Farming: 23 tips on how to thrive in a damp Southland spring - opinion

Pete Gardyne has farmed sheep in Southland for more than 20 years. Photo / 123RF

OPINION

Pete Gardyne from Arkley Farm is no stranger to a Southland spring - he has more than 20 years of experience farming sheep on the flats and hills of the region. So he thought he’d share his top 23 tips on surviving, and thriving, in the typically unpredictable and damp season.

I know this advice is too late for this season but it will be early for the next wet one.

All the best for another season at your place and if we can be of help, just ask.

1. Have a comprehensive culling programme. If you think all your stock are as good as each other you may be delusional. Better stock shine in poor conditions - only breed from the best.

2. Avoid high scanning percentage and low tailing percentage genetics. A light ewe is better to have one good single and look after it than to put energy into a poor twin that may die not long after birth.

3. On the hills “set and forget” is great, on the flats with more stock/ha, higher land costs and less natural shelter a lambing beat is a help.

4. Prepare and plan. Have a grazing plan and plan what paddocks you lamb in first and last to minimise wasted travel - no one likes driving further than they need to on a wet day.

5. On a lambing beat if the sheep look happy and are in shelter keep driving past, don’t stuff it up.

6. On a dry day drive towards the shelter, on a wet day drive away from it - your sheep will then drift where you want them to go.

7. Don’t create more problems, if you touch it, cull it. Either to the works or the terminal mob, this also goes for the lambs. Think like the hill country farmer - if it doesn’t perform it is never bred from again.

8. 80% of the breeding is in the feeding. From the last trimester of pregnancy until weaning is the only time of the year your ewes are truly productive; so don’t starve them unless you want poor results and something to complain about.

9. On the flats aim for a 1600kg/ha cover to set stock. If she is searching for feed, she isn’t looking after her lambs (note, on the hills without a lambing beat, often a lower cover is better to control cast ewes). Do you perform well when you are always hungry?

10. Don’t be scared of nitrogen, off-farm grazing, bought in feed or selling excess stock. You have so many costs in your business, why would you let these hold you back from your potential?

11. Triplet pregnancy scan even on-hill, look after your triplets. Tighten up your singles if you’re short of feed and put them in the poorer paddocks.

12. Make your life more comfortable, have hot grips on your bike. I like a small perspex windshield on my bike, some people like handlebar mits. Have a second set of wet weather gear for after lunch, good socks that don’t fall down in your gummies. Buy a boot dryer – no one wants to start the day with damp boots.

13. Crank some beats, get some Bluetooth headphones. Play some podcasts or music while you are on the bike, this will also keep your ears warm.

14. Eat well. Have proper hot meals.

15. Treat yourself and have some lollies/chocolate biscuits in your woolshed as a snack. They won’t make you fat at this time of the year.

16. Have a long weekend away before lambing. If you lamb your hoggets, arrange with your staff or a neighbour to have some days off and do each other’s beats once the ewes have slowed down.

17. Plant some shelter, I know this won’t help for 10 years but neither will not planting it.

18. On the flats - use ram harnesses or foetal ageing at scanning, this way you can reduce the number of paddocks you have to look at, use sheltered paddocks when you need them most and have the later lambers still rotationally grazing, growing you more feed.

19. Swing your gates.

20. If you need a hand get a lambing shepherd or assistant, there is usually a good payback. Don’t be too proud to ask for help in a wet lambing. There are plenty of tractor drivers with nothing to do!

21. Every week or so jump in your ute and go for a half-hour drive down some random roads and you will see most others are in the same boat or probably worse off than you.

22. Go to church, rugby, pub and/or barbecue with mates. Whatever works for you get off-farm, off-Facebook and see other real people.

23. If you have a bad lambing, sell the wet dries and put another barley paddock in, and you will be just as well off. I know you don’t all grow grain but an old fella told me this and the principal is very sound and can be adapted to other systems.