Having 35 neighbours could be an issue for some farmers, but for the Moore family it provides alternative grazing opportunities – and became the impetus to breed sheep with a tolerance to internal parasites.
Peter and Cathy Moore, their son Reuben and his wife Morgan farm Moutere Downs, a 460 hectare-effective sheep and beef farm north of Nelson that includes15ha of bush under a QEII covenant. They lease an additional 200ha.
The family recently hosted a field day in conjunction with this year’s Beef+Lamb NZ annual meeting.
Moutere Downs is an intergenerational farm running 2600 commercial Romney-Poll Dorset ewes and 800 hoggets, which are also lambed.
This is alongside 300-ewe Romney and 100-ewe Poll Dorset studs.
The Romney stud was started by Peter’s father, Ray, in 1978. Peter started the Poll Dorset stud in 2001.
Moutere Downs is surrounded by 35 vineyards, hop gardens and lifestyle blocks, which provide cheap or minimal-cost grazing after the crops have been harvested.
Each autumn they can access fruit residue once the juice extracted – grape marc from vineyards and apple pumice from a cider producer – for stock feed.
Peter Moore said the pulp is mixed and fed with baleage, which sheep devour.
These supplements and off-farm grazing enables them to build up covers ahead of winter in an all-grass wintering system – in autumns that are not as exceptionally dry as this one.
But the neighbourhood also came with challenges – and finding solutions brought new opportunities for the Moores.
The lack of sheep-handling facilities on neighbouring blocks they grazed prevented routine drenching, and that became the catalyst for breeding worm-tolerance in their sheep.
“Today it looks like we were clever but we didn’t have it in our minds to breed worm-tolerant sheep at the time,” said Peter.
Worm-resistant sheep genetics were sourced in 1999 from Gordon Levet, a long time breeder of worm-resistant sheep.
Those initial rams were significantly smaller than the large Southland-bred rams they had previously bought.
Peter’s father was not impressed.
“It was like what a lot of sons have done before over the years that have changed a breed or breeding philosophy.
“But they performed and they grew and they provided tolerance to worms.”
Later, when the Levet stud was dispersed, they bought ewes, which were included in the Moore stud flock.
They made gains in breeding for worm tolerance from the first generation they bred, with the worm burden halved.
Today ewes have not been drenched since 2002 although they do provide a ovine multiple mineral drench to compensate for low mineral levels in the soil.
Ram lambs are drenched in February. The aim is to supply rams that require only two drenches in their life – one post-weaning and a second for biosecurity reasons when they leave the farm.
Fifteen years after embarking on breeding for worm tolerance, the Moores turned their attention to breeding for tolerance to facial eczema.
The focus is now shifting to low methane emitting sheep, something Moore said is important to his ram-buying clients.
Last year they DNA-tested 150 hoggets and measured emissions through a special trailer to identify a breeding base.
Moore said it takes 20 to 30 years to make significant gains in breeding for a particular trait, but such are the financial and climatic challenges this financial year, the programme has been put on hold.
He said productive traits will always be a breeding priority over methane emissions.
“It’s a nice-to-have or politically correct trait, but unless it can produce more money at the end of the day, it is not going to be a priority.”
Crucial to their breeding programmes has been using nProve, a genetic tool that enhances genetic selection decisions.
Scanning percentages among commercial ewes are 145-155% but survivability is high at 135% with lambing starting from the end of July.
Around tailing the ewes and lambs are rotated in mobs of 200-300 and typically they will get two or three pre-weaning drafts.
Weaned lambs are then grown out on lucerne and Raphno brassica and chicory forage crops and finished at 19kg carcase weight.
This year’s dry weather has made those targets unachievable. Prime lambs have averaged 16.8kg.
All 800 hoggets are mated and those certified as dry at scanning sold to a repeat buyer for breeding as two-tooths.
The family’s focus today is on the twin the challenges of drought and low prices and expenses.
Moore said just 71mm of rain fell between December and March when normally they would record more than 300mm.
Once it rains, they will use nitrogen to boost feed ahead of winter but Moore that could be hampered by falling ground temperatures.
This season they have applied only 20 tonnes of fertiliser, when normally they would have applied 150t, and they have had to buy 300 bales of baleage, which had not been budgeted for. It will last only about a month.
Similarly, ram-buying clients are either buying fewer rams or, as in two cases, none at all.
“It’s a double-edged sword for everybody,” he said.
Last week he sold 480 lambs as store that would normally have been taken through and sold over winter.
Moore provided data that showed returns from ewes this year were about half what he received for the past two years, while lambs this year are $90 compared to $108 last year and $126 in 2022.
Interest and rent are 37% higher.
In 2022 gross farm income per stock was $137.92 but that fell to $121.55 in 2023. This gave an economic farm surplus per stock unit of $53.42.
Farm working expenses per stock unit in 2022 were $79.40 but increased to $87.42 last year, meaning the economic farm surplus per stock unit had plummeted in 2023 to $29.25.
Financially, this is one of the toughest years Moore has endured, with the dry weather combining with low product prices and rising prices.
