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The Muster- Nigel Woodhead: Grass Covers For Lambing · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the muster.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We're away to South Otago now between Barclutha and Milton
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: where we catch up with Nigel Woodhead, 2017 FMG Young
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Farmer of the Year, and he's up on this hilltops
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: this afternoon.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: G'day, Nig.
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, afternoon, Andy.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: You're battling the elements as well as the cold.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, excuse my voice. I'm still coughing and spluttering
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: a bit. I'm on the up, though, like I'm on
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: the way out of it. But, yeah, and, yeah, it's
• 0:38
  Speaker 3: a reasonable sort of day. We haven't had any moisture yet,
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: which is positive, and a bit of a breeze to
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: dry the place out. So, yeah, we'll take it.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Overall, then, you're not looking too back because down in
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Southland it's pretty wet.
• 0:50
  Speaker 3: Ah, we're wet. Yeah, no, no, we're wet. Like, it
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: just sort of seems like every time you get a
• 0:56
  Speaker 3: breezy day and it dries the surface out, there's another
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: four or five mils of rain to turn it back
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: to slop again. So, yeah, we have had more than
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: our fair share of rain, and, yeah, we're definitely wet.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: All the puddles are still full and things. Like, we've
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: sort of shuffled some cattle around last week, took one
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: wee mob of bulls off their fodder beat, and they've
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: just been, got them in a wee block just feeding
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: them baleage, trying to keep them off paddocks as long
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: as possible. And then our bigger mob of bulls have
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: just got their last break of fodder beat today. And
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: then tomorrow we'll put them on their bull rotation blocks
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: and that'll be that. So that's because it was so wet.
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: This time last week, if we'd put bulls on paddocks,
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: we would have absolutely trashed those paddocks. So yeah, just
• 1:47
  Speaker 3: trying to sneak through. And I always want to... I
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: try and make sure we don't get, you know, we
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: get through until the sort of 1st of October before
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: we start on that second rotation of the bull block. So,
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: you know, bull block covers are all right, but they're
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: probably not quite where I wanted them. So we sort
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: of just try and hold cattle on crop paddocks as
• 2:13
  Speaker 3: long as possible until we can, yeah, so that we can, yeah,
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: I think we'll be able to, what are we now, the, 10th, 11th, yeah,
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: we'll be able to get three weeks out of the
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: first rotation so we can get to October before we
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: start the second one, yeah.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: How did this August compare to the last two that
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you've had?
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, not even on the same scale. Like, the last
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: two Augusts have been not too bad. This year's one
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: was pretty tough, actually. Like, we usually get 10 nice
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: warm days in August somewhere, you know, sort of a week,
• 2:44
  Speaker 3: a week. It's usually a string of a week at some,
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: and we get quite a bit of growth and we're good,
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: but this year was quite tough, just cold and wet.
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: And like I say, we're doing all right for feed,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: but if we'd had a half-by-reasonable August, we would have
• 3:01
  Speaker 3: had feed coming out of our ears. So managed to
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: sneak through all right.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: Even though the season's been slow to date then, you
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: sound pretty confident that you can get through, likes of
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: into October then?
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, well, it's too late now. Look, everything's
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: spread out pretty much. We put a ram crane on
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: 10 days into mating and try and sort of split
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: everything roughly in half. And I think I had 1,200
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: twins in the first car, 1,100 or something, and 150
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: in the next one. So, you know, the idea of
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: the ram crane is so that we can hold a
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: percentage of our ewes behind the wire for another week
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: and keep covers, but It's not much of a percentage
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: this year. It hasn't made much of a difference at all. But, yeah,
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: so they're still behind the wire. So, yeah, pretty much
• 3:50
  Speaker 3: everything apart from a couple of unusual stock now. So
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: we've just got to keep our fingers crossed, really. And
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: I've got Urea ordered, so just wait for a nice
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: fine day and wait for the helicopters to catch up,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: and then we'll get some Urea on most of the farm, yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: What about bearings? No different to other seasons, Nige?
