Page 13 - NZ Herefords Magazine 2019 Edition

Plantain is one crop that has found a place, with 30ha now Throughout their farming careers a key focus has been
used to finish lambs. Again, they’re managing it for the long- pasture management, the principles of which are easily said but
term, with the first stand now in its third summer. not nearly so easily executed, Nick believes.
“The key is to lamb on it,” Nick says. “A low-cost grass system requires a heap of discipline and
“We put our cast-for-age ewes on it, which have been attention to detail with shifts and rotations. Our house is at 500
mated to a terminal, and mum and most of the lambs go to the metres above sea level and we have no growth for 100 days
works at weaning. We don’t bother tailing the lambs,” he adds, over winter, so carrying and monitoring covers to get stock
reflecting on the low worm burden of such pasture. through winter on is important.”
The drafting cut-off for the lambs is 34kg. With the mothers Besides the spring and summer integrated rotation of sheep
gone too, it’s a strategy that frees up a lot of space. and cattle, hard grazing pasture with ewes and cows in winter
“The lambs yield well and we can wean them early if the rotation is another key management tool to keep the ‘engine room’
starts to get tight with dry conditions as it did last year. We chose cranking through spring, he adds.
plantain and clover over a straight red clover stand as it gets going “The only stock wintered on crops are two-tooth ewes
early in the spring for lambing on and then keeps going, allowing that go on swedes, and yearling calves that go on kale with a
us to grow out hoggets for mating to 50kg in the autumn.” morning ration of baleage. The rest of the stock have a grass-
All performance data is recorded on the StockCare animal only winter, with our hoggets grazing down country for a time.”
management system. Ewes are condition scored eight times a About 100 yearling and two-year-old bulls are sold to the
year, a practice that’s been in place for 15 years. dairy industry each spring, but the best yearlings get a second
“Consistent condition score in our sheep is a discipline we summer and are put up at the stud’s annual winter sale. This
follow rigorously,” says Penny, who was brought up on the year’s will be Okawa’s 50th, with 55 bulls offered.
property and returned with husband Nick seven years ago. “That’s up from about 40 per year when we took over full
The couple met at school and got together at university. Initially ownership of the farming company, reflecting an increase of 40
both had careers outside agriculture – Penny in nursing, Nick in cows in the stud herd,” notes Nick.
accounting – then both did a postgraduate agribusiness degree Progeny of Grassmere Gallant 9, a bull that topped the prices
at Lincoln before travelling overseas. Back in New Zealand they paid for beef stud bulls in 2016, will be a key feature this year.
worked on farms in Canterbury and Southland before moving to
Okawa. They now have four children: Blaise (10), Sylvie (9), and CLOCKWISE, BELOW:: Grassmere Gallant 9 made the top price for
beef stud bulls in 2016; Okawa has 300 stud cows and progeny;
Violet and Jack (7), and it’s five years since they completed the The Okawa Hereford Stud celebrates its 50th sale in 2019.; Thirty
purchase of the farm company, stud cattle included. hectares of plantain is used to finish lambs.

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