“If it wasn’t for Dad helping out with the odd jobs on the farm and Mum making me lunch on the run it would have been very tough. It’s the fittest I’ve ever been.”
Best price needed
With farm ownership also comes debt and the Donovans have to farm to a tight budget. Emily says they have to be strict on cashflow and every month she does an update.
They are shareholders in one of the two local meat co-operatives, but didn’t want to say which one. They wanted to be loyal and supply stock but needed $85 a lamb this year.
So when the co-operative was only offering about $80/head they looked elsewhere. They used a “stockbroker” who they also didn’t want to name, who found prices for their lambs that ended up $8-9/head above the co-op’s price.
The $85/head of lamb is based on the previous year’s cashflow. When drawing up budgets, Emily and Kris look at where the money was spent last year and adjust it for under or overspending.
The final figure for expenses determines what they budget to be the break-even price for the coming season.
They normally try to allow $5000 for fencing in the budget so they can keep chipping away at it, but this hasn’t always been possible.
Emily and Kris Donovan with Hannah (at 18-weeks-old) jumped at the chance to go farming.
Making money and growing a profitable business is the main goal but the lifestyle of farming is what makes it so attractive to the Donovans.
Emily likes the idea of parents being able to have afternoon tea with the children after they arrive home from school then taking them out on to the farm.
She gets great satisfaction working for herself and knowing the hard graft is benefiting her family and not someone else.
“To grow a calf from a ratty thing into a magnificent bull is very satisfying.”
Likewise, Kris is enjoying being his own boss and can’t wait to get out of bed in the mornings – well, most mornings. Like Emily, he enjoys being able to look out across the farm each day and see the results of their hard work.
“Loading those bulls on to the truck to be killed was awesome,” he says.
KEY FACTS
- Recently bought 267ha after seven years of leasing, lease another 72ha
- Running 2200 Perendale-Romney cross, 730 hoggets, dairy grazing, rearing calves and finishing bull beef
- Dropped ewe numbers down from 2600 to get genetic changes quicker
- Averaged $9/lamb more through a broker rather than meat co-op
