: Oh, we've had a beautiful week. It was since we
3:15
Speaker 4: spoke last week and had the shorts on and really great,
3:19
Speaker 4: nice and warm, good grass growth again. But just blue,
3:24
Speaker 4: strong wind last night and the early hours of this
3:27
Speaker 4: morning and... woke up to windy and what have you,
3:33
Speaker 4: next thing it started raining, and we've had about 10
3:36
Speaker 4: or 12 mils in sort of a couple of hours.
3:38
Speaker 4: So now it's cleared again, and it's nice and warm
3:42
Speaker 4: and just ideal for the grass to keep growing. The
3:45
Speaker 4: soil temperature is sitting about 11.5 degrees.
3:50
Speaker 1: So all things considered, the feed is starting to come back.
3:54
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is, and very good over at the hills.
3:57
Speaker 4: As I said last week, it's growing. We'll be able
3:59
Speaker 4: to start to work on that ground to get some
4:03
Speaker 4: grass in, but yeah, it's just good quality feed at
4:06
Speaker 4: the moment. The cows and calves are sort of going in,
4:09
Speaker 4: and then the hogget's following behind. We've got two deuce
4:12
Speaker 4: over there lambing. They're a bit slow, actually, off the mark,
4:16
Speaker 4: and I just feel as though there's... I think it's
4:20
Speaker 4: going back to the, you know, the dry rate, that 10%
4:23
Speaker 4: dry rate we had in the tutus that the blood
4:25
Speaker 4: tests haven't showed anything up. But there's just something not right.
4:29
Speaker 4: You know, normally when we start lambing, it can be
4:34
Speaker 4: a bit quiet for the first few days. Well, it
4:36
Speaker 4: just seems to be in the tutus especially, yeah, they're
4:39
Speaker 4: just not ripping into it as yet. So there's something
4:44
Speaker 4: there where I just can't get my head around, but
4:46
Speaker 4: there'll be someone smarter than me that does. So... But
4:49
Speaker 4: things really warmed up after we spoke last week about
4:53
Speaker 4: just about, as I got off the phone, I looked
4:55
Speaker 4: across to my neighbours at Walder Peak and there was
4:59
Speaker 4: a fire going that looked like the Kingston Fly and
5:02
Speaker 4: the Earns Lord collided in the lake and there was
5:04
Speaker 4: smoke everywhere. So, yeah, a pretty, well, a good burn
5:10
Speaker 4: in some ways, but a bit frightening for a lot
5:12
Speaker 4: of people and others.
5:13
Speaker 1: You would have had a front row seat watching that unfold.
5:16
Speaker 4: Oh, absolutely, just straight across from our lounge. In fact,
5:20
Speaker 4: after speaking to you and having my lunch, I had
5:23
Speaker 4: to wait a couple of hours just to look at
5:25
Speaker 4: what was happening. It was pretty impressive. So basically, it
5:29
Speaker 4: started where what they call the Walderpeak Tours, and that's
5:32
Speaker 4: where real services, that real journey, sorry, where the earns
5:37
Speaker 4: law goes over and all the punters go over to
5:39
Speaker 4: where the old original Walderpeak homestead is. Now, that is
5:43
Speaker 4: not actually part of the farming operations of Walter Peak Station,
5:47
Speaker 4: but they have an area around there that might have
5:51
Speaker 4: 100 acres or so. And I think they were having
5:53
Speaker 4: a bit of a clean-up. This was the previous week,
5:56
Speaker 4: and they had some rubbish to burn. I'm just not
5:59
Speaker 4: quite sure what it was, but apparently they had a
6:03
Speaker 4: permit for it. They lit it, and a week later,
6:06
Speaker 4: after we got off the air, it reignited and went
6:10
Speaker 4: straight around the Walter Peak faces and up what they
6:13
Speaker 4: call McKinley's. So people that are a bit familiar with
6:16
Speaker 4: up here, Table Bay is the bay that the gully
6:20
Speaker 4: up there is McKinley's, and that's the boundary between Walter
6:23
Speaker 4: Peak Station and Cecil Peak. And McKinley's Creek goes right up.
6:27
Speaker 4: It goes about 16km to basically the top of the
6:31
Speaker 4: head of the Lockheed. So it just whistled around there,
6:35
Speaker 4: and there wasn't a lot of wind, but the fire
6:39
Speaker 4: gets its own... gets its own wind going and it
6:42
Speaker 4: just went around and down through mckinley's with a lot
6:45
Speaker 4: of fuel load there because those places used to be
6:47
Speaker 4: burned on a regular basis but probably the last fire
6:50
Speaker 4: up through there might have been 30 years ago and
6:54
Speaker 4: it got across the uh across mckinley's and up onto
6:57
Speaker 4: uh onto cecil peak station and it burnt right to
7:01
Speaker 4: the top there on the top of walter peak and
7:03
Speaker 4: uh brought itself in. That night it was, you know,
7:07
Speaker 4: it was almost like you see footage off a volcano
7:10
Speaker 4: at night with all the eruptions and that's what it
7:14
Speaker 4: looked like. It was pretty spectacular. I got up about
7:17
Speaker 4: three o'clock to have a look and yeah, it sort
7:21
Speaker 4: of died a little bit by then and by the
7:23
Speaker 4: morning the day, the morning had cooled off and it
7:27
Speaker 4: was sort of it was just abating that way. And
7:32
Speaker 4: But this morning, with that wind, when I had a
7:36
Speaker 4: look outside, there was a little bit of smoke coming
7:39
Speaker 4: from the original part over there. Now, it wasn't going anywhere.
7:42
Speaker 4: It was still in a blackened area. But, you know,
7:45
Speaker 4: it takes a lot to put a fire out when
7:47
Speaker 4: it gets underground. And, you know, we've seen that from
7:49
Speaker 4: all the footage you see in Portugal, Spain and Canada
7:55
Speaker 4: and Australia.
7:56
Speaker 3: So it's a pretty.
7:58
Speaker 4: It's a reminder to people that... Just the danger of fire,
8:02
Speaker 4: and especially in a place like Queenstown with all the
8:06
Speaker 4: fuel load and the wild and pines we have, and
8:09
Speaker 4: you've heard me bang on about them for a long time,
8:11
Speaker 4: but I think people are becoming more aware throughout the
8:14
Speaker 4: whole country of just what wild and pines are doing.
8:17
Speaker 4: And that $ 70 million that we got from the government
8:20
Speaker 4: a while ago for the country is being put to
8:23
Speaker 4: good use. But it just shows you, living in areas
8:26
Speaker 4: like this, if it had been on this side of
8:28
Speaker 4: the lake, well, it would be a totally different story
8:31
Speaker 4: and something to be very mindful of.
8:34
Speaker 2: Therefore, controlled burn-offs is something that need to be looked
8:37
Speaker 2: at long-term on a lot of properties up there, Grant?
8:40
Speaker 4: Well, yes. And, you know, Ben Loman, my next-door neighbour,
8:44
Speaker 4: John Foster, he does controlled burns. You know, I was
8:48
Speaker 4: doing controlled burns, but some of them became uncontrolled.
8:51
Speaker 2: But we won't... We won't go there.
8:53
Speaker 4: We won't stretch that old scab.
8:55
Speaker 5: But.
