"If you approach them then you are asking for a biting," Mr Laird said.
Most of his workmates have been bitten by deer, usually on the shoulder. An aggressive stag will put its head down and charge you. A hind is more likely to stand on her hind legs and paddle with her front feet, or bite.
But not all deer have "temperament problems", he said.
"Most of our deer are really quiet."
Overall deer are low labour animals compared to sheep. They eat pasture of ryegrass, clover and chicory, and stags do well on fodder beet before the roar. Most of the time they only need to be moved to new pasture two days a week.
Mr Laird spends about half his work time with them -- the rest goes into the family's sheep, beef and cropping interests.
The busiest time for him starts around Labour Weekend, when the stags have their brand new antlers removed and sold as velvet.
The removal has to be humane and painless, and is audited by a vet every year. Stags are put into a hydraulic crush one by one. A tourniquet is applied to stop any bleeding and they are injected with a local anaesthetic, and left for a time to make sure it has worked.
When it's certain they will feel no pain the soft new antler is removed, leaving a stump.
It's a slow process. About eight stags can have velvet removed in an hour, if
Farm aiming to
produce top velvet
CULL: Male or female, deer are usually losing value by the age of 12 or 13.
things are going well.
A good mature stag may have 5kg of the velvet, with each kilo worth over $100. Others may have two or three kilos. It gets sold to China and Korea, where it's used to make tonics and medicines.
Stags must have their antlers removed, Mr Laird said, otherwise they would fight each other to the death.
They are left with little "buttons" that drop off in August, before they start growing new antlers.
The partnership has just one top velvet stag, and two or three lower quality ones. The stags will mate with the partnership's hinds, and some hinds will be artificially inseminated.
Mating is finished by the middle of May. Fawns are born from the end of October to Christmas. Mr Laird stays out of the way during birthing, because hinds who lose a fawn can be vicious.
Fawns are weaned by either early March or May. The stag fawns are kept for velvet, and the hind fawns are DNA tested and kept for breeding if their genes are good for velvet stags.
Male or female, they are usually losing value by the age of 12 or 13, and are culled and sold for venison. The partnership sends its culled animals to Feilding Farm Meat Processors.
Venison prices can vary from $6.50 to $10 a kilo. At the moment it's at $8.
"We would like it to stay there. It's good when both velvet and venison are doing well," Mr Laird said.
The partnership's herd is young so far, but he hopes to expand it. More paddocks are being deer fenced on the home farm at Fordell, ready for that.
NETHERDALE DEER PARTNERSHIP
Red deer hinds and stags
106ha
Flat to rolling blocks near Fordell
Mostly free draining silt loam
Feed is pasture, chicory, and fodder beet before the roar
Velveting October-December
Low labour requirement at other times
Owners Fraser and Trevor Laird, and Bruce brothers
