Elk Wapiti Southland Advance Party
24th June 2015
Meeting 5 at Tim Smith’s; Freestone Farm
Meet at Freestone/Riverlea Office; on left, approx 100m south of 552 Hillside
Manapouri Road
Agenda
1.00pm Arrival and cup of tea
1.30pm Welcome and updates from the group, especially from Jim and Murray regarding
progress since last meeting
2.00pm Review the schedule and timeframes of the day.
Tim to introduce the property as well as giving an overview of Landcorp’s deer operation
in general
2.30pm Farm Tour with key visit points:
 Deer Shed
 Young Stock
 Specialist short rotation ryegrass (Cordura)/clover pasture
3.30pm Return to shed and group discussion on what was seen on farm and any insights or
ideas that could assist with identified issue areas as below.
Discussion of the group’s weaner weights and growth rates and, possibly, scanning
results
Freestone Farm
Farming Enterprises:
 Stud wapiti herd: supplies all Wapiti bulls for Landcorp farms, with approx. 25% of their
60,000 hinds mated to terminal sire
 Stud sheep flock
 Commercial sheep flock
 Commercial beef herd
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Tim’s Opportunities (as identified at preliminary meeting)
 Improve calving percentage of Wapitit cows; from around 80% to 95%
 Use performance recording to develop the leading terminal sire wapiti breeding program in
NZ (meat and growth rate traits)
 Learn and develop new ways to manage worms in deer
Issues getting in the way
 Reproduction issues, including lack of info around feeding pregnant hinds
 Lack of info around drench efficacy in deer
 Landcorp not always well understood by other farmers
Stock class
Effective area
Deer fenced area
Stock units wintered
Numbers
630ha
251ha
8800
Notes
14 SU/ha
Deer
MA cows wintered
250
R2 cows wintered
111
Cows culled (dries)
R2 bulls
54
105
MA bulls
Weaners reared
Young deer culled
Av female weaner
wt
Av male weaner wt
Post weaning
growth rate; female
Post weaning
growth rate; male
Av 2yo bull wt
Scanned in calf (Including 95
R3s)
Most scanned in calf but approx.
40 dry R2 and R3 cows retained
Most sold for breeding to
Landcorp farms as 2yo in late
Dec. Approx 10-15 retained to
evaluate
Includes any retained 2 yo’s
56
240
Approx 20
Males and females
Deer Productivity
71.3kg
4th March
74.0kg
260 g/day
4th March
During the first 6 weeks post
weaning
425 g/day
Aim for 240kg
Scanning % R2s
66.7%
Scanning % R3s
Scanning % MA
(naturally mated)
Scanning % MA
(AI)
76.5%
87.0%
Weight at sale
70% of dry R2s were <160kg at
mating
80.0%
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Fund.
Cattle
MA Cows
R2 Heifers
110
30
Calving %
94%
Store Cattle (R1)
105
Stud ewes
(Landmark)
Commercial ewes
Stud ewe hoggets
Ram lambs reared
for sale as sires
1200
Angus cattle, mainly used for
pasture control. All offspring
finished on farm
Changing to terminal sire bulls
and buying replacements
Good crops this year so
purchased these
Sheep
Not yet scanned; typically 230%
with 35% having triplets
300
213% scanning 2015
430
All mated; dries culled
500
600 selected initially; 100 of
these recently culled
Wintering Policy
Weaners
Rotated around grass paddocks all winter, supplemented with lucerne hay
MA Cows
Swedes and pasture baleage
R2 and R3 Cows
Turnips (kale later) and lucerne hay
Bulls
Swedes and hay
Cattle
On crop
Ewes
On crop, and lucerne silage in late pregnancy
Triplet bearing ewes separated and preferentially fed from scanning
Hoggets
Due to go onto turnips soon for 4-6 weeks, then onto pasture
Notes:
 Aim is to maintain weight of deer over winter.
 Grain is fed if needed, especially to weaner deer in winter, and also to hinds pre-weaning to
accustom their calves to it in case a drought occurs and grain feeding becomes essential
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Fund.

Deer are generally given one week breaks when on crop, but shifted more often when wet.
Attention is paid to transitioning the deer onto the winter crops; for the first two weeks they
are shifted off each day and fed baleage in a grass paddock next to their crop paddock.

The lucerne is grown on the sheep block with 3 cuts taken as well as a grazing by the ram
hoggets
General Notes
The emphasis with the stud is on venison production with no velvet records kept. All animals are
DNA parentage tested and recorded on DeerSelect. Progress is demonstrated by the fact that the
mean kill date for Landcorp deer properties has shifted from 3 rd January ( 5 years ago) to 17th
December. 31% of animals on the southern Landcorp properties make it into the chilled trade.
CT scanning of caracss traits is utilised to assess genetic merit of sires with 5 animals from each
sire line scanned in April. Further information is gained by eye muscle scanning (ultrasound) all R1
bulls in October.
Reproductive loss: 9.3% of R3 cows were detected as aborting at scanning. None were seen in
R2s, so considering re-scanning the R2s later in case they experience a similar problem but just a
bit later. Typically there is a 7-8% loss between scanning and weaning across the whole herd.
Maintaining good pasture quality in the spring is a challenge. With the wapiti cows set stocked for
calving in 2nd-3rd week of October there is a 7-8 week period where there is a need to control the
grass. This is achieved by lambing the 300 commercial ewes early (mid Aug) on the deer block.
90% of their lambs are drafted at weaning after which time the ewes leave the block.
Passion2Profit is brought to you by Deer Industry New Zealand. Advance Parties are supported by the Sustainable Farming
Fund.