Service in sheepbreeders’ association

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32902, 28 April 1972, Page 12

Service in sheepbreeders’ association

Earlier in the year Mr J. R. Todhunter, of Cleardale, in the Rakaia Gorge, retired as chairman of the New Zealand Sheepbreeders’ Association after holding this office for four years, during which period the number of flocks in the 14 breeds for which records are kept by the association increased by 43 per cent.

The records of the Lincoln, English and Border Leicester, Shropshire, Merino, Poll Merino, Suffolk, Dorset Hom, Poll Dorset, South Suffolk, Dorset Down, Hampshire, Ryeland, and Halfbred breeds are published in the New Zealand Flock Book, issued by the association, and a check made last week showed that there are now 1249 registered flocks in these breeds. Mr J. G. Gunn, of Darfleld, chairman of the Border Leicester breed committee, and representative of that committee on the council of the New Zealand Sheepbreeders’ Association, who has succeeded Mr Todhunter, said at the annual meeting of the association in February that his predecessor had developed a great knowledge and understanding of the sheep industry and its place in the national economy and was both progressive and sound and a tolerant and able negotiator. Mr Todhunter joined the Merino breed committee of the sheepbreeders’ association in 1955, was appointed to the council in 1960, became vice-chairman in 1966 and chairman two years later. He represents the association on the United Breed Societies’ Association and is a member of the executive of the latter association. He was elected to the committee of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association in 1953 and has been a member of its executive committee since 1962. He was vicepresident in 1969 and president a year later. A member of the central district council of the Royal Agricultural Society, he also represents that council on the national council of the society and is also a member of the executive committee of the national council. In 1967 Mr Todhunter was a member of a United Breed Societies’ Association and Royal Agricultural Society livestock trade survey mission to Mexico, Columbia, Ecuador, Peru, Chile. Argentina, Uruguay, and Brazil. Discussing the work of the sheepbreeders’ association this week, Mr Todhunter said that the objective was to give individual breeds, which have their own breed committees, jurisdiction over their own breeds so long as they keep within the framework and rules of the association. This autonomy had been extended to the point where each breed group within the association could be recognised as a breed society. But at the same time the fact that the council of the association comprised experienced men with knowledge not just of individual breeds but of the whole industry meant that it was able to help individual breed committees where they were faced with difficult problems. Mr Todhunter recalled that when officers of the Department of Agriculture’s Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre embarked on important sheep breeding trials they had asked the association for assistance with obtaining suitable sheep for their work and in this all breeds and breeders had been most co-operative.

There had been some concern among breeders about the way that the sheep would be treated and what would be the outcome of this work, but it was his view that where a breed society was asked to assist scientists in this way it was up to the society and its members to help to obtain a good representative sample of their breed, or else they would be in no position to criticise what was being done. At the request of the association, Mr Todhunter said, the Director-General of the Department of Agriculture, Dr A. T. Johns, had agreed to their appointing a small committee to keep in touch with what was being done with these sheep —that was in no way to interfere with the direction of the work but just to be able to report on the conditions under which the sheep were being run and on what was going on as they (breeders) saw it. Mr Todhunter said he had been to Ruakura twice and also to the Woodlands station in Southland to see what was being done, and it was his feeling that the average layman would not be in a position to be too critical about these investigations until the work had been completed. Mr Todhunter is a highcountry fanner, like his father, and has two sons following in the tradition. His grandfather, the late Mr C. F. Todhunter, whose wife, Caroline, was a daughter of Edward Dobson, the first Canterbury provincial engineer, in partnership with C. H. Dowding bought Westerfield, in Mid-Canterbury, in 1890 and after buying out his partner’s share continued to farm the property until 1900. The Todhunter interest in the high country began about 1917 when Mr J. R. Todhunter’s father, Mr R. C. Todhunter, and Mr J. Montgomery, who were partners in the Christchurch firm of J. Montgomery and Company, bought Lake Heron station, and then in about 1920 Blackford, as a wintering and stud sheep breeding proposition. Early in the 1920 s the partnership between the two men was dissolved and Mr Todhunter went on to farm the two stations. Mr R. C. Todhunter was the first chairman of the high - country committee and both he and his son were members of the old sheepowners’ union before it was incorporated in Federated Farmers. Mr J. R. Todhunter was, incidentally, also the second chairman of the meat and wool section of MidCanterbury Federated Farmers. In 1928 Mr J. R. Todhunter took up the management of Lake Heron for his father, and when, in 1939, he bought Glenfalloch station he ran the two properties, which have a common boundary for about 12 miles, in conjunction until 1943 when he bought Cleardale, which was virtually a tussock block of 1300 acres, the only building on it being a small cottage. Before his father died Mr Todhunter bought Lake Heron in the early 1950 s and sold it to a trust for his children, and it is still run as a trust.

In 1954, after his father’s death, he bought a further 730 acres, which was his sister’s share in Blackford, and this was added to Cleardale.

That year Mr Todhunter established his Merino stud in which 520 ewes have this year gone to the ram. It was founded with ewes selected from both the Lake Heron and Glenfalloch flocks and with ewes purchased at the dispersal sale of his father’s Blackford flock, and today the flock largely goes back to Blackford blood.