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: I think we've had two. So, yes, it's different, and
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: different in a good way. Actually, three, because a hogger
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: had a bearing out the other day, too. So, yeah,
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: we've had three bearings, and the two and the ewes
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: were quite early on, so I just dog-tuckered them, and
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: then this hogger, by the time I found her, she
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: was past it, so she went to the dogs, too. So, yeah,
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: usually I try and fix them and get a lamb
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: out of them and then kill the ewes, but... we're
• 4:42
  Speaker 3: on 0% survival, so that's not a very good stat,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: but we've only had three of them, so it's not
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: too bad.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: How common is it to get Barrington hoggarts?
• 4:51
  Speaker 3: I get the odd one. Just the odd one here
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: and there, but not big numbers. I really try and
• 4:58
  Speaker 3: stack feed in front of the hoggarts and keep the
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: feed up to them, and I reckon the worst thing
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: you can do for a hoggart is underfeed them, so
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: I just feed them as much as I can eat
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: and but it seems to look after them all right, yeah.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: It's a kind of a damned if you do, damned
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: if you don't scenario when you're trying to put the
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: bearing back in.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, if it lives, when you get a lamb,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: all well and good.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: But the flip side is, if you get a chance, well, yeah,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: a bit of tucker for the freezer for the dogs.
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, like I say, we try and put as
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: many bearings back in, or try and put all the
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: bearings back in, and we usually have a pretty good
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: survival rate. I follow my home penicillin, and I always
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: carry MediCam, it's a painkiller with me now, and um
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: any yeah pretty much all the bearings i'll do i'll
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: give them a painkiller and that i reckon makes a
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: big difference um you know just just help them feel
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: a bit more comfortable and yeah then you know those
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: bearing use will just go to the freezer use and
• 5:56
  Speaker 3: um keep an eye on them when you're cruising around
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: at lambing time and make sure they lamb all right
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: and then you know they'll get killed with freezer use
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: in december so um Yeah, like, you know, usually you
• 6:06
  Speaker 3: have reasonable survival and, you know, every lamb's a prisoner
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: around here, so try and get as many lambs alive
• 6:11
  Speaker 3: on the ground as you can.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Well, every lamb's a prisoner because the money's pretty good
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: as well. Oh, yes. It's a no-brainer.
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: No, no, no-brainer, you know, you're right. So, and, you know,
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: we've got a position to be in talking about, you know,
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: we have to keep every lamb alive because they're going
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: to be worth hopefully 200 bucks instead of it wasn't
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: that long ago. We had to keep every lamb alive
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: because if we didn't, we're on the verge of going broke.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's quite a pragmatic approach around it, but pretty
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: relevant for a lot of people as well. I mean,
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: you talk about on-farm inflation, which was pretty peak after COVID-19,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: and it's something that's reared up again lately.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: But it's good this year anyway. A lot of people
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: paying tax.
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no. It's good. I've said it plenty of times.
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: We needed this past 12 months. We needed it. We
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: had four losses in a row, and we haven't actually
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: sat down with the accountant and had a decent nut out,
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: but he did some back-of-the-envelope numbers for us here a
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: while ago and said, oh, don't panic about your tax bill.
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: If you've got any to pay, it won't be much,
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: but there's some pretty big losses to carry forward from
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: the last few years. So we really needed last year's
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: profit just to get back on the even keel. And
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: if we don't pay any tax... which it sounds like
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: we won't pay much, then that essentially means the last
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: four or five years were broken even. So it is good,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: you're right, but at the same time, we needed it
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: as a business because things were getting a bit tough. So,
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: you know, we said it last year, you know, one
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: year's great, you know, one good financial year's good, but
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: if you can stack two or three of them on
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: top of each other, you really make some progress and
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: it feels like it sounds like anyway that there's going
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: to be another reasonable one, so... Hopefully, like you say,
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: we can have another reasonable year. I don't like paying
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: tax any more than the next guy, but if you're
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: paying tax, you're making money, so we'll just pay tax
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: if we need to.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Good on you, Nige. Get that cold under control. We'll
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: catch up with you again. All the best over the
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: next couple of weeks.
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: Good man. Thanks, Andy.
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: Nigel Woodhead in South Otago between Balclutha and Milton being
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: very pragmatic and positive as well as we head into
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: spring properly down here. Mark Kelly's up next out of
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Newstalk ZV. Producer up that way talking a bit of sport.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: The Waz. Big game tomorrow. Mr Saturday Night.