On Farm Meeting Anawai

Transcription

1 On Farm Meeting Anawai 18 th September 2018 Goals, Objectives, Issues & Priorities Farming Goals Specific Deer Objectives 1. Achieve sustainable profit year on year 2. To grow a sustainable agribusiness which balances people, land, and profit 1. Meet target scanning results 2. Increase deer financial return 3. Bring mating cut off date to the 10 of April. 4. Increase overall weaning weights to 55kg at the 1 st of March. 5. Minimise fawn loses pre/post weaning to 1% Issues re Production Objectives Priority Production Issues 1. Fluffy and young fawns at weaning 2. Inconsistent Conception Rates 3. Fencing/subdivision on harder country 4. Deer are run on our worst country 1. Young fawns at weaning 2. First mating conception rate 3. Low survival to weaning 4. Lack of available deer fenced good country.

2 Farm Details Location Effective Area Land Class Altitude Rainfall 141 Tawa Road Maraetotara Havelock North 1170 ha, 375ha effective for deer Flat to rolling to easy hill 150m 500m mm pa Subdivision 218 Paddocks from 2.5ha 40 Land Water Soils Pastures Crops Supplementary Feed Fertiliser Flat to steep hill country All fed by springs, pumped to high point for gravity feeding. Elsthorpe - heavy clay. Top block - volcanic ash/pumice Approx. 15ha new grass/clover pa following winter crop, also another 40ha grass/clover planted Autumn. Anawai -16ha kale, 18ha Lucerne? 40ha Plantain/clover 8T maize pre and post weaning. Grass or Lucerne bailage bought in. Autumn Application -Top country 250kg/ha Sulphurgain 15S Fawning Country 1000kg/ha Lime Labour 4 Main Farming Breeding and finishing sheep, Breeding and Finishing cattle, Operation Breeding deer. Deer Policy Breeding on the hill country. Weaner hinds winter on crop. Weaner stags sold to Craig Hickson post weaning Beef/Sheep Policy 3500 ewes, 1100 hgts, 4500 trade lambs. 250 breeding cows, 300 Trade steers. Finish all steers and surplus hfrs for USA market Animal Performance Monitoring Stock numbers at present Ewes Hgts Trade Hgts 64 Rams - 34 MA Hinds 520 R2 Hinds 165 R1 hinds Sire Stags 22 Cows 250 (including heifers) Finishing R2 strs 287 Finishing R1 Strs- 163 Weighing stock and BCS at key times.

3 Deer and other stock policies going forward Horizon Farming Ltd took over leasing Anawai on the 1 st of April Anawai is the first property for Horizon Farming with deer as part of the stocking policy. Deer Breeding is the main focus with the possibility of finishing stags in future years Currently all finishing stags are sold to owner post weaning. (1 st April) Hinds are run on the steeper hill country, while the younger stock are on the more productive, quality top country. Weaner Hinds are wintered on Kale, before going on to high quality feed late August, aiming for a 100kg mating weight. Stags are introduced into mob in early February for socialising. At first handling, hinds and fawns will come out of the steeper fawning country and will stay up on the top country on the better quality feed, allowing cows and calves to be added to fawning country to help get quality pastures back in this country before winter. Weaning 1 st week in March, with the stags put out post weaning. Stags were taken out on the 1st May, with anything scanned late (20 th April) culled out. Cattle 250 Angus breeding cows are used for cleaning up pastures and breeding calves for an American 100% Angus grass fed Antibiotic free market. 200 Steers, (extras bought in when allows) are finished as two year olds. High weights and marble scores, good meat colour low Ph levels are the main aim for these. Weaner Heifers are transferred to another Horizon property and are mated as yearlings to a low birth weight bull then returned in calf. Sheep This year we have a split flock of Maternal ewes and Terminal ewes. Aim to change whole flock to maternal breed and supply Anawai plus other blocks in the Horizon Farming business with replacements All lambs finished on property with extra lambs bought in if feed allows 1100 maternal hoggets bought in this year, aim to breed our own replacements from now on in.

