Thursday, March 28, 2024

Big punt pays off for farmers

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Holding a series of sales, with stock from 12 farms at nine venues, makes for a hectic day in Rollesby Valley. And while the demand from Southland has waned over the years with the increase in dairying there the timing was serendipitous for continuing success as buyers now come looking for stock to graze on recently harvested cropping land in Mid Canterbury. Alan Williams had a chat with some of those involved.
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“Why don’t we do the whole lot in one go?’’ were the words during weaning more than 20 years ago that launched one of the South Island’s most successful lamb marketing ventures, the Rollesby Valley onfarm sales.

It was the question put by stock agent Bruce Dunbar to Airies Station owner Alistair Monroe when they were talking about how to improve the set-up that had them or the works agents drafting lambs for processing well into winter on marginal finishing land in hilly inland South Canterbury.

Monroe was up for the challenge and PGG Wrightson agent Dunbar soon had other starter clients with Burkes Pass Farm and Single Hill Station and Mt Dalgety Station signed up. 

The idea was to sell the lambs right off their mothers when they were at their best, the time buyers really wanted them, at weaning in early February.

“We didn’t know how it would go but it’s been a great benefit to the owners,” Dunbar said.

Bigger lambs are still bought for processing but most are sold as stores to farmers in other districts. 

Grant Monroe, who farms Airies with his dad Alistair, says it “was a big punt at the time” but they haven’t looked back. 

“We’ve got a lot of loyal, repeat buyers who keep coming back.”

Instead of struggling to finish lambs in hot, dry late summer and autumn conditions the Monroes can focus on being lamb breeders with all the feed going towards flushing the ewes for mating. 

“It’s horses for courses, we’re not finishing country so it has really simplified our operations. We can carry more ewes and right now we can start planning for lambs for next year.”

At nearby Single Hill Station, Perendale lamb breeders Herb and Cate Ross are also happy with the outcome. 

“We’re all hill here, there’s no paddocks,’’ Herb said. 

“So it suits us to get everything down, wean the night before, have the sale and then have all the ewes shorn, all within a week.”

As well as liking lambs straight off the ewes, buyers like the onfarm sales because they can see how the lambs have done so far and picture how they might do on watered pastures at their new home, he said.

The first sale was in February 1997,  Dunbar, who organises them and hasn’t missed a year yet, says. 

“I’m quite chuffed.”

By coincidence, having the sales at weaning time was a masterstroke. 

When they started, up to 70% of the lambs went to Southland buyers. That fell away as the province turned heavily to dairying and now 70% of the lambs go into Mid Canterbury — onto the thousands of hectares of just-harvested cropping land ideal for finishing.

“We didn’t plan that, it just worked out great for both sides,’’ Dunbar said. 

“We all want more rain at this time of year but when it’s dry we know those crops are getting harvested and that’s great for our sales.”

There are now nine farms in the compact Rollesby Valley, in the Burkes Pass region, holding sales and two of them host stock from three other farms, for a total of 12 vendors.  The scheme started well and just got bigger with up to 70 to 80 buyers.

After the first year Alistair Monroe reported his lambing percentages and wool weights were up significantly. His first sales were held along netting fencing. After about three years, the results were good enough to justify large, purpose-built yards being put up. Airies is the biggest farm in the group with between 6500 and 7000 lambs each year.

The latest sale on February 8 was one of the best yet with prices on the 20,000 or so lambs offered up an average $20 a head on last year, which was also thought to be pretty good, Dunbar said.

“You have years of good and bad prices for lambs but even when prices are bad Rollesby Valley has good sales.”

The Rosses topped this year’s sale fetching $149 a head for a pen of 125 prime Perendale wether lambs. They’ve topped the sale before but the most important thing is to get the averages up, Ross said, and that’s what they’ve been doing. Using Newhaven Perendales rams from North Otago breeds them big ewes, ideally suited for producing very good lambs through to weaning.

He swears by Perendale, whereas his brother-in-law Neal McKerchar takes halfbred lambs to Single Hill for sale.

These lambs and other halfbreds sold on Mt Dalgety and Ranui Station were a feature of this year’s sale because their wool is worth a premium to the crossbred fleece from most of the farms, which will give them good dual income.

Ross complements his farm income by working about 70 days a season as a wool classer. Returns from his 30-micron fleece could be better but he works on the reasoning that he’s best-off by developing his young ewe flock to regular 130s% lambing ratios to get more lambs to sell. 

At Airies, Grant Monroe is also passionate about wool, saying it’s an important part of farm operations and the diabolical crossbred price has to rise long-term. 

“The lambs are paying the bills,” he says.  

With up to 20,000 lambs to sell over the day, the preparation and sales have to run like clockwork,and they do, round a group of farms quite concentrated in location. 

One year Chris McCarthy hosts the first sale at his Kimbell farm and the next year he will be last and this pattern is repeated.

Sale lambs are weaned the day before, typically sorted into lines by size and type, and penned in the yards. 

At first light on the day of the sales farmers and PGW agents are out for the final drafting and writing up the stock cards.

“It’s a big go for us but we’re a bit lucky,” Grant Monroe said. 

“We’re in the middle of the sales each time and start at 1pm so that gives us good time and we’ve got it worked out pretty well by now though it’s still a nervous time getting there.”

The farmers speak very highly of the work done by the PGW agents allocated to them for the day. In recent years the same agents are generally allocated to the same farms, which also helps for smooth operations.

The lambs are all trucked away to their new homes by the night of the sale.

There’s a lot of traffic on the road around the sales but the 12 Rollesby vendors miss out on that   . . . they’re too busy at home.

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