Page 69 - Hereford Magazine 2021

The annual yearling sale is a team effort – from left, Ashton Coates, Mike Cranstone, Sophie Cranstone, Cath Cranstone, Sam Cranstone,
Les Cranstone, Charlotte Georges and Connor O’Leary.

The stud’s 2020 sale was held as normal in September, With 6500 ewes spread amongst them, Mike says cows are
although with added Covid-19 restrictions. great pasture groomers and are perfect at breaking in the new
All of the 110 yearlings sold for an average price of $3120, and hill country.
the top price was $7000. “They’ve been a great tool as we extend our operation,
Forty-five two-year-olds sold for an average price of $2756. knocking the pastures into shape.”
Mike says concentrating on yearlings instead of two-year-olds “They don’t get special treatment, that’s for sure,” Cath adds.
works well in their wider operation. “Even our 200 first-calving heifers are pushed onto the hills,”
“Because the majority of bulls sell as yearlings and they’re Mike says, “which shows our confidence in our easy calving
gone by the end of September, that means we have all our river ability; we have no qualms about their ability to calve by
flats that we’ve been growing bulls on to wean lambs on, or to themselves unassisted. Our staff have a fair bit of ground to
lamb our hoggets on.” cover every day to weigh the calves, but it’s all good training for
With an increase in cow numbers to 650, ewe numbers have the Shepherds’ Shemozzle in Hunterville,” he says jokingly.
dropped from 8500 to 6500. The farm employs three stock people alongside Mike and
They’re mainly Highlander ewes but Mike says they’re Les, as well as Cath, who also does some teaching at nearby
shifting to a worm-resilient Coopworth. Fordell School.
“We’re aware the drench families in our sheep are under Charlotte Georges has been with the Cranstones for six years.
pressure so we want to focus our breeding on facial eczema and She grew up on a French cropping farm with Charolais cattle,
worm resilience to ensure we are able to continue to get good Mike says.
performance from our sheep with fewer inputs. With drench “She seized the opportunity to come here and is very capable.
resistance becoming apparent in the sheep industry, I believe She started as a junior shepherd and within three years was block
we’re only five or so years away from seeing issues in the manager on our big breeding block. Two weeks after she started
cattle as well. We’ve been looking at how we can measure and we had the big 2015 flood and she was thrown straight into it.”
select for worm resilience in our cattle. It’s something the beef Previous employee Ben Luscombe headed back to his family
industry has ignored and we have a lot of catch-up to do.” farm in Taumarunui after six years with the Cranstones, and
Being aware is the first step. Ashton Coates stepped up from the junior role to running the
“With pasture management and integrated grazing we home block.
can reduce our requirement to use drenches. We do regular “He’d only been with us for just under two years when
drenching with the yearling bulls because we need to ensure Ben said he was moving on, but we were confident he was
every day is a growing day, but we have been using our ready. He’s better than a sponge, always asking questions and
first-calving heifers to bring refugia (or good worms with no challenging us to explain why we do things. It has been great
resistance) back onto our flats from the hills.” watching staff grow their skillset, confidence and management
A third of the herd is commercial cows that have been ability. Ben and others have spent a decent chunk of time
treated the same as stud cows, being single sire mated and here, and the next step has been farming on their own
performance recorded since the 1980s. These cows are now account. That’s a real buzz for us.”
on Breedplan and their progeny sold alongside the registered Both Ashton and shepherd Connor O’Leary, who is from
animals. a dairy farm in the same valley, worked in the Cranstones’

Year 2021 HEREFORD MAGAZINE 67