8:57
Speaker 4: You know, they've got their place and, you know, people
9:01
Speaker 4: always use fire to prevent fire in the old days
9:04
Speaker 4: and all around the world. So I know it's just
9:08
Speaker 4: the fact that these trees are there amongst a lot
9:10
Speaker 4: of houses and it's difficult to try and eradicate without,
9:15
Speaker 4: you know, you can't burn those areas. But, yeah, it
9:21
Speaker 4: makes a lot of people nervous and, you know, and understandably.
9:26
Speaker 2: Your grandson was on TV recently on Seven Sharp, and
9:30
Speaker 2: he came across as a chip off the old block
9:32
Speaker 2: by looking at what his grandfather's like, but he talked
9:35
Speaker 2: about the Chatham Islands. We talked about going over there
9:37
Speaker 2: just off the cuff about a year ago, but all
9:40
Speaker 2: of a sudden your grandson's had more offers than we have.
9:43
Speaker 4: Well, it's unbelievable, isn't it? I didn't even know Bo
9:46
Speaker 4: knew where the Chatham Islands was, but for people that
9:49
Speaker 4: aren't familiar, he was on Seven Sharp the other night,
9:51
Speaker 4: and he's quite keen on Woolwyn and Chatham, done a
9:55
Speaker 4: few things with that and so that's what the article
9:57
Speaker 4: was about and next thing they were asking various things,
10:00
Speaker 4: and he said he'd really like to go to the
10:02
Speaker 4: Chatham Islands and farm there, and I said, well, I
10:04
Speaker 4: wonder where that's come from, because I've pushed it on
10:07
Speaker 4: this high-rating show for a couple of years, and no
10:10
Speaker 4: one said anything. Well, I'm going to have to go
10:12
Speaker 4: with him, because he's had three offers. People have come
10:14
Speaker 4: in and said, I will take you to the Chatham Islands,
10:16
Speaker 4: so if You know, he might have to take the
10:18
Speaker 4: farming tour there if we ever get her on the ground.
10:20
Speaker 2: Well, Jamie Mackay's made noises about wanting to go over
10:23
Speaker 2: there at one time too. I don't think he's been
10:25
Speaker 2: there before. So very much king of the food chain
10:27
Speaker 2: might look at doing that as well. But that'll be
10:29
Speaker 2: an awesome trip.
10:30
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, especially if my grandson Beau at the eight years.
10:34
Speaker 3: Of age leads it.
10:35
Speaker 4: I can tell you what, it'll be very entertaining.
10:37
Speaker 2: Hey, good on you, Grant. Always appreciate your time on
10:40
Speaker 2: the muster. And hopefully that smoke just peters out and
10:42
Speaker 2: you enjoy the next seven days. We'll catch you next Tuesday.
10:45
Speaker 6: Yeah, I'll do that.
10:46
Speaker 4: The smoke's definitely stopped and it's raining again now. So
10:51
Speaker 4: that helps our grass growth too because it's nice and
10:54
Speaker 4: warm outside.
10:55
Speaker 2: Good on you, Grant. Thank you.
10:56
Speaker 3: Okay, take care.
10:59
Speaker 2: Grant Disaster McMaster brought to you every week here by
11:02
Speaker 2: the team at RB Rural.
11:04
Speaker 1: Matt Ward's up next farming at Morton Mains.
11:11
Speaker 7: I'll give a little bit.
11:13
Speaker 3: Namaste on the farm with Southland District Council working together
11:17
Speaker 3: for a better Southland.
11:23
Speaker 2: Matt Ward is based at Moreton Mains, farming down that
11:26
Speaker 2: way actually and catches up with us. Good afternoon Matt,
11:28
Speaker 2: we spoke to you about four weeks ago. Gee, it's
11:31
Speaker 2: a different scenario.
11:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, g'day Andy. It's incredible how much we can turn
11:37
Speaker 3: around and even in the space of 10 days we're
11:40
Speaker 3: a completely different province now aren't we we won't uh
11:44
Speaker 3: can't dwell on the past months too much but it's
11:47
Speaker 3: uh yeah it's a pretty incredible space we're in right
11:49
Speaker 3: at the moment isn't it.
11:50
Speaker 2: When we spoke to you last time you were in
11:52
Speaker 2: lambing it was it was rough weather shit timber as
11:55
Speaker 2: it's been coined as a coin the phrase these days
11:58
Speaker 2: but you just got to look forward now in the
12:00
Speaker 2: past 10 to 12 days it's just showing.
12:02
Speaker 1: A lot of respite for the province yeah nah it.
12:05
Speaker 3: Has it has like you look at the woodland pasture
12:08
Speaker 3: growth like uh three weeks ago we were behind the
12:11
Speaker 3: year-to-date pasture growth where now like give us a good
12:15
Speaker 3: couple of weeks of growth and we're well ahead of
12:17
Speaker 3: it all of a sudden so it's now it's just
12:20
Speaker 3: at home here like we've turned a massive corner we
12:22
Speaker 3: went from being pretty tight looking for places to go
12:25
Speaker 3: to being like oh shit we need to keep moving
12:28
Speaker 3: these using lambs around just to keep on top of
12:30
Speaker 3: everything coming away and spread a few cattle around just
12:33
Speaker 3: to Yeah, just because it's just bolting. It's absolutely bolting
12:36
Speaker 3: out of the ground. So now we're in a pretty
12:38
Speaker 3: good space at the moment.
12:39
Speaker 2: As ridiculous as it sounds, are you having to monitor
12:42
Speaker 2: your grass quality now?
12:45
Speaker 3: I wouldn't say that just yet, but I am very conscious.
12:48
Speaker 3: Like I know here, like at home here, like when
12:52
Speaker 3: it goes, it can really go. So we do keep
12:55
Speaker 3: everything moving around pretty quick. But I've got about 180
13:01
Speaker 3: R1 stairs spread out through everything, so... trying to move
13:04
Speaker 3: my ewes and lambs along pretty quickly just to leave
13:06
Speaker 3: enough behind for the cattle that are set stocked. So
13:09
Speaker 3: it seems to work pretty well but you're getting into
13:12
Speaker 3: mid-November then you're all of a sudden looking for more
13:15
Speaker 3: mouths on the ground just to try and keep quality
13:18
Speaker 3: under control.
13:19
Speaker 2: Of course these are the stairs that have been in
13:21
Speaker 2: that famous wintering shed of yours.
13:24
Speaker 3: Yeah and they've done pretty well. I have them out
13:28
Speaker 3: on Italian and Bailidge for the month of September just
13:31
Speaker 3: while I'm lambing and They chipped through that. They made
13:33
Speaker 3: a hurr of a mess. Holy, they made a mess
13:35
Speaker 3: behind the wire. But it sort of worked out well
13:38
Speaker 3: just keeping them out of any lambing paddocks. So now
13:40
Speaker 3: they're set stocked and they just look for an excuse
13:43
Speaker 3: to grow away. They pump along pretty well from now on.
13:47
Speaker 2: How are your gateways looking?
13:50
Speaker 3: Average. Yeah, it's We went from being that wet and
13:55
Speaker 3: you'd slide through a gateway in four-wheel drive to now
13:58
Speaker 3: they're that well rutted up that you almost need to
13:59
Speaker 3: slow down so you stop bouncing through them so quickly. Yeah,
14:03
Speaker 3: it's incredible how hard everything's got in the space, but
14:07
Speaker 3: I'll shoot around with a leveller and roller and just
14:09
Speaker 3: tidy a few gateways up and there'll be a bit
14:11
Speaker 3: of rock to go out. But they're all future issues.
