Curious Cockie Club
Discover What Works
Previous Curious Cockie Club meetings
Curious Cockies emerged from Red Meat Profit Partnership groups B&LNZ Action groups for farmers wanting to visit properties without hassles of farm action plans. It's a simple day. Groups visit a couple of properties at each meeting. There are two requests: hosts show us what they are doing really well and proud of. Secondly, what is their greatest on-farm challenge. This generates a two way discussion for groups to learn from their host's success and make contributions to it.
Previous Curious Cockie Club visits to farming operations
November 12th 2024, Hawkes Bay Curious Cockies, Waipukurau, Hawkes Bay
We spent time today with an entrepreneur who has developed a highly successful business specialising in exporting non-BSE and GE free meat products. Good business lessons here with finding a gap in the market and making the most of an opportunity. In this instance, it’s identifying a service which is value adding by utilising waste products – offal. Secondly, it takes advantage of being in the right place at the right time. That’s allowed insights specific to this service to emerge for later gain – hence collecting licences. Another important lesson is identifying the right technology, in this instance freeze dryers, to expand beyond offal products to bring in more business. On-farm we saw an emphasis on investing in infrastructure over labour, plus techniques on managing time and making judgements when juggling a lot.
November 1st 2024, Aorangi Curious Cockies, Waimate, Canterbury
Every now and then Curious Cockies comes across a master and we saw that today. No solid fertiliser in 7 years, yet takes 5 cuts of balage in 3 years without any losing any production. R1 heifers moving onto 5,000kgDM/ha, leaving 2,500kgDM/ha on a 21 day round, no dung present. Simply grazing management has made a huge difference and as those who visited testified, you need to see what is happening with your own eyes. We also visited a family with a long history in the area moving to a higher proportion of younger stock to lift income and improve cash flow. Number crunching was driving a lot of their choices. Once their tenure becomes secure, they know where to invest, primarily infrastructure, to benefit from the many advantages they see in their place.
October 31st 2024, Central Curious Cockies, Alexandra, Otago
The group toured a fine wool and cattle property in probably one of the most brittle environments in New Zealand. Their studs are run harder than commercial mobs creating a better animal requiring lower costs to perform, one that fits the landscape. Lots of interesting insights into grazing management, pasture plants, genetics and rabbit control. An interesting insight was market expectations for wool growing being an outside enterprise, not inside like proposed for livestock classes further south. Next property was switching from livestock to seed production to make pivot irrigation economic. The farmer said his best friend was a shovel and his focus was to keep fertility on the farm, not ship it next door. It was a juggling game increasing capacity with cash flow, weather, markets, but a good network of cropping mates and professionals to optimise progress with transition.
October 30th 2024, Southern Curious Cockies, Edendale, Southland
With the wet winter it was interesting to see how an organic dairy farm was fairing. Yes, they did have several spots where cows had bought up mud but they had plenty of grass and cows looked content. Since converting, they had seen many positive changes regarding soil fertility, pasture longevity and animal performance. They stated if they lost organic certification, they would still farm that way because among other things, it was less stressful. We then visited a research site trialling waste streams into converted fertility products. It is clearly showing organic matter based products reduce leaching and out perform conventional practice. This was associated with better soil structure and active soil biology to hold nutrient in soil. We are in danger of losing these kinds of innovations to overseas investors because big AgNZ has no interest in working with natural processes.
September 26th 2024, Northern Curious Cockies, Hikurangi, Northland
One property today was dealing with the issue of how big do you need to be to make money. Many smaller farms find themselves requiring off-farm income which reduces time needed to invest in on-farm activities to maximise farm income. Beef is often the fall back enterprise and there are many issues to negotiate when processing and selling your own meat. They were also looking at a one-off crop using the enthusiasm of their kids to create a locally saleable enterprise. The other property has long challenged the industry narrative linking soil carbon and other practices to find cheaper paths to profit. The pace of that has slowed due to health issues. Triggers are often unexpected and signs are easily ignored through lack of awareness. While we all lead busy lives, taking the opportunity to stop and listen with sympathy, to simply offer support to ensure someone is heard, is greatly appreciated.
September 24th 2024, Waikato Curious Cockies, Maungatautari, Waikato
Today one property focused on landscape and environmental planning. The big benefit is improving efficiencies, especially labour and financial by creating alternative uses for paddocks taking too long to muster. Another discovery was deferred grazing challenged 25 years of re-grassing regarding cost, effectiveness, and efficiency. Also of importance, was committing to supplier contracts as it’s the only way farmers get rewarded for commodity production. Then visiting makers of award winning beef. The problem with meat businesses is how to get rid of the lower quality cuts and their business did this masterfully. They’ve focused on highest merit genetics to lift marbling without investing in pastures and soil fertility. They have complete control over their brand and product quality and structured the business for a fast exit strategy as no staff, handy when in your retirement years.
July 4th 2024 Aorangi Curious Cockies, Fairlie, Canterbury
The group visited a substantial award winning irrigated dairy farm. Their ratio of owned to leased land significantly lifted their ROC. They’re trialling different beef breeds for dairy beef but have kept pasture mixes and crops simple. They’ve invested heavily into nitrate monitoring waterways and found nitrate levels only spike 24 hours when it rains and that’s fertilising up to 190kgN cap. Created more quality pasture by reducing pivot arch from 360° and 270° and inserting another pivot. Second farm was being leased to finance infrastructure development. This arrangement was allowing both partes to get ahead. The lease holders are focusing on non-traditional ways to get ahead like grazing contracts for branded livestock. Grazing contracts cover leasing costs by grazing mature animals on hill country while finishing younger stock on crop.
