Kurt, who recently received the Allflex Young Achiever Award in the National Ewe Hogget Competition, manages the 1360ha sheep-and-beef farming company Palliser Ridge with the help of his wife, Lisa, and son Beauden.
The hub of the business is the Palliser Ridge farm, owned by Jim and Marilyn Law, while Kurt and Lisa part-own one of the farms leased by the company.
While Jim and Marilyn live on one of the properties, they are essentially retired and leave the day-to-day management to Kurt and his team. This does not mean that they don’t have any input into the operation. Jim looks after the Cash Manager software and has a particular interest in the environment and the education of young farmers. He is a past chairman of Taratahi Agricultural Training Centre and a director of Ducks Unlimited New Zealand.
“We have a very good rapport with Jim and Marilyn and keep them informed as to what is happening, giving them a monthly report and communicating with them on a regular basis,” Kurt says.
The business is relatively young, having been established just 12 years ago by the amalgamation of numerous properties. This involved major infrastructural change, largely carried out by the previous manager.
Located at Pirinoa near Lake Ferry in South Wairarapa, it is a difficult farming environment because of the dry summers and exposure to the south.
“There’s no significant land mass between here and the Antarctic so we have to be very careful not to stock the southerly faces with vulnerable animals like lambing ewes and recently shorn sheep.
“In the summer these faces are great because the soils hold on to their moisture but in a southerly there are much warmer places you could be.”
Key facts
Palliser Ridge Ltd – owner
- Kurt and Lisa Portas – managers
- 1360ha sheep-and-beef operation
Sheep – 7372 stock units
- 3100 mixed-age ewes
- 1000 two-tooth ewes
- 1600 in-lamb ewe hoggets
- 100 rams
- 1570 winter trade lambs
Cattle
- 150 R1steers
- 750 R2 steers
The team
Kurt and Lisa Portas have worked on Palliser Ridge for six years. Kurt was originally employed as the stock manager.
Kurt, 27, has a Diploma in Agriculture from Lincoln University. He graduated from Smedley in 2006 and from there he spent two years shepherding on Glen Islay Station near Gore before moving north to Palliser Ridge. Today he is the fully fledged manager with a financial interest in one of the farms leased by Palliser Ridge. The business employs 3.4 labour units: Kurt, his second-in-charge Jakeb Herron, shepherd Lucien Keightly (an ex-Taratahi student), and fencer-general Tan Malton.
The company is a complex legal entity consisting of the 790ha Palliser Ridge farm – an amalgamation of eight adjoining farms – and six leased blocks ranging in size from 287ha to 17ha. This amalgam of properties creates some major managerial problems because of their physical separation and is one of the reasons why one of the foremost objectives of the business is to rationalise the number of enterprises and stock classes.
“One of the few advantages of the amalgamation is that there is no shortage of woolsheds, yards, and houses so we have ample accommodation for our staff. We have four woolsheds with sets of yards, an extra set of yards on Palliser Ridge, and five sets of satellite docking yards and numerous other farm buildings.”
Water is supplied to the various properties mainly from underground sources (wells), pumped to high points then gravity-fed to troughs.
There are a few dams but most of the paddocks have troughs.
Palliser Ridge is reasonably well-serviced with lanes to improve workability and the southern side of the property is bounded by the tarsealed road to Cape Palliser. The average paddock size is six hectares.
All and sundry
With such a diverse range of properties it is not surprising there is an equally diverse range of soil types and topography.
Of the business’ 1360ha (1150ha effective), 780ha could be described as flat to rolling and can be cultivated, 370ha is steep hill country, and the balance (209ha) is retired.
Many of the soils consist of clay or loam overlaying metal. There is significant waterlogging of some soils, requiring some form of drainage. Mole drainage is generally used. Soil fertility is generally good with sulphur being the major limiting nutrient on areas other than the hills and terraces.
Lisa and Kurt Portas, with 18-month-old Beauden.
As part of Kurt’s flock improvement programme he runs a flock of 900 cull ewes made up of ewes that he doesn’t want to breed replacements from, and ewes that haven’t reared a lamb, are not totally sound, or are not true to type. These go to Sufftex rams on April 1 for two cycles. The rams are then removed and are run with the ewe hoggets from May 1 for another two cycles. Last year the cut-off mating weight for the ewe hoggets was 38kg (scanned 150% and docked 115%). This year the cut-off weight was dropped to 36kg and the scanning percentage was 136%.
The main breeding-ewe flock of 3200 ewes is mated to Wairere Romney rams on April 1 for three cycles.<< CLARIFICATION HERE >> Kurt buys top indexing rams from Derek Daniel and focuses on early growth and lamb survival in the SIL Dual Purpose Overall Index.
The physical attributes he looks for in a ram are soundness, type, and constitution.
The ewe flocks are rotated through the mating period and winter, with any light ewes removed and run in a separate flock to restore condition.