14:15
Speaker 3: I'll worry about them when I've got a bit of
14:17
Speaker 3: time up my sleeve.
14:18
Speaker 2: As far as the season goes, has this been the
14:20
Speaker 2: most schizophrenic that you've struck?
14:22
Speaker 1: Okay, we're not through it yet, and El Nino is
14:24
Speaker 1: a marathon, not a sprint.
14:25
Speaker 2: We've had that dodgy weather, but we've seen some really
14:29
Speaker 2: good weather over the past couple of weeks.
14:31
Speaker 1: Has it left you confused regarding spring?
14:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, spring in Southland, well, I'm no expert, Andy, but
14:39
Speaker 3: spring in Southland is always pretty changeable, isn't it? And
14:43
Speaker 3: when it goes from one extreme to another like it
14:45
Speaker 3: has at the moment, it is. it does confuse you
14:48
Speaker 3: a wee bit. It's pretty hard to plan for it.
14:51
Speaker 3: You look at the weather that's coming at the end
14:53
Speaker 3: of the week, there's a bit of rain in the forecast,
14:56
Speaker 3: so you've sort of got to make the most out
14:57
Speaker 3: of these good days while they're there, and yeah, just
15:02
Speaker 3: take the good with the bad. But out of anything,
15:03
Speaker 3: I think if we're going to get regular rainfall like
15:05
Speaker 3: we are, like I've been talking, and get the good
15:08
Speaker 3: hot days, we're in for a pretty good bump of season,
15:12
Speaker 3: hopefully grass growth-wise. So that's sort of what I'm trying
15:15
Speaker 3: to plan towards, put the past month in the back
15:19
Speaker 3: of your mind, can't do anything, can't change tailing results
15:22
Speaker 3: or anything like that. So plan for the next few months.
15:25
Speaker 3: If we're going to get a good growthy season, then yeah,
15:28
Speaker 3: that's what I'm sort of looking forward to now.
15:30
Speaker 2: So tailing's all done now, just the hoggets to do?
15:33
Speaker 3: Yeah, just we tailed a couple of Sundays ago. So
15:38
Speaker 3: it's just the Boba Lake ewes, about 120 of them
15:40
Speaker 3: and the hoggets to go. So yeah, it's... haven't set
15:44
Speaker 3: any records didn't expect to set any records uh so
15:48
Speaker 3: far through the pens being on what i have done
15:50
Speaker 3: for the last two years so it sort of sums
15:53
Speaker 3: up how average it's been but it is quite satisfying
15:57
Speaker 3: um the younger ewes haven't like they've been tailing better
16:00
Speaker 3: and better every year so it just goes to show
16:03
Speaker 3: like breeding program i've sort of got in place is
16:06
Speaker 3: working just trying to um trying to get the ewes
16:09
Speaker 3: to do it for themselves a lot better, trying to
16:11
Speaker 3: push that mothering ability into them and lamb survival into them, um,
16:15
Speaker 3: is paying dividends compared to the older ewes. Like, yeah,
16:18
Speaker 3: some of them are pretty rubbish to be fair. And
16:20
Speaker 3: if you are buying a few, one, about a 201
16:22
Speaker 3: year ewes every year, um, get them and lamb, get
16:25
Speaker 3: the lamb out of them and, uh, kill them at
16:28
Speaker 3: weaning time. And yeah, some of them have been a
16:30
Speaker 3: wee bit average too. So that sort of hurts the
16:32
Speaker 3: lambing percentage a wee bit, but they're, they're just trading
16:35
Speaker 3: stock at the end of the day. So, um, Quite
16:38
Speaker 3: a few of them were wet dries, and they've gone
16:40
Speaker 3: down to the yards and doubled their money in the
16:42
Speaker 3: few months that they've been here. So, yeah, definitely can't
16:45
Speaker 3: complain with them at the moment.
16:47
Speaker 2: Now, your criteria for your wet dries, we spoke last time,
16:51
Speaker 2: you were pretty cut and dried as to what stayed,
16:54
Speaker 2: and if anything had to be touched, it was gone.
16:56
Speaker 1: Has that affected your numbers at all?
17:00
Speaker 3: No, it doesn't, to be honest, Andy.
17:01
Speaker 2: No.
17:02
Speaker 3: I had a pretty good scanning in my hogget, so
17:04
Speaker 3: all of them will stay as replacements, even the wet-drys
17:08
Speaker 3: out of them. I'll put a black tag in there
17:10
Speaker 3: and they'll just go in my terminal flock. And then
17:13
Speaker 3: with those one-year-users that I buy in, they pretty much
17:18
Speaker 3: make up the numbers. If there's any holes in it,
17:19
Speaker 3: then I'll just go and buy a few extra of them.
17:23
Speaker 3: And they just fit my system pretty well. As soon
17:25
Speaker 3: as I came home here, I sort of had in
17:27
Speaker 3: my mind I don't want to carry... my full quota
17:30
Speaker 3: of ewes through the summer. The mulberry ewes are very good,
17:34
Speaker 3: very handy over the summer to keep on top of
17:37
Speaker 3: quality and tidy paddocks up. But there's no need for, well,
17:42
Speaker 3: I don't think there's no need for a place in
17:44
Speaker 3: Watermanes to be carrying 1,600 ewes through the summer. It's
17:47
Speaker 3: just good feed going into them. So it's why you
17:50
Speaker 3: have a proportion of one-year ewes each year that come
17:52
Speaker 3: in and go straight back out at weaning time, and
17:54
Speaker 3: then it just leaves a bit of a hole. through
17:56
Speaker 3: the summer. So yeah, it seems to fit my system
17:59
Speaker 3: not too bad.
18:00
Speaker 2: So the trading system as such works pretty well for you,
18:03
Speaker 2: it's fair to say.
18:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, it does. That does. Like having those ewes go
18:07
Speaker 3: out at weaning time, then all of a sudden it
18:09
Speaker 3: frees up space for some store lambs. I've got, normally
18:14
Speaker 3: try buying a few store lambs each summer and got
18:16
Speaker 3: a couple hundred freezing bull calves at 100 kilos, they'll
18:20
Speaker 3: start turning up in, well I suppose in the next
18:22
Speaker 3: month or so. So it's just trying to But yeah,
18:26
Speaker 3: trying to get a system like it's placed like mine,
18:28
Speaker 3: I personally think should be a full finishing system, full
18:33
Speaker 3: trading system. But I'm quite passionate about my breeding ewes
18:37
Speaker 3: and trying to get them going. So yeah, that's why
18:41
Speaker 3: I've still got a flock running around. But ideally, it
18:44
Speaker 3: would become a finishing system.
18:46
Speaker 2: Based on the spring we've seen, you're not tempted to
18:49
Speaker 2: move your lambing dates?
18:52
Speaker 3: I've been, yes. I have been thinking about if I'd
18:55
Speaker 3: done anything, I'd probably push it back 10 days. And
18:58
Speaker 3: that is solely, when you look at the woodlands pasture
19:01
Speaker 3: growth and like that for a second week of September,
19:05
Speaker 3: like we're still average. Like I still, I think if
19:07
Speaker 3: I push my lambing date even to the 10th of September,
19:12
Speaker 3: got those ewes hitting their peak milk just as that
19:16
Speaker 3: flush of grass is coming through, it would pay dividends.
