Station bred, fast finished
Otairi station in the Turakina Valley is a sheep and beef operation spanning three sites, and where most of the stock work is still done on horseback. Not so different from when the Duncan family first moved there in the 1800s. Onfarm profile by Sarah Horrocks.
Sam Duncan is your typical Kiwi farming bloke – he loves the dog trials and has a passion for negotiating gullies on his mud-laden station hack. His family has been farming in the Turakina Valley west of Hunterville in the Rangitikei since the 1800s and although Sam jokes that he didn’t end up there by choice, he took over as manager of Otairi Station back in 2012 aged 25.
Otairi is 3200 hectares (2700 effective) of predominantly steep hill country and is owned by Sam’s father Douglas Duncan. It sits about a third of the way up the valley, ranging in altitude from 250 metres above sea level at the roadside and tracking up to 700m at the northern end.
The station is complemented by two finishing blocks; the first being Flockhart, 320ha of easy country that runs alongside State Highway 1, just 10 minutes north of Marton. Then there’s Waipu, which totals 1300ha and encompasses 420ha of forestry, a 180ha dairy farm and 530ha of grazing and cropping country. Waipu sits south of Wanganui and is bound by the Tasman Sea, so the soil varies greatly from free-draining sand to heavy clay.
The operation is complex, and Sam oversees all three farms, but it all starts at the station where the breeding stock is farmed.
“I’ve got a manager, head shepherd and two shepherds up there,” Sam says.
It’s a sheep and beef system, with 14,500 Kelso ewes, plus 4600 ewe hoggets run alongside 900 predominantly Angus females.
“Kelso rams are used for both our terminal and maternal flocks.”
The terminal ram goes out on February 28 for the five- and six-year ewes and then maternal sires are used across the B mob, followed by the A-line ewes, and then the hoggets go to the ram last on March 20.
Scanning rates vary but the average is 160-170% for the ewes, with the hoggets at 65–80% in lamb.
“It depends on the season with the hoggets.”
The early-lambing ewes are mouthed before weaning and anything that’s no good is put on the truck at weaning.
Weaning starts on December 1 for the early terminal lambs and Sam manages to get about 30% of these killed straight off mum.
“They’re drafted by eye at 16.5–18kg carcaseweight.”
All lambs are processed through Silver Fern Farms (SFF) and about 3500 are killed pre-Christmas, by which time all 22,500 Otairi-bred lambs are weaned.
After weaning, the middle-to-top weight lambs are sent down country to Flockhart for finishing and only the smaller lambs are retained at Otairi. There’s 250ha of easier country there, where 10ha of plantain is grown for lamb feed, but all lambs are off the station by March. There’s also 15ha of swedes grown for the ewes in winter.
Down at Flockhart, Douglas Duncan runs the day-to-day farming, moving the lambs around on a rotational grazing system, with 145ha of plantain grown in a five-year re-grassing programme.
An additional 6000–8000 lambs are brought in and finished depending on how much feed is around during the season.
“We buy stock in, but it’s always finished; we never trade stock back out,” Sam says.
Cattle breeding
On the cattle front, there are 750 cows and 150 heifer replacements run at Otairi. The cows are a new thing in the last three years.
“We used to run steers at Otairi over winter and they’d lose 100kg.”
Buying in cows seemed a logical solution, as not only do they not lose the weight over winter, but they also raise a calf every year. This removed the need for Sam to buy in so many weaner steers in spring.
“We never made much out of those trade cattle.”
Sam says the cows were bought in from everywhere so they’re a bit of a mixed bag but they’re predominantly Angus.
All bulls are bought from Rissington stud in Hawke’s Bay. Angus and Profit Maker bulls are used over the Angus females. The Profit Maker breed is a black multi-breed composite developed by Leachman Cattle Company in the United States. A terminal Simmental sire is used over the coloured and broken-faced Angus cows.
“I primarily look for good growth and structure in the bulls.”