Now some 150 rams are either used in the Todhunter Merino flocks or sold, with most of those sold going to the Omarama district. .In 1961 Mr Todhunter also started breeding halfbred rams and this year 1140 Merino ewes, some of them studs, have, been put to English Leicester rams for breeding first cross rams. Some 180 to 200 of these rams go every year to districts including Hakataramea, Waiau, the Hurunui, the other side of 1116 Windwhistle, and to Birdlings Flat. Since 1966 he has also been breeding English Leicester rams and now has about 30 ewes. In 1967 Mr Todhunter transferred Glenfalloch and Cleardale to a family company, J. R. Todhunter and Sons Ltd., including his two sons.

Mr R. C. Todhunter now manages Cleardale and last year Mr T. J. Todhunter took over the management of Glenfalloch from Mr H. Urquhart, who had been manager since 1939 and is still remaining on the , property. He has been in the employ of the Todhunters for more than 40 years, as has also Mr John Rouse who is manager at Lake Heron, which trades as Upper Lake Heron. The Todhunter properties today total almost 74,000 acres. Lake Heron, of 45,000 acres, is about 32 miles from Mount Somers and runs up to about 9000 ft in the Arrowsmith range; Glenfalloch, of 26,700 acres, is situated 40 miles from Methven and goes up to 6500 ft; and Cleardale, of 2200 acres, is 14 miles from Methven. Most of the sheep run under 4000 ft.

There are now about 10,000 sheep on Glenfalloch and Cleardale and 7000 on Lake Heron, almost all Merinos, and on Glenfalloch 109 cows went to the bull this year, Lake Heron is going into the winter with 160 cows and on Cleardale another 131 cows have gone to the bull. Ail of the cattle are Angus. Heifer and steer calves from Glenfalloch and replacement heifer calves from Lake Heron are wintered on Cleardale, as are also 1400 to 1800 hoggets from Glenfalloch and 1000 to 1200 hoggets from Lake Heron.

The tendency on the Todhunter properties has been to increase cattle while holding sheep numbers about steady, and Mr Todhunter says that this has not been entirely because cattle are more profitable. With the country improving it has been found that they need more'cattle and also it has been found easier to increase cattle numbers than sheep from the labour point of view. More fencing recently on Glenfalloch has also facilitated the expansion in cattle numbers. Mr Todhunter believes that many farm advisers have not made clear enough the quite substantial increases in production that are needed to justify the employment of additional labour units and also possible provision of housing — hence the need to in-

crease production in forms which require the least additional labour.

Mr Todhunter is, however, optimistic about the future of sheep, as one would expect of a former chairman of the sheepbreeders’ association. “We are still prepared to import rams," he commented in referring to a four-year-old Merino ram, which arrived less than a month ago, from the Collinsville stud of John Collins and Sons, of Mount Bryan, South Australia. The Todhunters have been getting Collinsville rams since 1924.

“I think that within two years we will be getting relatively good prices again,*’ said Mr Todhunter speaking of the English lamb market Certainly conditions had been depressed economically in Britain for the last two years, but with the recent rate of inflation and the way wages had been increasing, he is optimistic that lamb price levels will rise again to the advantage of New Zealand.

Whereas the wool market has been under tremendous competition from synthetic fibres and fashion trends favouring synthetic-type garments, he now believes that all over the world a reaction is setting in against synthetic fibres and involving a swing back to wool.

He sees recent high prices for calves as having been, in part at least, a result of people becoming frightened about the markets for lamb and wool and being almost stampeded into cattle and cropping, where normally sheep would be run.

Questioned about the place of recording in live-

stock improvement, Mr Todhunter, who was one of the first Merino breeders to go into recording, in association with Lincoln College, said that he saw it as being an essential part of both sheep and cattle breeding, but the results of recording needed to be interpreted carefully. It was only an aid to practical breeding and was not the be-all and end-all of breeding. The eye of the studmaster was still needed to ensure the selection of the animal that was sound and suitable for the type of country that it was being run on.

There had to be a marriage between the inherent ability of the studmaster and scientific research. There was, he felt, a tendency for recording to be accepted as the most imCortant part of animal reeding and for people to use recording without knowing where they were really going and to lose sight of the fact that it was necessary to have something to cross back with again to correct faults should they develop — the studmaster always had to give himself room to move. He felt that if people went on blindly with weight recording with cattle they could lose quality and with sheep they could end up with animals that were defective in the feet and without the ability to thrive on certain types of country. Of criticism of showing of stock, Mr Todhunter recalled that an investigation of this issue instituted by the Royal Agricultural Society in Britain had shown that while scientific measurement was important and a very great help to breeding, competitive

show classes and eye appraisal were still seen to have a very important place. He felt that the interest that was taken in the sheep in the pavilion at the Canterbury show was a good answer to those who claimed that competitive classes were of no value. He wondered what those who were going in for group breeding schemes to improve stock would have

• had to work on had stock i not already been brought to ; a high standard by stud breeders over the years. ■ Those who criticised • showing were not really • criticising showing as such, I he said, but the emphasis i that was put on certain as- > pects of breeding. But in the end, he said, ; breeders were in business ■ to make money and really > were seeking to produce the i sort of product that the

market at a particular time demanded. Some breeders, who were individualists, sought always to produce the type of stock to suit their country and while for a time what they were doing might be out of favour, sooner or later people came back to them. In his view the practical breeder was not ignoring science and was using it as much as he could.