July 3rd 2024, Central Curious Cockies, Middlemarch, Otago
The Central Curious Cockies visited a couple passionate about production and environment. They invested in hybrid vigour to push growth rates and also milking abilities of sheep and cows to push growth. They’ve trialled lambing older ewes twice as a way of securing extra income. They’re also involved with wetland management in helping to establish impact of different management strategies which helped them win recent environmental awards. Then a property that has changed quite a bit from one generation to the next. The previous generation ran one of the largest single livestock mobs in New Zealand to balance fertility across hill country, reduce labour and improve grazing management. The next generation has down-sized and focused on reducing labour but gaining more productivity through smaller multiple mobs with a higher cattle to sheep ratio for better flexibility.
July 2nd 2024, Southern Curious Cockies, Winton, Southland
Sometimes a book is all it takes to make a change. A farmer we visited had read Brown Trotter’s Book, Rape of Our Heritage and that had led him on to making his own drenches in the 1970s. When converting to dairying, a visitor from the UK challenged him about superphosphate use and P levels have remained fine despite not applying it for a decade. In recent years he’s focused on accessing an industrial contaminant, lignite ash, as a fertiliser alternative for sulphur. He also uses a bacteria to significantly reduce effluent solids and retain nitrogen. The second property was a nice balance of flat, hill and tussock where trading cattle was expanding over sheep. A great story was encouraging children to run their own livestock enterprises outside the family business. This involved leasing paddocks and money from their parents at market rates to run flocks for six months and doing their own spreadsheets and negotiating contracts. Lots of good business lessons which extended to the community as well. The 10 year old daughter told one livestock agent to take his first selection of ewes back to the vendor as they were too skinny.
June 25th 2024, Hawkes Bay Curious Cockies, Palmerston North, Manawatu
The first property we visited testified to the impact of persistence with genetics. Over 30 years selecting for what works they now have hoggets scanning 150%, ewes doing 200%. Their observations of animal behaviour are worth noting, with mothering behaviour, what you cull cows for, give two ticks for ewes. They’ve even noticed ewes with quads will plant a pair either side of the paddock to ensure two can drink at a time. Many health issues are genetic, might have 3-4 animals fly blown but no matter where they are on the property, they’ll have the same dam or sire. Next property was another example of persistence but this was for farm ownership. Finding ways to create enterprises which didn’t require much labour and took advantage of location or landscape features was key. Farming people brings more than financial benefits as it builds community. A key was finding services that accumulate wealth or other synergistic advantages while getting a wage.
June 20th 2024, Northern Curious Cockies, Kerikeri, Northland
Visited a large property with big ambitions – produce New Zealand most resilient sheep ideal for any farmer to go down the organic path. Starting with a Romney base, they’ve been up various cross with hair and woolless breeds. They are measuring a wide range of production and productive traits from performance and weight gain to resilience to current diseases and parasites as well as technologies such as vaccines. They still have a number of breeds to import to develop the programme further. Then on to another property trying to save agricultural tools and machinery disappearing to China as scrap. Tractors under the roof included Fordsons, Farmalls, David Browns and Allis Chalmers. Equipment included various milk separators, old shearing hand pieces and the power plants prior to electricity, and farm staple, chainsaws. In the eighties, the bank left him alone because he owed more than the farm was worth. Through luck, determination and an illegal (farm based) activity, he did the one thing the bank never thought he would achieve, farm ownership.
June 18th 2024, Waikato Curious Cockies, Mangatarata, Waikato
The group visited with a couple selling their own organic meat products preservative free. They’ve developed a small farm system allowing them to run two other businesses which help fund on-farm projects to fit with their brand including a wetland. They’re exploring methods to improve pasture production and practices to minimise problems with heavy soils. One observation they’ve noticed animals do not look for shade when nitrogen not being used. Have plenty of farm shade but animals do not seek it when given opportunities. The second was an organic dairy which uses their herd home to maximise pasture growth. Soils are silt/peat over marine clay, easily water logged and neighbour is one of the largest swamps in Waikato. Multi-species mixes drive pasture production. A local DairyNZ group facilitator held a field day there and was so impressed with the amount of grass grown without urea, he left the agency because he couldn’t find anybody interested in what this family discovered.
June 11th 2024, Canterbury Curious Cockies, Kaikoura, Canterbury
We met a master today. The first in three generations to own the family farm outright while involved with community politics, multiple enterprises and getting four kids through boarding school. So how do you gain ownership without cranking up production? Set up a simple system to allow for off-farm opportunities, farm every season for drought and accumulate and sit on any excess feed to sell in the dry. Use location and property features to take advantage of tourists and carbon credits while creating enterprises to allow the next generation a way in. Then on to a couple creating their own cash cow to drive development in their business after realising conventional systems were not going to work. They’ve worked hard to create the right animals for their operation but know they need more. They’ve started developing their own products with the aim of marketing to all traffic passing through Kaikoura, a million opportunities per year. With over half the farm in native bush, another big challenge is how to generate an income from that.
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