“We aim to achieve a condition score of at least three all year round.”
Two weeks before lambing the rotation speed is increased to improve feed intake, then the ewes are set stocked at 8/ha on the easier country and 6/ha on the harder. The cull ewe flock is lambed on the easier country, as are the hoggets. There is no lambing beat.
“My aim is to feed the ewes better before and after lambing and this should make the ewes produce more milk and increase lamb weaning weights. Currently we are only drafting 16-20% of lambs off their mothers at weaning and this is not good enough.”
At weaning lambs get a combination tapeworm drench. The male lambs go on to a finishing diet of plantain and chicory and get drenched monthly with a triple combination drench. The ewe lambs go on to rape and plantain and receive no further drenching in their lifetime unless their condition warrants it. No drench capsules are used.
Following weaning any light ewes are removed from the main mob and are preferentially fed, while the main mob goes into the summer rotation. Before mating the rotation speed is increased by shifting the ewes daily, as opposed to every second day, to increase ewe condition. Average mating weights for two-tooth ewes are 60kg, mixed-age ewes 63kg, and their overall docking percentage is about 142% (scanning 177%).
While Kurt does buy in some lambs for finishing, in the future he would like to contract grow ewe hoggets for other farmers, get a lamb out of them, then return them to their owners as two-tooths.
Average carcaseweight for finishing lambs is about 20kg.
Once-bred ewe hoggets
The cornerstone of Palliser Ridge’s new vision is its focus on achieving greater performance from its ewe hoggets.
Kurt Portas’ aim is to create a brand and a market premium for Palliser Ridge’s once-bred hoggets by:
- Sourcing the right genetics (focusing on fecundity, early growth, lamb survival, constitution and type)
- Growing hoggets to good mating and pre-lambing weights
- Culling any hoggets that don’t get in lamb after two cycles
- Achieving high hogget docking percentages and weaning weights, and
- Marketing a product (two-tooth ewes) that is sound, once-bred, high-performing with a good constitution, and aesthetically pleasing.
Kurt hopes that his attention to detail with his breeding programme will create a reputation and a niche market for Palliser Ridge once-bred hoggets that will improve the bottom line.
Cows and crops
The cattle policy on Palliser Ridge has been revamped to simplify the business.
The breeding-cow herd has been replaced by 150 R1year and 750 R2 year steers. These are bought as yearlings from September through to February and are taken through a winter (90 days on kale crops averaging 0.7kg/day weight gain) and finished in spring. The role of the cattle is to maintain pasture quality while achieving an average daily liveweight gain of 0.8kg and an annual margin of $450/head.
Kurt Portas says some cash cropping used to be undertaken but the margins were too variable, so the only cropping done now is to generate kale for cattle wintering and stands of rape and plantain for ewe lambs.
“These green-feed crops have taken the pressure off the pastures over the summer-dry months, enabling greater stock numbers to be carried.”
Each year 50ha of rape-plantain and 20ha of kale are grown. In the following spring, the rape-plantain areas are drilled with a mixture of ryegrass, cocksfoot, sub and white clover, chicory, and plantain.
Kurt believes a mixed-species sward:
- Helps minimise animal health issues
- Is more tolerant to pests and diseases
- Encourages faster growth rates, and
- Delivers a more even spread of production.
Following winter grazing the kale is replaced with a mix of cocksfoot, plantain, chicory, and clover for three years before being returned to kale.
Conservation assumes a high priority on Palliser Ridge with 209ha now retired from grazing.
Jim Law’s interest in restoring wetlands has resulted in significant riparian planting. Many unproductive gullies have been retired and have either been allowed to regenerate or have been planted in bird-friendly natives.
Most of the paddocks have shelter for livestock with three new shelter belts being planted each year under a subsidy scheme operated by the Greater Wellington Regional Council. A large number of poplar poles have been planted on the hills for erosion control and shade.
Palliser Ridge’s foremost financial objective is to get into the top 10% of farms for the Economic Farm Surplus key performance indicator.
The business’s financial reports for 2012-13 show its gross farm revenue is almost in the top 10%, but its expenditure is too high to achieve the objective.
“We’ve got work to do on both revenue and costs,” Kurt says. “Particularly the latter but the encouraging thing is that we’re heading in the right direction. We’ll get there.”
With his skill and enthusiasm, he will. One of the judges of the ewe hogget competition, Stewart Morton, had this to say:
“What impressed the judges was that Kurt had a clear understanding of what he wanted to achieve in the Palliser Ridge ewe flock, a flock that was already performing at a high level.
“The management plan of the ewe flock and ewe hogget flock was well thought out, allowing these animals to achieve body weight targets, which resulted in high fertility, survival and growth rates.
“He also demonstrated a very good understanding of the farming business and what the profit drivers were.
“Kurt had a very good working relationship with owners Jim and Marilyn Law, and had developed a team environment where the two other young employees were valued members of the team and had input into the decision-making process.”
