Heart of the country: Style starter, goats in coats

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

Goats are the perfect all-purpose stock, say Tauranga farmers Hans and Jan Pendergrast.

The animals produce low-fat meat, high-class fibre and are efficient weed eaters. They are also friendly, easy to handle and fun.

"We really need for more people to farm goats. Farmers complain like billy-o about weeds," said Mr Pendergrast.

It was the blackberry, inkweed and nodding thistles on one of their two Oropi farms that prompted the couple, both country bred, to bring in 200 feral goats 18 years ago.

The land had been logged and the goats did a thorough job clearing the weeds as an environmentally friendly alternative to sprays.

Back then, there was a strong demand for cashgora, a down harvested from goats with some angora history. The Pendergrasts crossed the wild animals with angora bucks and sold their fibre.

When the market crashed a few years later, they continued shearing the goats, stockpiling the down until it was worth selling.

Meanwhile, the grazing goats kept making pastures more palatable for the deer, sheep and cattle that provide the Pendergrasts' main income.

Three years ago they bought an elite flock of 60 does to produce cashmere, which is finer and softer than cashgora. They say New Zealand could have a big future in supplying the luxury fibre if the goat industry was bigger and processing standards improved.

There are now 200 specialised cashmere goats on the family's 160ha property and the other 350 goats have been moved to their 300ha deer and cattle farm to control thistle regeneration on new pastures. They produce cashgora and every year about 300 are sold for meat.

The Pendergrast land, 400m above sea level on either side of Mt Otanewainuku, has a quality assurance rating and the welfare of the goats is as important as that of the 1100 sheep, 750 deer and 200 cattle, some of which are friesian bulls farmed for the United States hamburger market.

Part of the caring includes "woolover" goat coats to keep the pregnant premier does cosy between shearing and kidding.

"This isn't really goat country," says Hans. Winter at Roads-End - both farms are the last stop on long, winding, unsealed, no-exit roads - is a lot tougher than in the coastal Bay of Plenty and the rainfall is between 2500mm and 3000mm a year.

Goats don't like the downpours and are sheltered in sheds in the worst of the weather, as well as being clad in $16 felt coats.

New kids are covered with little white wool jackets which grow with them and eventually fall off. Unlike those worn by their mothers, these coats cannot be recycled.

"We lost five newborns in a hailstorm last year," said Mrs Pendergrast, the chief goatherd.

"They froze as soon as they were born. But all the snug little goats already in their jackets were fine. I was so relieved."

The crucial factor in farming goats successfully is diligent fencing, says her husband. Fences must also be audited constantly, especially after storms.

The couple say goats have absolutely changed the way they farm - "and it's nothing to do with the cashmere".