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The Muster- James Edgar: The Difference That A Couple Of Weeks Can Make · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: This interview is brought to you by Agri Centre South.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Branches in Lawnville, Gore, Cromwell, Milton and Ranfurly.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Drop by your local Agri Centre South branch today. James
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Edgar is based in Mower Flat and joins us. Good afternoon.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Last time we spoke to you.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: You were, well, you had a hovercraft to get around
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: pretty much. A lot of people were saying that the
• 0:30
  Speaker 3: situation has corrected itself given a seven or eight day
• 0:34
  Speaker 3: grace of fine weather.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: What are you saying?
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we are in a completely different situation. To
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: quote the Justin Marshall, we're good south and down there
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: the grass has gone boomfah. It's seriously taken off. It's fantastic, yeah. No,
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: we're looking real good in Just white clover, just a
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: whole mess of it. It's unbelievable. Pasture quality, I don't
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: know what the MA is, but it can't get any higher.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It's just electric green up here. It's just seriously changed.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: To be fair, a wee bit of rain in the
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: next couple of days and then being hot again, we're
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: seriously going to sit up here for a season. Fingers crossed.
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: I'm just going to forget about The six weeks before that,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: I think, Andy, I'm just going to take it out
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: of my mind and, you know, just have amnesia about it,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: I think.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: Congratulations for bringing bumfart into the muster vocabulary.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's still a fantastic word, though, isn't it? One
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: of my other favourite ones is buffhead. I think buffhead
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: is a very descriptive term for certain animals or maybe
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: people at certain times. Andy, without going into too much
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: detail on buffhead.
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: Well, a boofhead Romney was a thing not that many
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: years ago. You had to eye-wig them when you were crutching.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, there's no boofhead Romneys on my place, Andy. No,
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: we like the Perindales. I like a bit more speed
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: than that, which comes with its pluses and minuses, I
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: might add.
• 2:05
  Speaker 3: OK, so you've got through lambing. When you look back,
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: how did the situation end up for you, I suppose?
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: It's going to be hard to know till we tail.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: It actually looks not too bad. Well... It's not going
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: to be any worse than the last two years because
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: it's sort of been a bit of a battle. I
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: think it could be slightly better, but it's hard to know.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: We're a bit the same down in Tapanui. We would
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: have had a lot of wet dries, but just through
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: sheer hard work and mothering on, we still had too
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: many wet dries, but I wouldn't have liked to have
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: seen that if we didn't mother on, we would have
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: had a lot. And then, yeah, we sort of had...
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Enough grass, I don't know, we'll finish to get through
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: the skin of our teeth, Andy, one way or another.
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: To be fair, we had been slightly changing our farming
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: system for the last two years because I was getting
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: sick of those springs. And I sort of thought to
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: myself in the back of my mind, at some stage
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: we're going to end up with a heap of grass. But, yeah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: not this year anyway, but we'll see. So, no, reasonably
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: pleased around the place, I think. the lambs are definitely
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: going to do quite well from now. There's nice, as
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: I say, the pasture quality is really good.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: When are you tailing?
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: We've tailed some down in Tapanui, and yeah, we're just looking,
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: oh no, we're still probably a good 10 days away
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: up at Myer Flat. We sort of tail, you don't
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: tail to the oldest lambs, you've got to tail to
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: the youngest ones. You just don't want those few wee
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: jiggers that you get going into the tailing pen too small,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: but we've changed how we tail too, which We've probably
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: slowed down and then, so now with those great big
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: lambs that get old and they're all wrinkly and look
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: a million dollars, we're only jabbing and so we give
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: them a five and one and we've given them a
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: scratch in the ear mark up here. But we're not
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: even tailing them, we're just leaving the tail and the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: balls on. And then the medium lambs, we've just been
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: flipping them and then tailing them obviously and giving them
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: a five and one and stuff. And then all the
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: smaller lambs or triplets or things that just aren't doing
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: quite so well have been weathering. So it takes a
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: bit more time on the tailing shoot. But last lamb
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: fattening season, it was a bit of a game changer
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: because we sort of got through to February and we
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: just didn't have very many crips left. We had a
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: lot of weathers. And to be fair, we were still
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: sending them to the works. And the way through, they
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: were just fat little buggers and.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: But as soon as we got into April and stuff,
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: we just didn't have all those crypt lambs running around. Like,
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: you still have a handful, but a handful's a lot
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: easier to handle than, you know, having thousands of them. So, no,
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: that's worked really well. So that's how we now tail. And, yeah,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: as I say, it takes longer at tailing time and
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: it's a bit more work. But we've just found for
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: the whole rest of the lamb fattening season, it just
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: makes things so much easier.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: So you're leaving the tails on?