19:19
Speaker 3: Like I really don't think we'd see a difference at
19:23
Speaker 3: weaning time, even, uh, lambing 10 days later, just because
19:27
Speaker 3: that grass is hitting peak milk perfectly. Um, so yeah,
19:31
Speaker 3: I would, I would consider it. Um, and I, yeah,
19:35
Speaker 3: I possibly will do, I wouldn't be around the weather
19:38
Speaker 3: or anything. Cause if we get a really good September
19:40
Speaker 3: and I don't think you'll, uh, you'll hear me complaining
19:43
Speaker 3: about having too much grass Andy. So yeah, I am
19:45
Speaker 3: definitely considering it.
19:47
Speaker 1: So how far through would your hoggets be?
19:49
Speaker 3: Uh, I just started shedding them out this morning. So
19:53
Speaker 3: they got the ram for 23 days. So if my
19:56
Speaker 3: maths is right, it should be Friday. Yeah, this Friday
20:00
Speaker 3: coming should be when the ram came out. So, yeah,
20:04
Speaker 3: I suppose they'll be the odd lamb over the weekend
20:06
Speaker 3: and then they'll be then pretty much tidied up.
20:08
Speaker 2: So you've hit October, Labour weekend's not that far away.
20:12
Speaker 2: Are you in a position that you can kind of
20:15
Speaker 2: just kick back a little bit on weekends now, or
20:17
Speaker 2: the track to work and the likes takes precedence?
20:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's even this weekend just been, to be fair,
20:23
Speaker 3: the Hoggarts, well, they look after, we had rugby cabaret
20:27
Speaker 3: on Saturday night, so Hoggarts looked after themselves on Sunday morning,
20:30
Speaker 3: and we, yeah, we're in a space now where everything's
20:33
Speaker 3: still got everything to do, like track to work and stuff,
20:36
Speaker 3: but Try to prioritise that over the weekend and spend
20:38
Speaker 3: a bit of time with the family on the weekend. Yeah,
20:43
Speaker 3: but there's always stuff to be done, to be fair.
20:47
Speaker 3: We should definitely ease the workload up from now on, hopefully.
20:50
Speaker 1: The farm work is never done, Matt. Always appreciate your time.
20:53
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you very much for that, Andy. We'll talk
20:55
Speaker 3: to you next time.
20:58
Speaker 2: Matt Ward, based out at Moreton Mains. You're listening to
21:01
Speaker 2: The Muster, up next in studio, Graham Butcher, farm consultant
21:04
Speaker 2: based here in Gore. This is the muster on Hokanui.
21:19
Speaker 2: Graeme Butch, a farm consultant, joins us once again. How
21:22
Speaker 2: are you going?
21:23
Speaker 7: I'm very well, and yourself?
21:25
Speaker 1: Makes a change having sunshine.
21:26
Speaker 7: Oh, it makes a huge difference. You know, getting into October,
21:29
Speaker 7: the weather pattern just changed. Simple as that.
21:32
Speaker 1: Today we're talking eulactation.
21:34
Speaker 4: Yes.
21:35
Speaker 1: You need milk in the girls to feed those lambs
21:37
Speaker 1: to get them to grow.
21:38
Speaker 7: So it's ewe lactation 101. When you look at the
21:43
Speaker 7: lactation of ewes, two to six weeks after they lamb,
21:48
Speaker 7: they peak at lactation. That's their peak lactation. So it's
21:53
Speaker 7: very early on in the lactation that they actually peak.
21:55
Speaker 7: So they come up quite strongly to that point. Now
21:58
Speaker 7: that's between day 14 and 42 so it depends which
22:01
Speaker 7: data you read. A lot of this stuff comes from
22:03
Speaker 7: dairy milk breeds because it's easy to measure what happens
22:06
Speaker 7: but the lactation curves will be similar anyway. So once
22:10
Speaker 7: they hit that peak there's a steady decline regardless of
22:14
Speaker 7: how you feed them. Now that's quite an important sort
22:17
Speaker 7: of thing to think about and it declines by about
22:20
Speaker 7: 30 grams of milk a day. That's about 0.3 of
22:23
Speaker 7: a litre. So When you look at the ewe intake,
22:29
Speaker 7: to reach that peak that they need to get to,
22:32
Speaker 7: it's two and a half kilos of dry matter for
22:34
Speaker 7: single ewes and about three kilos for twin ewes, which
22:37
Speaker 7: is about all they can eat. So they're going to
22:38
Speaker 7: be fully fed to reach that peak. Now, as I said,
22:41
Speaker 7: the really interesting thing is once they hit that peak,
22:44
Speaker 7: regardless of how you feed them, it declines. If they
22:48
Speaker 7: get underfed in the early part of lactation, you don't
22:51
Speaker 7: reach that peak. It blunts it, takes the edge off it.
22:55
Speaker 7: and then it starts to decline.
22:56
Speaker 2: Well, you've pretty much summed up the Southland Spring there.
22:59
Speaker 3: Pretty much.
23:00
Speaker 7: So really, the measures from that, unless you've nailed your
23:03
Speaker 7: peak lactation by tailing time, you're probably not going to,
23:06
Speaker 7: so that's going to have an impact on your weaning weights.
23:11
Speaker 7: The ewes are still going to produce milk, but not
23:12
Speaker 7: nearly enough to keep twin lambs going. The single lambs,
23:17
Speaker 7: because they're getting all the milk off their mum, they
23:19
Speaker 7: actually don't affect it so badly. It's the multiples that are,
23:24
Speaker 7: more badly affected so the whole issue about reaching that
23:28
Speaker 7: peak lactation is the condition of the ewe when she
23:31
Speaker 7: lambs all the things we've been talking about for donkey's
23:33
Speaker 7: years condition of the ewes when she lambs when you
23:37
Speaker 7: lamb and the pasture cover when you're lambing so if
23:40
Speaker 7: a ewe lambs in pretty good condition she'll buffer that
23:45
Speaker 7: lack of feed intake but not for long so a
23:47
Speaker 7: ewe in good condition is a better position to be
23:50
Speaker 7: in than one that's a bit skinny um Quite an
23:53
Speaker 7: important issue. If we can avoid losing live weight on
23:58
Speaker 7: our ewes up to weaning, that has quite a big
24:02
Speaker 7: impact on things because after weaning, when a ewe loses
24:08
Speaker 7: a kilogram of body weight, she generates about 65 megajoules
24:12
Speaker 7: of ME of energy. Well, sorry, 17. Take that back,
24:15
Speaker 7: which is not a lot. To put that kilogram of
24:18
Speaker 7: live weight back on, she needs to eat about 65
24:20
Speaker 7: kgs kgs, megajoules of metabolisable energy. So there's a big
24:27
Speaker 7: difference from the energy cost of putting on a kilogram
24:31
Speaker 7: to what energy you get out of it when you
24:33
Speaker 7: mobilise it.
24:34
Speaker 2: So how do you cover that shortfall when you've got
24:36
Speaker 2: a feed deficit like we've had then?
