Hawke's Bay farmers involved in the deer industry's Advance Party programme are changing their management systems to make their farms more productive and profitable.
Winter feeding has been a recent focus, but all aspects of deer management are being examined by members of the programme. New systems are being tried and the outcomes are being recorded and analysed.
Programme co-ordinator Pania Flint says deer farmers are using a range of tools to record and analyse farm performance information.
"Regular weighing of young deer from the time they are weaned is becoming more commonplace and many farmers are now taking advantage of the NAIT electronic identification eartags to record mob averages or keep individual animal records."
Advance Parties are jointly funded by Deer Industry NZ (DINZ) and the Ministry for Primary Industries' Sustainable Farming Fund.
They are based on the principle that farmers can motivate other farmers to make the management changes needed to increase the profitability.
They work in tandem with Passion2Profit (P2P), a Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) programme between DINZ and MPI.
Each Advance Party member identifies an opportunity on their farm and develops a plan for addressing it with the help and advice of the other members. To take part, farmers must commit to making management changes and record the results.
James and Sue Hewitt run a venison finishing farm at Wanstead in Central Hawke's Bay, supplying Firstlight Foods, their venison marketing company. They are members of the Hawke's Bay Fast Finishers Advance Party.
James says growth rates in young stock keep "ticking along" during winter with the aid of some maize supplementation in what is otherwise an all-grass feeding system.
With the Advance Party they're looking at a wider range of feeding options to enable their young stock to realise their genetic potential for growth.
"Based on our target liveweights for finishing animals we have been working backwards to find the optimal feed regime that will give them the desired growth rates for the least cost," says Sue. "Calculating the true input costs and working out returns in terms of cents per kilogram of dry matter consumed is challenging."
The Hewitts regularly weigh their finishing stock. In addition, they receive 'value sheets' from Firstlight, which give them a detailed breakdown on the carcass of each animal processed.
They export all this information onto Excel spreadsheets and break the data down to compare the performance of weaners supplied from different breeders.
Daniel Spiers is in the 'Hawke's Bay Originals' Advance Party, formed in 2014. Members last year undertook a trial measuring the yields and benefits of using winter crops for their deer.
"It was a dynamic trial with farmers picking up plenty of tips from others and making adjustments as the season progressed. We repeated the exercise this winter, with changes based on what we learned in 2015. It's given us a much better understanding of feed budgeting and metabolisable energy, and also better insights into how to feed crops."
Spiers said the kale crop grown on his family's farm contributed last year to a 650g increase in velvet weights, allowed hinds to enter fawning in better condition and saved silage.
To build their records, Flint says many Advance Party farmers now routinely use systems such as Gallagher's Livestock Manager TSi 2, its 'Orange Box' Weigh Scale and Data Recorder, or Tru-Test's XR5000 weigh scales.
Some are using farm management information systems such as FarmIQ (developed by another PGP programme of the same name) and the feed budgeting and financial analysis service, FARMAX.
Flint points to the Deer Growth Curve tool developed by DINZ under P2P as a useful way to keep track of deer growth: www.deernz.org/deer-growth-curves.