4 Animal production indicators Deer KPI s Deer Production 10/11 11/12 12/13 13/14 14/15 15/16 16/17 17/18 18/19 Target Liveweights/Condition MA Hind mating weight (kg) MA Hind mating BCS R2 Hind mating weight (kg) R2 Hind mating BCS R1 stag weight May (kg) R1 stag Spring LWG (g/d) R1 Hind weight 1st June R1 Hind weight 1st Sept Pre wean LWG (g/d) day weaning weight (kg) Reproduction Scanning % MA 84% 93% 75% 95% 90% 88% 93% 97% 97% Scanning % R2 53% 72% 57% 51% 50% 67% 79% 91% 80% Fawning % MA 67% 78% 63% 63% 74% 90% 85% Fawning % R2 90% Anawai Scanning results: MA Year scanned MA dry Dry % Average % R2 scanned R2 Dry Dry % Average % Spiker vs MA stag in R % % 21 Spikers % % 15 mob mated MA stags % % 17 mob mated MA stags, 100 didn't go to s % % 41 Spikers % % 43 Spikers % % 31 Spikers % % 16 Spikers % % 29 Mob mated MA stags % % 13 mob mated MA stags % % 22 Spikers % % 41 Mob mated MA stags

5 Chart Title Nov 1-Dec 1-Jan 1-Feb 1-Mar 1-Apr 1-May 1-Jun 1-Jul 1-Aug 1-Sep 1-Oct 1-Nov 1-Dec 1-Jan 1-Feb 1-Mar Target Liveweight (KG) Actual 2017 Actual 2018 Growth and Venison Production Weaning took part in the first week of March, 51kg ave over everything. 56kg ave in the MA mobs and 44kg ave in first fawners. Weaners all kept for a month before sex drafting and selling all weaner stags (309) and fluffy hinds (75). No weight gain was achieved over this period which was disappointing so next year may look at selling sooner after weaning, although it did help to settle the weaners and loses were considerably lower than previous years. Scanning took place on the 12 of June. M/A Hinds average weight of 118kg BCS of drys, and 4 lates were culled to condense fawning and reduce younger lighter fawns at weaning. 97% R2 Hinds weighed 102kg average and a BCS of 3.5. These scanned 91%, 21 dries were culled, 20 R2 lates plus 20 R3 lates were sold Store through Keith Burden so all conception before 20 th April.

6 Currently R1 Hinds are 68kg (weighed 30/08/17). These hinds were weighed coming off a Kale crop and onto Autumn sown grass/clover mix, (split in two mobs and on rotation). They went on to the Kale on the 1st of June at a weight of 64kg put on 4kg (130gm/day) for the first month then no weight gain until taken off kale crop on the 30 August (hoping to get another weight on these before meeting). Is wintering these on Kale our best option for these or would we expect to see more of a weight gain left on grass? Can be a pretty rough climate up here in winter. Currently have only 11 MA Sire stags and 10 R2 stags which will go over the R1 Hinds. Plan to buy another 4 stags this year. This winter we lost 50 effective hectares from our MA fawning country to pine trees. An additional 50 ha has been agreed on to be deer fenced (in process now), not all is ideal for fawning but increases options for pre-wean grazing and/or for replacement hinds. Topics of Discussion Is wintering our replacements on Kale our best option or would we expect to see more of a weight gain left on grass and utilise crop for more older cattle.can be a pretty rough climate up here in winter! Should we be looking to add a Terminal Sire mob into the system to increase weaner weights and carcass weights to benefit ourselves and the finisher? Or are we best to do this by improving genetics and feeding better at key times allowing bigger numbers to select replacements from? Early conception date (pre 20 th April). Will we benefit more from moving this cut off date forward and culling less on age and teeth? (also cull on condition and Temperament)

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