24:38
Speaker 7: Well, how do you cover the shortfall? Prioritising the twins,
24:43
Speaker 7: maybe a bit of nitrogen early on if you're expecting
24:45
Speaker 7: something to happen. Feeding baleage, feeding anything to make up
24:50
Speaker 7: that deficit. That's all you can do. The other key
24:54
Speaker 7: thing is what we've been talking about for the last
24:56
Speaker 7: couple of months now is the time you choose to
24:59
Speaker 7: lamb your ewes because the later you leave it, the
25:01
Speaker 7: shorter that period's going to be of the deficit. So
25:05
Speaker 7: to me, that's quite an important issue. So as I said,
25:08
Speaker 7: if you haven't nailed your peak lactation by tailing, you're
25:12
Speaker 7: probably not going to get there because no matter how
25:14
Speaker 7: much the feed comes away, how much you're putting into
25:16
Speaker 7: the ewe, her lactation is still going to decline. So
25:19
Speaker 7: that's quite an important sort of principle. If we look at,
25:24
Speaker 7: the sort of amount of milk that sheep can produce.
25:27
Speaker 7: If you take dairy sheep, your average dairy sheep does
25:29
Speaker 7: about 260 litres. Good dairy sheep can do up to
25:34
Speaker 7: 600 to purebred East Frisians. That's their 150-day period. So
25:37
Speaker 7: somewhere between, say, 300 and 600. New Zealand Romneys do
25:42
Speaker 7: a little bit over 100 litres for 56 days. It's
25:46
Speaker 7: not a lot. The heritability of the persistence in lactation
25:51
Speaker 7: production is medium or low to medium, so it's worth,
25:56
Speaker 7: there's enough there to do genetic selection on it, but
25:58
Speaker 7: it's not happening, other than the fact that we're selecting
26:01
Speaker 7: sheep for weaning weight. So the component of that is lactation,
26:05
Speaker 7: of course. So lactation's pretty important to get right. Getting
26:11
Speaker 7: that lactation right is you've got to look at your
26:14
Speaker 7: whole farm management system, when you lamb, conditions at lambing,
26:18
Speaker 7: condition of the ewe, all those sorts of things, and
26:20
Speaker 7: it's quite a complex sort of combination of things. So,
26:25
Speaker 7: you know, to hit that peak of lactation and to
26:28
Speaker 7: have proper intakes of the ewes fully fed, you're talking
26:32
Speaker 7: up to three kilos, maybe more, in weaning weight of lambs,
26:35
Speaker 7: which is quite significant.
26:37
Speaker 2: How have farmers got through then of what you're seeing
26:39
Speaker 2: to date? Well, how are they coping with the situation?
26:41
Speaker 7: Oh, some farms are doing okay. A lot aren't.
26:45
Speaker 2: Parts of Northern Southland seem to be better off than, say,
26:47
Speaker 2: down Southland. That's just the nature of the game.
26:49
Speaker 7: I think the critical ones are sort of around the Catlins,
26:51
Speaker 7: Lower Southland. Western Southland, pretty wet over there. So, yeah,
26:58
Speaker 7: they'll be struggling. I mean, the issue is the lambs
27:02
Speaker 7: that live are going to be lighter, but the even
27:04
Speaker 7: bigger issue is the lambs that died are not going
27:06
Speaker 7: to be on a P & L sheet at the
27:08
Speaker 7: end of the year. A deal of lambs worth nothing.
27:11
Speaker 7: So you've got to consider these things. You could probably
27:14
Speaker 7: talk about weaning weights if feed conditions don't pick up.
27:19
Speaker 7: Anything less than 18 kilos in a lamb, you're probably
27:23
Speaker 7: not doing it any justice by weaning it, because the
27:25
Speaker 7: ewes are probably still lactating a wee bit. So, you know,
27:30
Speaker 7: between 8 and 12 weeks, if you're sure to feed,
27:32
Speaker 7: you'd probably get away with it.
27:34
Speaker 2: Do you have any idea, what's the average weaning weight,
27:36
Speaker 2: what's the average lamb kill weight in Southland, would you say?
27:39
Speaker 2: Any ideas?
27:40
Speaker 7: Lamb kill weight?
27:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, what would be the average weight? That'd be an
27:43
Speaker 1: interesting one, wouldn't it?
27:44
Speaker 7: Carcass weight you're talking about. Carcass weight, yeah. It'll be
27:47
Speaker 7: in excess of 18, 18 and a half degrees, degrees. Kilograms.
27:51
Speaker 2: Kilograms.
27:52
Speaker 7: I've been very concerned about temperature degrees recently.
27:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be interesting.
27:56
Speaker 7: So, you know, we won't know until this year's been gone.
28:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it's interesting. It's something to ponder.
28:02
Speaker 7: It is. Yes, it is. I mean, lactation is pretty important.
28:07
Speaker 2: Have you had anybody come up to you and say,
28:09
Speaker 2: like Henry Buckingham, he's been lambing for, what, he started
28:12
Speaker 2: about the 4th or the 5th, now the 13th of October.
28:15
Speaker 2: Have you been speaking to any clients or any farmers
28:17
Speaker 2: who are looking at changing their lambing system based on
28:20
Speaker 2: the spring?
28:22
Speaker 7: I think, and I would like to think, that a
28:24
Speaker 7: lot of farmers are questioning what they're doing. I mentioned
28:30
Speaker 7: this last time, I had Chris Brandolino meeting.
28:32
Speaker 8: Yeah.
28:33
Speaker 3: He.
28:35
Speaker 7: I asked him the question, is three or four wet,
28:38
Speaker 7: cold springs in a row an indication of something's happening,
28:41
Speaker 7: something's changing? And after a whole lot of discussion and whatever,
28:44
Speaker 7: he said, yes, 100% it is, driven by climate warming.
28:48
Speaker 7: And we won't get into who's causing the climate warming,
28:52
Speaker 7: but the climate's always changed. Yeah. Since Adam was a boy.
28:56
Speaker 7: So things may be changing, and we've got to consider
29:01
Speaker 7: all these things. Are the lambs worth what they're worth now?
29:03
Speaker 4: Yeah.
29:04
Speaker 7: We've got to take things seriously, and good honour to
29:08
Speaker 7: the Buckinghams for making a pretty dramatic change.
29:11
Speaker 1: That's pretty much it, Graeme. Thank you, as always.
29:13
Speaker 2: Enjoy the afternoon.
29:14
Speaker 7: No problem.
29:17
Speaker 2: Graeme Butcher, farm consultant. Those milking figures coming out of
29:21
Speaker 2: you is interesting too. You don't really think of it
29:23
Speaker 2: in that context.
29:24
Speaker 1: I suppose, do you?
29:25
Speaker 2: Anyway, we'll carry on. Up next, Alex and Hamish McAllum
29:28
Speaker 2: out of Biocharger listening to the muster. Every day in
29:32
Speaker 2: a long picture with my mirror.
29:42
Speaker 1: Welcome back, this is the muster on Hokanui.
29:46
Speaker 2: Joined in studio this afternoon by Hamish and Alex McCallum
29:50
Speaker 2: out of BioCharge.
29:51
Speaker 1: Gentlemen, good afternoon, welcome into Hokanui.
29:54
Speaker 7: G'day.
29:54
Speaker 2: G'day. Hey Hamish, we'll start with you first. BioCharge, you guys,
30:00
Speaker 2: well you've just joined up with Hockanui. Firstly, a bit
30:03
Speaker 2: of a background about yourself. How you got involved?