There are 22 bulls in total (14 are yearlings) and they go out on December 15 for three cycles.
All females are scanned in April at weaning and the dry rate was just 5% in 2023, which Sam is happy about. All dries are culled.
The yearling heifers are all mated to Profit Maker bulls and Sam sees mating them as an obvious decision.
“They’re up to weight so they go to the bull.”
Otairi also has the scope on the finishing farms to wean the heifers’ calves early if needed.
Terminal calves are weaned at the beginning of April and the maternal-bred calves are weaned in mid-April, at 210kg liveweight average.
Fast finishing
At weaning, 190 heifer replacements are retained on the station and the remaining 550 progeny go on the truck to Waipu to begin their game of ping-pong as they’re trucked back and forth between Waipu and Flockhart. The weaners stay at Waipu for six months until September, when they’re shifted to Flockhart as 14-month-olds for the summer and autumn, before returning to Waipu in April the following year for finishing at 22 months.
Waipu can hold 2000 cattle in winter, with 130ha of plantain as well as 25ha of fodder beet, 105ha triticale and 55ha grass grown for back-feeding in 3ha blocks, but supplementary minerals and feed is fed in bins. There are three full-time staff there.
“It’s a large-scale intensive wintering system,” Sam says.
All the supplementary feed is cut-and-carry, grown onfarm at Waipu. It includes 250 tonnes of sugar beet, 850t of maize silage (40ha), 650t of lucerne (five cuts off 43ha) and 300t of grass silage.
Waipu has 43ha of lucerne under centre pivot irrigation and another 57ha of ground under a travelling gun.
“The travelling gun doesn’t cover its area very well.”
There’s plentiful feed, so an additional 600 trade steers (including some heifers) are bought in from all over the North Island and these are sourced by Sam’s brother Mark Duncan, an agent for SFF.
Steers are killed at 310–320kg CW and heifers at 280kg CW, though Sam says the yield is only 50%, which is lower than standard.
“They have a huge amount of feed in their guts when they’re weighed.”
As the 19- and 20-month-old cattle arrive back at Waipu, they’re drafted and kept in weight-range mobs, then they’re weighed and killed every two weeks from then on.
“In that last 60–90 days each beast gains about 150kg.”
The cattle numbers at Waipu are bolstered by Rissington Cattle Company, which is coming into its second year of farming out 450 Profit Maker bulls to Waipu for the winter.
“They come in as weaners and they’re taken through till September.”
The bulls are a minimum of 450kg by the spring and Sam is enjoying working closely with Rissington to deliver Profit Maker bulls suited to the dairy industry and its bobby crisis.
“It’s a more profitable option to rear as a calf.”
Bobby calves are relevant to Sam’s operation, having the dairy farm there at Waipu. He has three staff running a 60-bail rotary shed and his brother Tom Duncan is involved with the business side of the dairy operation, with 420 Friesian cows producing 420kg of milk solids/year.
Sam says that’s good for heavy clay soils.
“It’s not the ideal dairy country.”
Sexed semen is used for dairy replacements, as well as some unsexed semen, which delivers a total of just 60 Friesian bull calves. These are grown out on the intensive grazing system alongside 260 Friesian Profit Maker-cross progeny from the remaining cows and heifers in the dairy herd.
“Profit Maker bulls remove the bobby calf issue, and we can use them on the heifers because they’re low birthweight bulls.”
The dairy cows are wintered on 15ha of fodder beet, with supplementary feed in bins for roughage and minerals as well.
Having so many different stock classes on the intensive system at Waipu requires precision nutritional management, so Hawke’s Bay company Ruminate is contracted to ensure all stock receive the nutritional balance they require and acidosis buffering.
Varied fertility
Growing feed requires fertility in the soil of course, and Sam isn’t shy about putting on what’s needed.
