Farmer Roger Dalrymple likes to keep his cattle happy.
Roger Dalrymple doesn't mind showing people around the feedlots on his coastal Rangitikei farm. He wants them to understand how they work - and he's got nothing to hide.
He's the Beef+Lamb NZ environmental representative for the western North Island and has been acutely aware of opposition to feedlots adjoining the Rangitikei River. He's heard most of them are not there now.
"I was well aware of pressure on Horizons Regional Council from the public and topical environmental thing. I decided it would be best to actually work with them."
He heads a farmer group that aims to work with Horizons to find regulations that will satisfy the public, allow farmers to run their businesses and suit their animals.
So far the group has had one public meeting and two semi-private ones. It has no name yet.
The idea of feedlots raises a whole lot of alerts to people, he said. They are basically places where sheep and beef farmers keep cattle over winter, and come in a huge variety of forms.
Cattle are essential on hill country sheep and beef farms, because they keep on top of the spring flush of grass and maintain its quality for the more lucrative sheep. Grass growth slows in summer, builds up again in autumn and slows right down in winter.
In winter, heavy animals damage wet soils by compacting them. Mr Dalrymple said they were best kept on lighter, free-draining soils because they would not damage the soil structure and they would not have to suffer wet, muddy conditions.
Mr Dalrymple showed the Chronicle around a part of Waitatapia Station where about 2500 beef cattle are overwintering on a series of electric-fenced feedlots.
The feedlots are sandy, sheltered paddocks that are otherwise relatively unproductive. All their waterways and drains are fenced off, with a wide margin of grass.
The cattle stand in sand, and have tyres to rub on. They are fed a mixture of chopped maize cobs, fodder beet, silage and grain twice a day.
"It's a bit like having Christmas dinner every day, twice a day. If I was a cattle beast I know I would rather live there than sloshing around in the mud in the hill country," Mr Dalrymple said.
The feed is 90 per cent grown on the property. It's fed in a trough, so there's little waste. It contains only the amount of protein the animals need, so they excrete less nitrogen than cattle eating grass.
"Our aim is to have happy cattle. Cattle that are fully fed are always content. All they do is eat, drink and sit down."
Some of the overwintering cattle will go to the works from there. Three of the mobs at Waitatapia belong to other farmers.
"I talked to a hill country farmer who doesn't want to wreck his farm. He said 'Roger, would you winter my cattle for me?'."
The cattle put on more weight on the feedlot than they would on the hill country. Beef prices are good and farmers pay for the food their cattle eat and for the service of keeping them. Even after paying those costs, and for transport, it's worthwhile for them.
Environmental damage is minimal, Mr Dalrymple said. Any nutrients drain toward the sea, rather than into waterways. Manure is scraped off the feedlots in spring and used as fertiliser on the rest of the farm.
During summer the feedlots are sown to unirrigated crops like oats and rape, which suck up some of the nutrients the cattle have left behind.
The paddocks are flat and there's very little sediment movement. Only sheep and lighter heifers graze the paddocks in winter, because even sand country can be compacted.
Mr Dalrymple owns the farm with his brother Hew, and the two sell a variety of products and like to live in a varied landscape. They have some fenced wetland, and on the dunes they grow pines to harvest for timber.
On the flat land they graze sheep and cattle, and grow irrigated maize and vegetables like leeks, lettuces, potatoes, squash and peas.-