30:06
Speaker 9: Right, so many years ago I came back from the
30:08
Speaker 9: Middle East and got involved with developing fish hydrolysates and
30:16
Speaker 9: many people will know me from other companies where I've
30:18
Speaker 9: developed various brews of biologicals. However, last April we decided,
30:24
Speaker 9: my son and I decided to go ahead and do
30:27
Speaker 9: our own thing. And we're up and doing it. I
30:29
Speaker 9: had the pleasure of meeting, when I got back, Stan Winter,
30:33
Speaker 9: who is one of my mentors. But Alex decided to
30:38
Speaker 9: sell his e-com business and join the company.
30:40
Speaker 2: How are you finding it, Alex? We'll bring you in.
30:43
Speaker 2: Enjoying working with Dan?
30:46
Speaker 5: Yeah, it can be challenging at times. It's a big change,
30:53
Speaker 5: but definitely loving it. It's sort of been three years
30:56
Speaker 5: in the making with Dad and listening, well, probably 10 years, really,
31:00
Speaker 5: of just listening to Dad's ideas and the journey he's
31:03
Speaker 5: gone through around soil biology. I mean, probably 10 years ago,
31:07
Speaker 5: the idea around fish hydroslates and stuff was deemed as
31:11
Speaker 5: a snake oil. And I think dad was probably told
31:14
Speaker 5: to bugger off from a few farms or whatever, up
31:17
Speaker 5: a few driveways. But things have changed. And now, you know,
31:21
Speaker 5: the focus on soil biology is really sort of becoming
31:24
Speaker 5: a wee bit more talked about and mainstream. So, yeah,
31:28
Speaker 5: it's just a completely different thing to me. But every
31:32
Speaker 5: day is a school day and I'm here to just
31:33
Speaker 5: keep learning.
31:34
Speaker 2: BioCharge has been a while in the making.
31:37
Speaker 9: Yeah, we're a young company, but we're also quite old.
31:41
Speaker 9: The fact of the matter is I've done this now
31:43
Speaker 9: on two or three different continents. So I bring quite
31:48
Speaker 9: a bit of knowledge, I think, to it. But the
31:49
Speaker 9: real exciting thing this year to me is the fact
31:53
Speaker 9: that joining up with KiwiFoss and LM Mining to bring
31:58
Speaker 9: locally mined New Zealand phosphate gives us conventional fertiliser and
32:02
Speaker 9: also being able to supply magnesium at a very, very
32:08
Speaker 9: competitive price from Green Hills has really opened up doors
32:12
Speaker 9: for us, really, because that conventional stuff's still needed, and
32:16
Speaker 9: we're very competitive in the market. In fact, very, very competitive.
32:20
Speaker 9: And we don't have, as I was saying to you before,
32:24
Speaker 9: we have no restrictions. We don't have a straight or
32:26
Speaker 9: a most to navigate with our products. Our biggest product problem, sorry,
32:32
Speaker 9: is roadworks or someone moving their sheep. That might slow
32:35
Speaker 9: up our deliveries, but... Having those two products and an
32:39
Speaker 9: exciting product called Solari N30 coming to the market, and
32:43
Speaker 9: Alex will probably talk more on that. But, yeah, no,
32:47
Speaker 9: it looks like a very good year. Just the bloody weather.
32:49
Speaker 9: It's been terrible.
32:50
Speaker 2: And on that, how do you look at the soil biology,
32:53
Speaker 2: knowing you've had two months of rain, solid?
32:56
Speaker 9: Hey, look, you've just got to be patient. When everything's
32:58
Speaker 9: got wet feet, it's got wet feet. There's no air
33:01
Speaker 9: in the soil.
33:02
Speaker 7: It'll come.
33:02
Speaker 9: It has in the last week, 10 days, come right,
33:04
Speaker 9: and you can see all the pasture growing away. I
33:08
Speaker 9: feel a wee bit sorry for the guys who've been
33:10
Speaker 9: out with helicopters and trying to do what they can
33:13
Speaker 9: to promote pasture growth. But really patience is key at
33:17
Speaker 9: this time of year.
33:18
Speaker 1: So you've got to play the long game.
33:19
Speaker 2: That's the only way you can look at it.
33:21
Speaker 9: Yeah, everybody's looking for that magic fix. And probably now
33:26
Speaker 9: is the time to look at looking to increase your
33:29
Speaker 9: pasture dry matter and get yourself ahead of the game.
33:34
Speaker 9: As I said before, this El Nino is a real thing.
33:37
Speaker 9: And the climate changing is a real thing.
33:41
Speaker 7: And I think.
33:41
Speaker 9: Farmers need to be well aware of that, and especially
33:45
Speaker 9: not just this year, but in future years to come.
33:48
Speaker 2: How do farmers negate El Niño, Alex? What's the best
33:50
Speaker 2: way to approach it?
33:52
Speaker 5: Well, we're doing some work around colloidal silica, which is
33:58
Speaker 5: a relatively hot topic overseas at the moment. We're really
34:01
Speaker 5: interested in providing some on-farm research with a product we
34:05
Speaker 5: call Solara N30. It's a New Zealand-based colloidal silica that
34:10
Speaker 5: produces monosilic acid. And monosilic acid is now an aid
34:16
Speaker 5: to help improve the uptake of phosphate considerably into the plant.
34:22
Speaker 5: But what's really quite exciting here, probably not so much
34:24
Speaker 5: down in Southend, but more for our customers up the
34:27
Speaker 5: East Coast where we're predicting to see more of a drought,
34:30
Speaker 5: is the strengthening of those sales walls and reduction of
34:33
Speaker 5: transpiration of the plant. really just shows some promise for
34:39
Speaker 5: drought resistance. So that's a product that we're really, with
34:42
Speaker 5: the El Nino coming, we're really excited to work with
34:46
Speaker 5: people to get it on, get it applied, and use
34:49
Speaker 5: it as a, how would you call it, dad? It's
34:51
Speaker 5: not a silver bullet, but it's definitely part of the
34:54
Speaker 5: toolbox of that management process for a head. How would
34:57
Speaker 5: you say?
34:57
Speaker 9: Yeah, well, combining it, on its own it's a good product,
35:02
Speaker 9: but when you combine it, You remember the days everybody
35:06
Speaker 9: used gibberellic acid and also extended the cell wall plant
35:10
Speaker 9: and made a great big watery plant that looked good
35:13
Speaker 9: from the road. And that probably did look good from
35:18
Speaker 9: the road, but it probably wasn't doing the animal much good.
35:20
Speaker 9: So we've now combined that with about 8 grams of
35:25
Speaker 9: gib to the hectare, 300 mils only of our Solarian 30,
35:31
Speaker 9: and 10 to 15 litres of our fish. And we've
35:35
Speaker 9: got that going on on various farms at the moment
35:38
Speaker 9: in research. And look, the initial studies are showing us
35:41
Speaker 9: that we're doing pretty well because one combats the other.
35:44
Speaker 9: Celara is strengthening the cell walls of the plant while
35:48
Speaker 9: the gibb acid is trying to accelerate the elongated growth.
35:53
Speaker 7: And we are.
35:54
Speaker 9: Seeing a denser dry matter in the sward, at the
35:58
Speaker 9: bottom of the sward of the plant.
36:00
Speaker 7: So that's exciting.
36:02
Speaker 2: So it's all liquid fertilizer you guys deal with?