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: Some of the big ones, yeah, especially... Oh, just the
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: bigger ones.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I thought you were talking generically that everything had the
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: tails on.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: No, no, just... Well, you always get those big ones,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: you know, that are one of the... Oh, you do, yeah.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Or a few, especially on the Tapanui farm down that
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: good country, because, like, we'll start, you know, some of those,
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: we'll get a draft right at the start of December,
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: end of November, so, you know, they don't cause you
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: any trouble. I don't know if it's better or worse,
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: but it makes me feel better when they've still got
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: their stuff and we just... give them their five and
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: one in their scratch and then let them go. Yeah,
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: and they're doing really well, which is good.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: The staff will be relieved that September's finished? Yeah, yep, yep.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: We're about halfway through our hoggart lambing, so I think
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: that's always one of the jobs that you really like
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: to see the end of. It's very rewarding and the
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: hoggart's looking good, but, you know, it's always more work
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: than you think at hoggart lambing from what I've seen, but...
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: We did change our ram breed this year along the
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: lines of the Hoggett 150 group and used some Dorpers.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: And my gut feeling early doors is that's made a difference.
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: So I have been reasonably impressed with them. They're very
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: small coming out. They're very light in the bone. Probably
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: not the sort of animals you'd want to breed without
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: offending anyone. But yeah, I think for Hoggett lambing, they
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: look like they're definitely going to be a bit of
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: a game changer.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: Simon Quilty was on the show previously talking about prices
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: for this season, trading lamb going between $ 10. 90 and $ 12. 50,
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: but the steer price in the beef side of life
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: going up to around $ 10. 50 next May and June. So
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: the prices touch wood, and Simon's normally on the button
• 6:39
  Speaker 3: and looking pretty good.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's fantastic, isn't it, Andy? It's a real
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: joy for our industry having that positivity out there One
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: of the great things when you're, you know, being profitable
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: again after, you know, we had a poor time as
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: well noted, but you can just reinvest in your farm.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: And I know, I just talked to the sheep and
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: beef boys at the moment, but we're all very proud
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: of our farms and it's really good for the environment
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: because it means we can keep fencing bits off and
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: we can keep, you know, upgrading our genetics and, It
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: just goes right the way through. We can spin through
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: the sawmills. We can spin through the bike shops and
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: the tractor outfits. It just makes the business a lot
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: more enjoyable, and I think it's a lot better for
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: the country and a lot better for the environment. There's
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: really no losers in the whole thing. It's genuinely exciting
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: to see. From a country point of view, I'm strong.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: we need a diversity of things we sell to the
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: rest of the world. We can't just be your one
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: trick pony and, you know, sell forestry, you know, logs and,
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: and basically, um, dairy farming, you know, milk products to
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: the rest of the world. We really need, you know,
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: sheep and beef. We need deer and we need those
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: other things as well. You know, Kiwi fruit and all
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: of the above. So no, it's just fantastic to, fantastic
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: to be a sheep farmer at the moment, actually, Andy,
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: which is a great, great joy for the guys that
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: hung in there and stayed, stayed with it. You know, we've,
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: saw all the land use change. We saw how many
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: trees were planted and there's still a lot of land
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: going out into dairy support and all of the other things.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: But yeah, it's really nice to see us competing and
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: pushing those other industries to keep getting better as well.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just a really exciting time to be
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: a sheep and beef farmer.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: Good news all around, James. Thanks for your time.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: Cheers, Andy.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: James Edgar of Moa Flat. You're listening to The Muster.
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: We're away overseas next for the second time today. Julie
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: Edwards of Shewell UK.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: She's up next.