A maizing video: Dannevirke farmer turns to sheep art to solve her drought boredom

Choreographed feedout for the sheep on the Coleman family farm south of Dannevirke. Photo / Supplied

A Southern Hawke's Bay farmer has found one way to beat the boredom of daily feeding-out in the drought by turning the paddocks into a film set for a developing craft of sheep art.

But there was no need for any Hollywood extravagance – just a paddock and a hillside on a 300-plus hectares farm south of Dannevirke, farmers Garth and Wesley Coleman and daughter Lucy, a quadbike, a camera, sheep and maize.

The result was a series of videos based on Garth Coleman's patterned feeding out of the stock, a choreographed munch-up including one drawing the unsuspecting sheep into a form of the Buy New Zealand Made kiwi logo.

Lucy Coleman, a 27-year-old Massey University PhD animal science student at home during the Covid-19 lockdown, said it was all her dad's idea.

She came into the house one day and from the kitchen saw her dad already had the idea well under way in the kitchen, working out where he would line and place the feed in a strategy to form the patterns from the elevated points Lucy – "just the video operator" – would capture the history later.

"As a result of the lack of grass due to the drought, we've had to put our animals on supplementary feed to ensure they are healthy and happy," she said. "One day I was out on the farm and saw Dad had 'drawn' the word 'Hi' into the side of the hill and it all went from there really."

She recorded from the hillsides – no drone required - while her father lured the sheep into formation in the paddocks below.

"It was a bit mundane feeding maize out each day," she said, echoing the plaint of farmers plagued by the drought in Hawke's Bay. They thought it would be a bit of fun and brighten-up farmers' day, so it went up on facebook."

In celebration of National Lamb Day on Sunday, industry representative group Beef + Lamb New Zealand wants other farmers to get in on the fun and create their own 'sheep art'.

The Coleman family made four videos made it, but whether there'll be any more is in question, because of a shortage of some of the resources.

"We've run out of maize," said Lucy. "And there are a lot of people who need it a lot more than we do."