36:04
Speaker 7: No, no, no.
36:05
Speaker 9: We've got conventional phosphate, phosphate rock. We have to call
36:09
Speaker 9: it DARP, which is direct application phosphate rock. It's got
36:14
Speaker 9: around six to seven somewhere in there, but it's a
36:16
Speaker 9: natural product. And then we've also got, and it has
36:20
Speaker 9: about one unit of P in it. But the key
36:23
Speaker 9: to this, it is biologically biograze certified and has no
36:28
Speaker 9: heavy metals. So you don't get any cadmium. You don't
36:31
Speaker 9: get any chromium. There's no heavy metals at all. They're
36:34
Speaker 9: not detected so far around the X-ray diffraction. And we
36:39
Speaker 9: give you one unit of potassium in there for nothing.
36:43
Speaker 1: What's your key message to farmers today?
36:46
Speaker 9: Look, I think, you know, with the weather conditions we've had,
36:49
Speaker 9: patience is key. The weather's going to come right. The
36:54
Speaker 9: soil's going to come right. If you really want to
36:57
Speaker 9: get things pinging, go and get yourself an aerator. Make
37:01
Speaker 9: sure that you release a bit of oxygen into that
37:04
Speaker 9: soil because the dam stuff's pugged.
37:07
Speaker 7: And you'll see benefits.
37:08
Speaker 9: You'll see it happen. Try a bit of our product.
37:11
Speaker 7: See how you go.
37:12
Speaker 9: We'd love to get some more people on our research programs.
37:16
Speaker 9: So just contact us at biocharge.co.nz. And, hey, look, we'd
37:21
Speaker 9: just love to have a chat to you.
37:23
Speaker 2: Good on you guys.
37:23
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming in studio this afternoon.
37:25
Speaker 2: Appreciate your time.
37:26
Speaker 7: Cheers, man.
37:29
Speaker 2: Hamish and Alex McKellum of BioCharge. Josh Bennett's up next
37:33
Speaker 2: to wrap up. This is the muster on Hokanui. Josh
37:49
Speaker 2: Bennett joins us next. He's farming at Balfour, but he
37:53
Speaker 2: is part of Waitani Young Farmers.
37:55
Speaker 1: G'day, Josh.
37:56
Speaker 2: Up there in Balfour, ground conditions today?
37:59
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, we're pretty good. We're flat out on the
38:02
Speaker 6: track to work, getting the spring cereal crops in. So, yeah, no,
38:06
Speaker 6: it's going pretty good at the moment, yeah.
38:08
Speaker 1: Because I.
38:10
Speaker 2: Think you guys haven't been as bad as certain parts
38:13
Speaker 2: of the region, but nonetheless it has been pretty darn wet.
38:16
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, we haven't been as bad as, like, Riverton
38:20
Speaker 6: down those ways. We've probably had about 100 less mills.
38:24
Speaker 6: for the month of September. So, I mean, it's been
38:27
Speaker 6: a little bit difficult to get on the paddocks, but
38:29
Speaker 6: we're getting there now.
38:31
Speaker 2: Lambing's all done and dusted?
38:33
Speaker 6: Yeah, lambing's all done and dusted, and we got the
38:37
Speaker 6: young farmers out to tail a few mobs on Friday night,
38:41
Speaker 6: Saturday morning. So we've got just under 1,800 of those
38:45
Speaker 6: tidied up as well.
38:47
Speaker 1: That's right. You're the regonade in the Balfour region, aren't you?
38:50
Speaker 3: You're the rebellious one.
38:53
Speaker 6: Yeah, big wooden spoon, like to stir it up.
38:56
Speaker 2: Fair enough, mate. It's a great way to earn money,
38:59
Speaker 2: fundraisers and that kind of thing. The group of you
39:02
Speaker 2: doing it, and we talked about this last week with Harry,
39:05
Speaker 2: it's enjoyable to do and there's a heap of you there.
39:08
Speaker 6: Yeah, it really is. It's good when you can get
39:12
Speaker 6: a group of people in the tailing team. It makes
39:15
Speaker 6: it enjoyable when you've got plenty of young fellas there
39:17
Speaker 6: and then all those lambs, that means I don't have
39:20
Speaker 6: to pick them up at the end of the day either.
39:22
Speaker 1: Would you still call yourself a young fella?
39:25
Speaker 6: Oh, yeah, I think so, yeah.
39:28
Speaker 1: Hey, it was a big weekend, Josh, up there. in
39:30
Speaker 1: the basin.
39:30
Speaker 2: They had the bark up for Te Anau Young Farmers. Waitangi,
39:34
Speaker 2: you guys were there tailing in the morning, so it
39:36
Speaker 2: was a case of work hard, play hard.
39:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, the guys, Harry, Isla, Jackie, they did a great
39:44
Speaker 6: job in the rest of the Te Anau committee putting
39:47
Speaker 6: on a great bark up. But yeah, no, it was
39:50
Speaker 6: an awesome night. And then obviously Mark Gascoigne came a
39:55
Speaker 6: little bit earlier and talked to a group of us,
39:58
Speaker 6: which I got a lot out, like his positive outlooks
40:05
Speaker 6: on life and whatnot. Talking about mental health was really
40:09
Speaker 6: good as well.
40:10
Speaker 2: But you guys and young farmers, is there something you
40:12
Speaker 2: openly talk about regarding mental health or do people confide
40:17
Speaker 2: if they're going through a rough patch?
40:20
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's probably a little bit taboo still, but I
40:24
Speaker 6: think as all this mental health stuff from Farm Strong
40:30
Speaker 6: Rural Health and you see people like John Curran and
40:34
Speaker 6: whatnot open up more about it, I think it's something
40:38
Speaker 6: that gets talked about at the pub a bit more
40:40
Speaker 6: often now because it's tough on the rural community when
40:44
Speaker 6: you see some of your close mates... feeling a bit
40:48
Speaker 6: down and farming's no good anymore. So, yeah, we don't
40:52
Speaker 6: want that to happen. It's about having those conversations early
40:57
Speaker 6: and keeping an eye on your mates, really, yeah.
41:00
Speaker 2: Interesting you say there's still a little bit of a
41:02
Speaker 2: stigma around it. Trust me, from where it was 30
41:05
Speaker 2: years ago to where it is now, it's a total
41:08
Speaker 2: change in attitude. What's it going to take to change
41:12
Speaker 2: the attitudes totally then?
41:15
Speaker 6: I think.
41:17
Speaker 6: I think what's good is people, like what Mark said,
41:23
Speaker 6: is people that everyone's going through their different stuff and
41:28
Speaker 6: everyone's got stuff that's going on at home that's not
41:32
Speaker 6: always rosy. And the more that you have those conversations
41:35
Speaker 6: with those friends, then they'll open up, you'll open up more,
41:40
Speaker 6: and then people can feel like they can combine in
41:44
Speaker 6: the mates as well. to keep the conversation rolling. I
41:48
Speaker 6: think that's a great part. One of Mark's golden rules
41:53
Speaker 6: for FarmStrong was connections. Go out and have those two beers.
41:57
Speaker 6: Don't sit at home and sit on the couch on
42:00
Speaker 6: a Friday night by yourself. Go out to the bar,
42:03
Speaker 6: go out to the pub and just have a chinwag
42:05
Speaker 6: and take your mind off things.
