Southland velvet sire stag sells for $80,000

Netherdale Red Deer Stud owner David Stevens displays the velvet head of Yellow 312 on his farm in Northern Southland last week. Photo / Shawn McAvinue

Northern Southland velvet deer Yellow 312 sold for $80,000 last week - the most spent on a velvet sire stag at an auction in New Zealand this season. Shawn McAvinue talks to Netherdale Red Deer Stud owner David Stevens about the state of the industry, sale day pressure and his impending retirement.

Northern Southland deer breeder David Stevens is set to close his stud despite fetching the highest price for a velvet stag at auction in New Zealand this season.

Of the 26 stags on sale at Netherdale Red Deer Stud in Balfour, 23 sold for an average of $13,800.

Three-year-old stag sire Yellow 312 sold for a top price of $80,000 - the highest price paid for a sire stag in New Zealand this season.

Yellow 312 was bought by Rural Livestock deer genetics agent Adam Whaanga on behalf of a syndicate in Otago and Southland, which wishes to remain anonymous.

The stag is the son of sire Emerson and dam 17281.

All of the 92 velvetting stags on offer at Netherdale sold for an average of $1878.

Stevens described the sale result of his 36th annual auction as “mixed”.

Deer producing tidy, light heads were popular with buyers and demand was softer for rougher, heavier heads.

“I’ve been in this business selling for 36 years and I’ve seen the ups and downs.”

He expected the season would have been “tough” for many deer farmers producing velvet as payment from markets had been “slow” but was gradually improving.

“No doubt there will be a few of them with a very large overdraft.”

The sale did not feature any hinds as he sold all of them to Ardleigh Farms in Geraldine last year.

He had retained a herd of rising 3-year-old sires, which would feature at his 37th and final stud sale.

Don Hudson and his son Ben, of Ardleigh Farm in Geraldine, have bought a hind herd from Netherdale Red Deer Stud in Balfour. Photo / Shawn McAvinue

“We will have a big wind-up next year.”

He would continue running his farm in Balfour and the closure of the stud would release the pressure of breeding elite deer.

“Unless you’re in it, you don’t realise just how much pressure there is.”

He put a lot of the pressure on himself.

“People think you are competing against other studs but you don’t, you are competing against yourself, wanting a better line up and it puts pressure on.”

Last year he sold a stag to a South Canterbury syndicate for $135,000, a record price for the stud.

Despite the pressure, breeding and selling deer was fun, he said.

“You are dealing with an animal that is quite magnificent.”

He would miss the people in the industry.

“I probably know everyone is this room - it’s like a family,” he said, looking at about 150 people in the auction room.

Deer farmers travelling from across New Zealand to buy his deer was “humbling”.

He would not miss the physical aspect of working with stud deer.

“The body is starting to wear out a bit.”

To be a stud breeder you needed to be “slightly mad”.

“Passionate is probably a polite way of putting it but mad is probably a truer description of the people who do this.”

He joked about how his wife Lynley tells him he switches to “gorilla mode” with tunnel vision on the auction on the lead-up to sale day.

Closing the stud would allow him and his wife to be able to get away from the farm when they wanted.

“I travelled when I was very young and we haven’t done a lot since - it will be nice to relax.”

"You are dealing with an animal that is quite magnificent," Netherdale Red Deer Stud owner David Stevens says. Photo / Shawn McAvinue

He would provide advice to the Hudson family to ensure a “seamless shift” of his deer into their farm operation.

Don Hudson and his son Ben, of Ardleigh Farm, were at the sale.

The family bought about 370 hinds from Netherdale to help establish a stud on their about 840-ha commercial deer farm in Geraldine.

“It takes a lifetime to build up a line of hinds like that,” Don said.

Ben said he was looking forward to the challenge of running a stud.

The introduction of the hinds to their breeding programme was exciting, he said.

“It gets me out of bed in the morning and the opportunity to do it with David’s deer is second to none.”

The stud would support their commercial operation and increase the value of their herd, he said.

Some velvetting stags from Ardleigh would feature at the final sale at Netherdale in Balfour next year.

Then an annual sale would be held on-farm in Geraldine.

When asked if a goal for the stud was to sell a stag for six figures, Ben laughed: “I don’t drink but I’d probably have a beer that night.”