Friday, March 29, 2024

Crash course pays off

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When Mangamaire farmers Ken and Steph Norman purchased a block of land from their neighbour in 2008 they knew absolutely nothing about deer, but that was about to change. Embarking on a crash course in deer farming, the 2015 Tararua Sheep and Beef Farmer of the Year winners discovered a zeal for deer – and a profitable addition to their existing farming operation. Their main aim is high velvet production and an animal with a reasonable trophy head. Luckily for them the owner of the block, Bruce Timmins, stuck around to offer advice on deer farming.
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“Bruce told us deer on their worst year are more profitable than sheep in a good year. We took his word for it and he’s been bang on. The deer haven’t let us down, every year it’s got better and better,” Ken says.

“Bruce has been a really big asset. He didn’t just sell us his farm, he hung around to help us. He’s basically a walking pedigree chart and has a real passion for it.”

The Normans run 132 mixed-age hinds and 59 weaner hinds. There are 266 mixed-age stags and 61 spikers.

They normally fawn about 120 hinds. 

“They are the least profitable animal on the farm, but a necessary evil. We need them to get our replacements for the velveting stags.”

Scanning has been about 95% average for the past three years and tagging at about 89%.

They keep all their fawns and wean on March 5. Everything is single-sire mated and at the end of January hinds and fawns are paired up and tagged.

“We fawn them in the mobs we mate them in so we know the father,” Ken says.

Using coloured collars when the fawns and hinds are paired up allows them to record the pedigree without the expense of DNA testing.

Fawns are drenched with Exodus pour-on at tagging and every six weeks after that. They are given five-in-one and Yersiniavax in mid-April and again four to six weeks later.

Hinds are given a Nexiprin injection at set stocking and again when the stag goes out. Stags get a Nexiprin injection and multi-mineral vaccine before button drop. 

All progeny is kept through the first year. When the velvet stags reach two-years-old they decide which to keep, with the main criteria being velvet weight and conformation of velvet. 

The cut off for two-year-olds is 2kg of velvet. Those they don’t keep are sold to other velvet farms and surplus hinds are sold in-fawn.

The stags begin velveting in mid-October and velvet is cut daily. Ken sat his velveting certificate so they could do all their own velveting rather than using a vet. 

Ken uses a hydraulic crush to cut the velvet and it takes about 15 minutes an animal. The number he does each day varies but can be up to 16.

The velvet brings in between $100,000 and $150,000 a year. The average amount of velvet cut for a three-year-old stag or older was 4.26kg a stag in 2014 and this year the Normans are on track to cut 1300kg of velvet at an average of 4.65kg a stag.

Deer agent Keith Burdon says the velvet market has been stable for the past five years and most farmers can expect to receive $110/kg this year. 

When stags reach eight years old they are grown out as trophy animals and sold to hunting parks. The trophies are measured in the last week of January and trucked out to hunting blocks in the first week of February.

The trophy market is a fickle one and hard to break into but the Normans have recently managed to crack it. 

In 2012 trophies sold averaged $6093 an animal – in 2013 they averaged $2681 and last year they averaged $2292.

Where the Normans might expect to get $500 for a meat animal at the works being able to sell stags as trophies adds significant value to their business, Burdon says.

The velvet the Normans cut brings in between $100,000-$150,000 a year.

Join the Party

The Normans are members of the Central Regions Advance Party. As part of this they are taking part in a Primary Growth Partnership programme. Each member has come up with a project and the Normans are investigating feeding stags.

“We fed them concentrate last year and this increased the velvet slightly, but not enough to cover the cost of feeding the concentrate. We had to take our findings
out to the wider industry and the feedback was to try to feed them straight after the roar. This time we are trying to pump them along as much as possible,” Ken Norman says.

As part of this trial the Normans put in 3ha of straight plantain in spring and 6.5ha in autumn. Lambs will get the first graze and then the velveting stags will go
on to the plantain.

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