42:07
Speaker 2: But it can be far too easy just to sit
42:09
Speaker 2: at home and put it in the too hard basket.
42:12
Speaker 2: When you get older, that happens occasionally. But look, with
42:15
Speaker 2: your age group too, is that a thing? People just
42:17
Speaker 2: don't want to go out because of anxiety?
42:20
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I don't really see it first
42:25
Speaker 6: hand a lot. But yeah, I believe it will be
42:28
Speaker 6: a thing, people, especially over lambing and calving. Like you're
42:34
Speaker 6: putting in a lot of hours and then... If the
42:36
Speaker 6: weather's not as good, you push to the limit even
42:39
Speaker 6: more and you think, oh, if I go out, I'm
42:43
Speaker 6: going to affect tomorrow's workload. But you only have to
42:45
Speaker 6: come out for a few hours and have a Coke
42:49
Speaker 6: and Raspberry at the pub and just let the hair
42:53
Speaker 6: down every now and again because 30 or 40 days straight,
42:56
Speaker 6: which some of these young guys do, is pretty tough.
43:01
Speaker 2: Keep spreading that message Josh and I just urge everybody
43:05
Speaker 2: out there if they need to get in touch, go
43:08
Speaker 2: and confide in a mate. Ask your mates, are you okay?
43:11
Speaker 2: How are you doing? Southland Rural Support Trust doing a
43:13
Speaker 2: fantastic job out there so let's get this out in
43:16
Speaker 2: the open. It's no longer a taboo subject. Now Waitare
43:19
Speaker 2: Young Farmers, meeting dates, events coming up, what's happening?
43:24
Speaker 6: Ah yeah, so we just had our meeting last night
43:27
Speaker 6: so we're the second Tuesday, second Monday of every month
43:32
Speaker 6: around the Gore area to look up for more information.
43:37
Speaker 6: Hit us up on our Facebook page. That's where all
43:40
Speaker 6: the information is. And we're going to get into a
43:43
Speaker 6: few more tiling fundraisers as the month goes on and
43:47
Speaker 6: probably hit up a few more bar cups as well. So, no,
43:51
Speaker 6: it should be good.
43:52
Speaker 2: Because young farmers, they're really good at supporting their own
43:55
Speaker 2: with these events.
43:56
Speaker 1: You're quite happy to travel.
43:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It's the connections and the conversations you
44:02
Speaker 6: have with all the new faces is bloody brilliant. So, yeah,
44:08
Speaker 6: it's good to get off the farm and go for
44:10
Speaker 6: a wee ticky tour and see how the other areas
44:13
Speaker 6: are going.
44:14
Speaker 2: You guys will do tail twisters at the end of
44:16
Speaker 2: the meeting, I suppose. Anybody you'd like to name in shame?
44:20
Speaker 6: I think it was actually... We do a wooden spoon
44:24
Speaker 6: at the end of each month, but it was actually
44:26
Speaker 6: me last night. I... Went for a bit of a
44:29
Speaker 6: slide in the tractor and might have went through a fence.
44:34
Speaker 1: Oh, geez.
44:34
Speaker 2: I don't know if it was really a tail twist.
44:35
Speaker 2: It was about making sure you were all right.
44:38
Speaker 6: Yeah, no. There was no damage done. It was just, yeah,
44:42
Speaker 6: we do a wooden spoon of the muck up of
44:44
Speaker 6: the month.
44:46
Speaker 2: Muck up of the month. I like that terminology.
44:48
Speaker 1: Hey, good on you, Josh. Thanks for your time and
44:50
Speaker 1: really great messaging today as well.
44:53
Speaker 6: Good as. Cheers, Andy.
44:57
Speaker 8: Laugh out loud with Ag Proud, because life on the
45:01
Speaker 8: land can be a laughing matter.
45:03
Speaker 2: Brought to us by Shearwell Data, working to help the
45:06
Speaker 2: livestock farmer. I had a mate that went to a
45:08
Speaker 2: meeting for premature ejaculation today. Unfortunately, it turns out it's tomorrow.
45:18
Speaker 2: Great words there from Josh regarding mental health and the
45:21
Speaker 2: fact that young people are recognising it as well and
45:24
Speaker 2: just talking to it amongst their peers. That's us over
45:27
Speaker 2: in Dunmouth for the afternoon. Andy Muir here. Of course,
45:30
Speaker 2: the show is brought to you by Peter's Genetics. The
45:33
Speaker 2: podcast will be up shortly. And happy birthday to the
45:36
Speaker 2: king of the rural food chain, Jamie Mackay. See you tomorrow.
45:44
Speaker 2: Stock selling action occurs courtesy of PDG Rights and Andrew
45:48
Speaker 2: Martin was on the ground today at the Longville sale
45:50
Speaker 2: yards to give a rundown on prices. Good afternoon, how
45:52
Speaker 2: do we fare?
45:53
Speaker 3: You're not too bad Andy.
45:55
Speaker 8: Certainly on the cattle front we're very, very small numbers.
46:00
Speaker 8: Some reasonable numbers of prime lambs and prime using and
46:05
Speaker 8: a handful of using lambs all counted as well but
46:09
Speaker 8: The best of the old season's lambs were 300 to 350,
46:11
Speaker 8: second cuts at 260 to 290, with lighter prime lambs
46:13
Speaker 8: at 200 through to 250. Best of the ewes today,
46:14
Speaker 8: heavy butcher ewes, 300 to 350, second draftings at 240
46:17
Speaker 8: to 280, third cut ewes at 200 to 220, with
46:18
Speaker 8: the lightest of the ewes ranging from 170 through to 190.
46:35
Speaker 8: Local trade rams were $ 150 through to $ 200 and the
46:39
Speaker 8: second draftings of those were at $ 100 through to $ 140.
46:42
Speaker 8: Yews and lambs all counted, a few of those starting
46:45
Speaker 8: to come out. The best of those were $ 180 through
46:47
Speaker 8: to $ 190 today, $ 160 to $ 170 for the seconds and
46:52
Speaker 8: $ 150 for the third cut of yews and lambs all counted.
46:56
Speaker 8: A handful of store hoggets in today and they ranged
47:01
Speaker 8: from $ 150 through to $ 190. As mentioned, there are very
47:07
Speaker 8: few store cattle in, just a few yearlings. Charolais heifers
47:11
Speaker 8: at 200 k's made $ 1, 060, and Samangas heifers at 185
47:16
Speaker 8: k's made $ 1, 160. A big reason for the light numbers
47:23
Speaker 8: coming through the yards that there is a special cattle
47:26
Speaker 8: sale due for lawnmower this Thursday, that's the 15th of
47:31
Speaker 8: October at 10.30. There's approximately 800 head predominantly yearling cattle,
47:37
Speaker 8: and they will all be yarded overnight and also on
47:41
Speaker 8: the bidder platform. We're also in the bull season selling period,
47:48
Speaker 8: and this Wednesday we have Mrs. C.H. Miller at Pyramid Downs,
47:52
Speaker 8: approximately 32-year-old Hereford bulls, and that commences at 11.30. And
47:59
Speaker 8: on Friday the 16th at 1 p.m. we have Mount Linton,
48:04
Speaker 8: on farm at the station there where there's 55 yearling
48:08
Speaker 8: angus bulls on offer. Reporting at the normal sale yards
48:11
Speaker 8: of PGG Wrightson, I'm Andrew Martin.