Soil testing is done on a block-by-block basis at Otairi and with Olsen P levels ranging from 9-40, super was applied last year at a variable rate, ranging from 0-750kg/ha.
“The flats are 25–40 and the hills are 9-18.”
There was also 2.5t/ha of lime spread with a truck over 80ha of flats to lift the pH, which is lower than optimum at pH 5.5.
Super goes on with a plane across the farm at Otairi and the hill country also got lime for the first time this year at a rate of 1t/ha.
When asked whether he’s doing maintenance or lifting the fertility, Sam says Otairi is slowly increasing its P levels.
“When it was more cost effective, we just blanketed the whole place in DAP.”
Flockhart has good fertility, with Olsen P levels of 25–35, so super goes on at a rate of 300kg/ha. Sam says the pH there is good, with lime going on with crops as needed.
Waipu has a tailored fertiliser plan, which is hugely variable depending on the crop being grown and the soil type – 60ha of the crops are grown in silt.
The total fertiliser cost is $769,000, and Sam says this figure is continually increasing with the lift in nitrogen prices.
Health a priority
For the 2022/23 year, animal health spending sat at $350,000 for the entire operation. The ewes at Otairi are given a Bionic capsule, copper, and an 8-in-1 clostridial vaccine on the conveyor pre-lambing.
“We’re not going to be able to get capsules this year due to a supply issue,” Sam says.
To remedy this, he’s looking to create a trace mineral mix that will be beneficial to replace the selenium and cobalt that was in the capsules.
“We haven’t got the facilities to be drenching ewes at docking.”
Lambs are all drenched at 60 days and then again from weaning onwards as needed. Sam says the worm burden has been crippling because it’s been so wet this year and they lost a lot of lambs.
“I’ve never done faecal egg counts much in the past, but I certainly do now.”
Cattle at Waipu get a drench, B12 and a 5-in-1 vaccine.
“We use pour-on to prevent any lesions because they’re being killed within 60-90 days.”
Sam says the biggest animal health cost is six-month shearing, which costs $261,000. “That doesn’t include our staff wages at shearing.”
They’re shearing for animal health nowadays, for lamb survivability.
“We shear for more meat.”
The wool is sold on contracts to NZ Wools and NZ Merino Company, bringing in a cheque of just $128,000.
Although wool prices are dismal, Sam says they have always had good advice from their agents who try to help them in any way they can.
“The wool has cracked it,” he jokes.
Working mouths to feed
The pitiful wool cheque got Sam thinking about alternative revenue streams. Recently he and his fiance Sarah Stephens started a new enterprise in Feilding.
At Otairi the mustering work is all done on horseback with the 12 home-bred station hacks. Unlike the shepherds, the 50 working dogs don’t get to hitch a ride, so they work “bloody hard” and build up an insatiable appetite.
In the past they’ve fed mutton alongside dry biscuits, but Sam and Sarah always thought there must be a better way to cater for their dogs’ nutritional needs.
“There just wasn’t anything around that provided the nutrition needed for their daily workload,” Sam says.
Impact 4 Dogs was born – a nutritionally balanced food developed by Sam and Sarah to cater specifically for working dogs.
“It’s 42% fats and 40% protein, superior to all other options in the marketplace.”
Over the past 12 months, the couple built a factory in Feilding, importing the infrastructure required and, after testing their product, have started producing their working-dog rolls. The plan is to not only provide for their station dogs, but also other stations in the Turakina Valley and beyond.
Hopefully Farmlands or PGG Wrightson will pick it up.
Farm facts
Otairi Station
- Turakina Valley, Hunterville
- Three farms totalling 4820ha
- 900 Angus females
- 420 Friesian dairy cows
- 19,100 Kelso females
- 13 staff, 12 full-time
- Supplying Silver Fern Farms.
Financials
Wool income $128,000/19,000 sheep
- Six-month shearing costs $261,000/year
- Animal health $350,000 in 2022/23
- Total fertiliser costs $769,000
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