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The Muster- Anieka Templer: Calving Is Almost A Memory · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the muster. That song there, Bat Out
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: of Hell by Meatloaf. It is like nine minutes. What
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: is it? Nine minutes 40 long. So if you're ever
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: a DJ, you need to do a pit stop. There's
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: a song you want to do it to. I mean,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: it's an anthem, I suppose, is one way to deem it.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Anika Templer's up next, getting off track there, just sidetracked.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Farming a bell for dairy farming. Anika, good afternoon. Meatloaf,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: not a bad artist. Gone for not forgotten.
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, good afternoon. Yeah, I don't mind a bit of
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: meatloaf every now and then. Mum and Dad had the
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: CD when I was a kid, so grew up with it.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I had the tape.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: We had mum and dad, I think, had vinyl originally. Well,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: mum did, but.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And then after vinyl was the 8-track, just to go
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: back a couple of days. Look, there's a situation up there.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: You guys, your husband, yourself, Nick, your husband, you're farming
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: a balfour. Last time we spoke to you, you were
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: just about to start carving, and I think the good
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: thing about today is that September is finished.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, and hopefully it's upwards from here on, really, so...
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Windy and overcast, but it's not raining, so it's a
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: good start.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: How have you got through September?
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: Well, you can't control the weather, so we just got on.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: You just have to get on and get it done.
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: It's not nice. It's not nice for anybody. You lay
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: in bed at night and you listen to the rain
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: and you know that your cows are calving in it
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: and they look miserable and it's not fun, but every
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: day you just have to get up and get them
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: fed and milked. It's just part of it, really. Well,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: it seems like it's going to be part of it
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: now because it's the third year in a row, but yeah.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Well, the way the rain pretty much fell every day
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden we've gone 48 hours without precipitation.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: It's like a phenomenon. It sounds ridiculous, but that's just
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: a state of play. Yeah, it is.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: And I worked out the other day, the last part
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: from yesterday, which was the nicest day we've had in
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: a very, very long time. The last 10 days of September,
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: it worked out we've had 11 mil every day. So
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: it's just been consistent.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: What would you say your average rainfall is there? You'd
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: be up around the 900,000 mil mark, would you?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, when we first got here, it used to be
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: around 800, but now I'd say we're about 1,000.
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: I don't know. September's normally your month... You looked forward
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: to it in a farming sense, and we're not going
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: to bang on about it too much because everybody knows
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the obvious.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Everybody knows, yeah.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but just for us, I don't know, you look forward,
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: you think about next year, what do you do differently?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: I mean, for you guys, is it possible to calf earlier?
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: Is it worth it, even contemplating?
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it's all things we've done. We've done in
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: the past where we've brought our calving forward, but then
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: we've gone back again. It's just, I don't know. Is
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: it just next year going to be fine again? Or
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: is this the way it's going to be forever? I don't, yeah,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: it's kind of hard to tell what the right or
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: wrong thing is to do. We've done a few things.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: We've made a bit of a calving pad that we've
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: carved on this year, which has saved us a lot,
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: especially with the calves. It's been really good. But then
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: when we kind of needed it to feed milkers, it
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: kind of got mucky. So that's only just been scraped
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: off of a digger and we're using it again for
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: milkers now. And yeah, we've We always have a lot
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: of contracted feed on hand, silage on hand, because you
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: never know when you're going to need it.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Animal health, has there been a concern at all through
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: the month?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we've had quite a bit of mastitis and lameness,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: just from a wet, obviously, foot rot and those kind
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: of things popping up. A bit of mastitis, obviously, cows'
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: peats are muddy and they're obviously going into peak production,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: so they've got big udders and stuff. But it's all
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: stuff that you can deal with.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: Everybody's had to think about different ways of negating the
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: weather and you get all these different scenarios running through
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: your head as to what you're supposed to do, but
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: you just make it work somehow.
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like in a month or two's time, everybody's
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: kind of forgotten about it and the weather's nice and
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: then next year you just go and do it again.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: In a couple of months, the bulkies will be flat
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: out and people will want rain. That's just the nature
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: of the situation.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: That's just nature, yep.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: That's farmers. You're always bitching about the weather. Too hot,
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: too wet, too dry, too windy, or you want something else.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Yep, always. Never happy.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: You guys there supplement a big part of your... Have
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: you managed to keep a bit on hand?
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we always have. Our farm owners have always been...
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: He's always loved having silage on hand, so... It's always
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: a system we've always run, even before the wet springs. And, yeah,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: it's always come back and saved us. So be it
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: a dry summer or a wet spring, it always ends
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: up being used in some way.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: That's a positive at the moment. I mean, you're always
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: going to find something to feed it out to. I
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: heard yesterday somebody possibly opening a stack of silage could be,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: they reckon, maybe 20 years old. But, I mean, if
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: it works, it works.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, something better be nothing.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So what are your grass levels like at the moment?
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: What is the state of play in that department?
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't say we don't have grass. We do have
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: some grass. Our cover's about 2,000. But utilisation is obviously
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: the issue at the moment. Most of it, you can't
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: really see it when you first look at the paddock,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: but most of it's sitting underneath some form of water.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: Obviously the water table's sitting pretty high, so the utilisation's
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: not that good. They're just kind of walking in, making
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: a bit of mud and trampling it into the ground
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: more than anything. So that's when the supplements are obviously
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: paying off.
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: Team Welfare, the workers on the farm, all your staff
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: as such, how have they got through? Because it takes
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: a toll on everyone.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think they seem to be fine. They're all
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: still smiling, so I guess they must be semi-happy. They're
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: obviously still getting their roster days off and their breaks
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: and everything like that. Me and Nick, not so much.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: Nick some days doesn't come in for lunch or breakfast.
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: He just likes to get everything just done. But yeah,
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: they seem happy enough. They're still here.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Have you said to Nick every now and then, you know,
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: just chill out, man, we just need to put things
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: into perspective? Or is it a case of he enjoys
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: just living in the moment?
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: I think he enjoys living in the moment. He, yeah, he'll,
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: in fact, I think he likes working there. He likes
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: working under pressure. A little bit of stress keeps him going.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Well, whatever it takes, I suppose. That's the main thing. Yeah, yeah.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: And just a reminder as well, bird nests in tractors,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: when they do get going, you're hearing of a few
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: people being caught out at the moment, so that's kind
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: of flowing under the radar, no pun intended.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. You don't really think it's too cold
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: for anything to be breeding, or wet for anything to
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: be breeding, but, yeah, the starlings are out in full force.
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I've seen now two I see pulling a bird's nest
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: out this morning before he went to go feed out. So, yeah,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: they build up pretty quick. It's amazing what one little
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: bird can do in a couple of hours.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: A couple of hours. They can do it in like
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: 25 minutes.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's unbelievable how much stuff they manage to scavenge
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: from everywhere.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: They'd be good workers on some of these Kiwi homes, perhaps. Hey,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: we'll leave it there, Anika. All the best over the
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: next wee while. Appreciate your time as always.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: Anika Templer, based off of Balfour, getting through September into October.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: New month, new beginnings. This song, like I say, Bit
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: Out of Hell. Still got six minutes 40 to go.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: It's an absolute classic. The album Bit Out of Hell,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: when it came out, I'll take a guess here, about 1981.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: I'll do some prep and get back to you on that.
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: Up next, Claire Toonenberg from Beef and Lab New Zealand.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: You're listening to The Muster. Oh, and a girl.