High output at minimum cost aim on Rakahuri

Press, 18 July 1980, Page 12

High output at minimum cost aim on Rakahuri

The-over-all objective on Mr J. F. (John) Gallagher’s Rakahuri property at Okuku in North Canterbury was the production of as many lambs and as much wool as possible on a low-cost, one-man system using all grass and a minimum amount of hay and supplements, Mr G. D. (Geoff) Miller, a farm advisory officer with the Ministry of Agriculture at Rangibra, told farmers from all parts of the province who gathered on the farm last week on the occasion of a general field day.

During the day as many as 700 visited the farm with four bus loads of people, including one from Waimate district, swelling the numbers.

Mr Gallagher summed up his objectives by saying that he aimed to manipulate grass production to work for him and to breed the type of sheep that would fit in with the grass, production. He sought to take , care of the high level of production in the spring and he warned that anyone coming to the property to see.. big, heavy sheep would not do so as they had to work for him. Mr Miller said that annual grass production on the 275 ha ' property amounted to 850 kg of dry matter per ha or a total of 2.3 m kg, which meant that with about a 133 per cent lambing producing about 3990 lambs one lamb was being produced for every 585 kg of dry matter and with 20,000 kg of wool also being produced this represented a kilogram of wool for every 117 kg of dry matter. UJr Miller commended the use of such an index saying that it represented the conversion of grass into something that was saleable. With these figures, he said that Mr Gallagher would be one of the leaders in the farming community. At the end of the day he said it was not. that Mr Gallagher was growing more grass than other farmers, but that he was using less of it to turn into something that was saleable. • i'- " The farm, which ■ was taken up- by Mr Gallagher’s father in 1960 as part of a larger block, is at the confluence of the Garry and Ashley rivers

and is .150 to 180 metres above sea level. It is mainly flat but on two levels that.. determine the soil types. The central part of the .farm. comprises heavier Ruapuna soils, with . lighter Waimakariri soils around the river boundaries. Mr Gallagher said .that a lot .of it was like the Canterbury plains but they had a higher rainfall —• about 875 mm. ,

The property is carrying 2900 ewes, 1170 hoggets and 60 rams. A shift has been made to the Coopworth breed. It is now divided into 45 paddocks. As well as a network of traditional fences there are 10km of electrified grass fences and as he could drive over these and there were also drive-through electrified gates, Mr Gallagher said that they were “very mobile,” which was particularly useful at lambing time when he spent about four hours and a half a day with the flock. This is one of the features of the easy-care system practised on the farm, which Mr Miller Said was directed at making sure that every job done was giving a worth-while return.

There are three sets of yards on the property, which means that a stock handling job begins with a minimum delay in time. Mr Gallagher said that they .had this number of yards because of the wetness of .the country, some of which is swamp land. With a curved race and solid walls the yards also lend themselves to oneman operation.- L, The scales are, however, set in concrete at one of the yards and the sheep have to be brought to them for checking on feeding levels and for breeding programme purposes, ibut. weighing is not a very onerous job according to information given to the field day that 380 hoggets could be weighed in an hour. Part also of the easy care concept, any ewe that has to be helped at lambing time is identified and no replacements are bred from her. Nor is any mothering-on done. Indicative of the lowcost nature of the enterprise, only 40 hours of tractor work was done in a recent 18 months period. The breeding policy is aimed at identifying and selecting the best hoggets from the best ewes for flock replacements. There is a three-tier flock system. Individually identified two-tooths . enter the

middle or proving group and as they prove their worth or fail to do so they are either elevated to the elite section or demoted into the commercial group. The elite group, from which the majority of the ewe lamb replacements are selected, has a minimum fertility rating of 175 per cent Only top rams are used over these ewes and are withdrawn after 21 days to avoid breeding from slow producers. Mr Gallagher says that he would not buy a ram without ..seeing the records for it. The ewe lambs are put through the hoops before they make the flock. Vasectomised rams are used with them for-two cycles and Mr Gallagher said that this year 57 per cent

had taken the vasectomised rams. Those that had done so were on average 2 1/3 kg heavier than those that did not. Fleeces of the hoggets are weighed at October shearing and the hoggets are also put over the scales themselves in December and in each case the lowest 15 per cent are not used for breeding replacement stock from. And to

maKe up ror wmuixdo not make the some genetically superior two-tooths are bought in. Mr Miller said that the two or three per cent annual improvement in fertility reported by Mr Gallagher was probably a conservative estimate. Between 1977 and 1979; lambing percentage rose from 125 to 133 per cent Ewes now shear 4.7 kg of wool in January, lambs a kilogram in January and hoggets 5 kg at shearing in October and March. Mr Gallagher said that there was a- problem Avith nutrition of hoggets and he did not think' it was peculiar to the property or the district. It concerned him, he, said, to . see animals going on to clover 15cm high and yet not doing any good on it. He felt that it was probably aggravated by the high level of stock numbers. , But Mr Miller sought to bring this into perspective, saying that at the last weighing hoggets had averaged 39 kg, which was 6kg better than at the same time last year, and that in an average season any hoggets in North Canterbury over 35 kg were regarded as being big sheep. Likewise Mr Gallagher said that lambs did not do welt after weaning from about the beginning of

January through to March. This .might be due to ryegrass dominance in pastures and a lack of weeds, he said at one stage of the field day. This problem could also be due to internal parasites. He said from lambing time until weaning there were- 8000 head of stock on the place. In the coming season he said that they would be look-

ing at weaning on to clean pastures. Sheep on the property carry their history on their ears, and it is said that if they do not perform they are out on their ears. According to colour' the tags indicate the age of the sheep and the groups from, which they come, and on the front of the tag there are details of fertility and on .the rear relative data for wool production. In the summer ewes are rotated in one mob daily cleaning up pastures after lambs and sometimes pastures are topped to maintain quality further into the summer. L - A conscious effort is made to flush ewes in the autumn and when this failed last autumn 10 tonnes of sheep nuts were brought in and over 25 days this resulted in the sheep putting on more than 100 grams per day or a total of three kilograms. Mr Miller said that a survey had shown that this year under favourable conditions less than 30 per cent of farmers had been able to flush their sheep effectively. The Rakahuri ewes are split into three mobs, according to merit, for three weeks for tupping with the best ewes going to the best ram and then they

are brought together again. During the winter they are run under an intensive feed budgeting system and are moved around daily. Under this system the likely feed situation three months in advance can be detected and with the indication this year that there would be more feed available than last season the hoggets are being run

ahead of the ewes rather than being given a separate rotation as has been the case in the past. Mr Gallagher said that such a system might, have its problems in adversely affecting the lambing ewes if feed supplies for them ran short in late pregnancy so the position will be reviewed at mid winter whether to continue running the hoggets in this way. The ewes are split into

25 mobs for lambing from September 17 and are then set stocked until they are again brought together into 10 mobs after tailing and then moved on a slow rotation until weaning in

December. . Reporting that gross income or cash turnover on the property exceeded $4OO per ha, Mr D. R. Macmillan, a farm advisory officer with the Ministry of Agriculture in Rangiora, said that it. would be a level that would be

achieved by only one or two per cent.. of farmers, and emphasising the importance of this high return he said that a 50 per cent increase in income could result in a doubling of the surplus — he .was referring then to the surplus before living expenses, debt servicing, taxation and capital expenditure.