Angus stud owner and Middlemarch farmer Lindsay Carruthers. Photo / Alice Scott
Angus stud owner Lindsay Carruthers has sold his Nethertown stud and is looking forward to spending time with his family and travelling. Alice Scott reports.
Middlemarch farmer Lindsay Carruthers “was just as surprised as everyone else” when the opportunity to sell his Nethertown Angus bull stud arose.
Selling had not been on his radar.
“You don’t buy an $18,000 stud bull to turn around two weeks later and sell the whole lot,” Carruthers said.
He had been having a coffee with his stock agent, Gerard Shea, making a plan for the season ahead: “We were heading out the door, putting on our boots, and he said ‘of course there’s another option, and that’s to sell’.”
‘’I thought ‘hmm, I haven’t even thought about that. Why not do the exercise and see what happens’.”
A deal quickly fell into place, and the stud is in good hands with East Otago’s Stoneburn Hereford stud, owned by Andy Denham.
“Andy is a very good operator, and he has the next generation there with him keen to take it further. I’m as happy as a sandboy — it just felt like the timing was right.”
Carruthers was born and raised on his family’s Nethertown farm just outside of Middlemarch.
Carruthers’ uncle, Andrew snr, emigrated from Scotland to New Zealand in 1904 and bought the farm in 1914.
He did not have any children of his own, and in 1936 went back to Scotland, where he announced to his sister that her son Andrew jnr, who was then just 14, was to get on a boat with six Clydesdale horses and move to New Zealand and work for his uncle.
Andrew jnr, who is Lindsay’s father, worked in the shadow of his uncle before finally taking over the farm when his uncle died.
Carruthers can remember briefly meeting his great-uncle, who they called Granddad.
“I’m sure Dad must’ve found it very hard working under his uncle, he was the boy for a very long time. My dad and I used to have our fair share of barneys too.”
Carruthers was one of eight children to grow up on the farm. Stud breeding was in the Carruthers’ blood; the family bred Clydesdales and the Netherton Angus stud began in the late 1940s. It lapsed for some time before Andrew jnr really got it going.
In 1975, they had bought another block next door, which Carruthers’ brother, John, now farms separately.
Unfortunately, their father died of a heart attack at the young age of 56 while Carruthers was living overseas. He came home at the age of 23 and ran the farm alongside his brothers and mother while his younger sisters were still at boarding school.
Carruthers sold the home farm in 2020 and bought smaller blocks of land around the Strath Taieri, where he has focused solely on his stud.
It was 2002 when Carruthers first decided to host an on-farm bull sale.
“It was extremely nerve-racking; I think I drank more the night before the sale than the night of the sale.”
That first sale still stands out as his favourite one so far.
“Seeing the support that turned up, it was very overwhelming.”
Carruthers has been deeply involved in many aspects of the cattle breeding sector. He is a qualified Angus inspector and Royal Agricultural Interbreed Beef judge, which has had him mixing with many like-minded people.
“I heard someone say, ‘good stock breed, good to anything’ and that’s the philosophy I have maintained with my breeding regime.”
Last year’s top pen of bulls was a testament to that, with the five bulls coming from four sires.
“It’s about knowing where you want to end up; breeding for your clients to grow replacement Angus heifers is a different package.”
Farming through the 1980s with interest rates at a record high and commodity prices through the floor, Carruthers recalled the mindset for lifestyle was very different from what it is today.
“You wouldn’t even speak of going to town to have McDonald’s — it was a chop or a sausage or dig something out of the garden!”
Likewise, weather patterns have also brought their fair share of challenges.
“The winter of 1995 I think it was, we had 10 inches of snow on the ground for weeks and extremely cold temperatures, I think it was minus 23 for three days in a row.
“We had enough supplementary feed and we were pouring it out, but the diesel in the tractor kept freezing.”
Another challenging time (he could not recall the year) was an extremely dry winter and spring.
“We were lamb marking at Labour weekend and we had no idea what we were going to feed them because it was just a dust bowl. Everyone had restocked.
“By November and December, the rain well and truly came, and we all had a power of feed. We had to build foot troughs because what was left of our stock were getting foot scold.”
Carruthers still prefers the dry over the wet.
“It can be dry for two and a half months, and I’ll think ‘it could probably rain about now’ but it can be wet for two and a half days, and I’ll think, ‘I’m about over this s***’.”
Looking ahead, Carruthers said it was a huge weight off his shoulders to no longer have a stud to think about.
He was looking forward to visiting his adult children more and travelling overseas, while still fattening beef cattle on his 130ha.
His body was not holding up as well as it used to.
“Mother Earth has taken its toll on this tall, athletic body of mine,” he said.