December 2024

With the official start of summer (Dec 1st) just round the corner everyone is flat out on farm and in most areas, feed is in abundance – especially goat feed.

In general, the weather was kind for kidding with good percentages being reported from our North Island growers – it is important achieve a clean muster when docking to ensure all the buck kids are castrated to avoid unplanned matings in the later summer, especially if weaning later in January or February.

As we move deeper into spring toward summer now is the time to be running a flock of goats through better finishing blocks for weed control, where you can. This will not only reduce weed control costs but also increased average pasture quality as the goats nip out the seed heads as they emerge. From an agronomy point of view many of the new ryegrass cultivars feature low aftermath heading – meaning once the plant has produced a seedhead they return to vegetative state producing more tillers rather than more seed heads. Thus, resulting in more higher quality leafy grass for your growing / finishing stock rather than high dry matter stem.

The added benefit of removing lower quality pasture species and weed is more light getting into the bottom of the sward and space for clover to grow.

I am still working on the AgFirst Focus Farm project to lock in a North Island property, my key areas of focus are Taranaki and Hawke’s Bay, with a couple of solid prospective farm in these areas. I am also continuing to work through all the other leads the social media campaign for this project has brough forward.

As growers work through their docking and selection of stock to retain, please let me know of any surplus goats available so I can assist with placing on farm to bolster existing flocks or new farm starts.

Planning is well underway for evens in the autumn at The with East Coast Farming Expo, Northland Fieldays and Central Districts Fieldays in February and March 2025. I’m going to change up the sites this year and will be calling on some local growers to share the stand with me over these events, to share their Cashmere goat farming experiences and chat with interested farmers.

On a personal note, as a family we travelled to the Gold Coast in September and China in October, with my wife and I supporting our two boys as they competed in 2 World Wakeboarding championships. For the thrip to Chain I was also New Zealand team manager, a challenging and rewarding experience. Logan, my eldest child crashed out at the Gold Coast event, but his younger brother Carter made the final – finishing 6th in the amateur section. In China (competing against professional and other amateurs) Logan finished 7th and Carter 13th from 19 riders.

My last day working this year will be December 20th, returning on Jan 6th, 2025.

Please remember with everyone busy on farm, take a moment Stop, Look, Access and Manage risks with the jobs you are undertaking to avoid accidents. More importantly look after yourselves, take time off farm with family, mates or at a nearby event to reset and refocus.

Cheers

Duncan.